Gillian Galbraith - No Sorrow To Die

‘Her confession to killing Gavin Brodie. Jim Nicholl, from my firm, he was the duty solicitor, remember? Only a few days ago when you lot were busy charging our client, Norman Clerk, with exactly the same crime. To be dropped now, I gather.’

‘Oh, aye. And the cannabis, the assault and everything else, are they to be dropped too? I don’t think so,’ DC Littlewood said with grim satisfaction, remembering Alice’s bruised face, ‘so your “client” will be in Saughton for a wee whiley yet.’

‘Nope, you’re wrong there,’ the lawyer replied, lurching down the stairs and raising his voice to ensure it could be heard over the sound of his own heavy footsteps, ‘not anymore. He’s in the Royal now. He wasn’t taking his drugs, you see. He had a psychotic episode and attacked one of the prison officers. Anyway, Jim will have to tell him the good news – as soon as he’s safe to visit again.’

Heather Brodie was standing in the reception area with her son and daughter beside her, all of them waiting patiently for the police lift they had been promised. But, catching sight of the lawyer, Heather rushed over to speak to him. Ella, lifting up her small child, followed behind her. Only Harry remained where he was.

‘Hello? I understand you’re looking after Pippa – my sister, Miss Mitchelson. She will be alright, won’t she?’

‘That’s correct, my firm will be representing her. Not me personally, for various reasons, but don’t you worry, we’ll do our best for her,’ the lawyer said, putting on his overcoat and straining to button it up.

‘But… she will be alright, won’t she? She won’t be kept in prison?’ Ella asked anxiously, her face blotchy, stained by tears, and the little girl in her arms distracting her by fingering her mouth.

‘Hard to say at this juncture,’ the man replied, glancing through the glass door at the rain hammering down and bouncing off the pavement in St Leonard’s Street, unfurling his umbrella in readiness for the dash to his car.

‘How d’you mean?’ the girl exclaimed. Her brother had joined the group and was now standing behind her.

‘Well, looking to the long term, we’ll have to see what the prosecution will accept, won’t we?’ he replied, distracted, having just noticed that two of the spokes of his umbrella were poking through the material. The twins must have been playing spaceships with it again, he would look like a down-and-out or some kind of comic tramp.

‘But,’ Heather Brodie persisted, deliberately putting herself in front of him to stop him leaving, ‘everyone will appreciate that she didn’t do it for herself, won’t they? That it was a mercy-killing. So they’re bound to be lenient with her, aren’t they? She only did it because she had to do it. She’d nothing to gain from killing Gavin, everything to lose.’

‘Well, I’m not sure I’d quite go along with that… no, I can’t quite go along with that,’ he replied, impatient to leave, snapping the popper shut on his now-closed umbrella, having decided not to expose himself to ridicule by using it. This would be no legal-aid job, and the tattered mess would create quite the wrong impression. Better to accept a soaking.

‘Why not? It’s true!’ Harry said.

‘A mercy killing? No, that’s not what she described to me, or the police, I gather. She said that she did it for Ella – not really for Mr Brodie.’

‘So?’ the boy demanded, unable to conceal his frustration.

‘Well, that was her fatal mistake – purely from a legal perspective, you understand. You see, if Ella had done it for her father, killed him as he had begged her to, that clearly would have been a mercy-killing, a culp. hom., the Crown would likely accept a plea to culpable homicide and she would have got…’ he paused, thought briefly and then continued, ‘well, who knows? Maybe even probation if she was lucky. But this? This is quite a different kettle of fish.’

‘So what is it then, if not a mercy-killing?’

‘I’ll have to speak to Senior Counsel, obviously, but it looks much more like murder to me.’

Driving home that evening, Eric Manson put on Classic FM, and found himself bathed in the haunting sound of Albinoni’s ‘Adagio for Strings’, the solemn and moving music a strangely fitting accompaniment to his mournful frame of mind. It was true, they had solved their case, but he could not celebrate that. Not that bloody catastrophe, no. No nips or pints for him in the pub this evening, no banter, no knees-up for having cracked this one.

Feeling his eyes becoming hot, tears prickling at their edges, he shook his head violently from side to side as if such a movement might shake away his grief, then turned the radio off, forcing himself to concentrate on the road ahead. It must have been the sad music, and he must be over-tired too, that explained it. Or maybe, he was getting a cold from that sickly baby sneezing all over him. Anyway, nothing like a bout of righteous anger to drive the blues away, he decided, egging himself on by thinking about all the hours that they had spent on the Brodie woman’s lies, not to mention her fancy-man’s contributions. Wasting all their precious time and muddying the waters terribly. But that poor teacher, that poor bloody woman. Unworldly, a holy fool. In some ways too good for her own bloody good. Too good for her adulterous sister, for sure.

And, Christ, the fucking coven was supposed to be having another of their interminable gatherings in his house that evening, monopolising Margaret and marginalizing him again. Witches to a woman. But if they saw him in a miserable mood they would scent his weakness immediately. A single glimpse of his bloodshot eyes and they would know that he was wounded, vulnerable, and take strength from the fact. But he had not given up yet, oh no. Margaret would stay his, stay married to him, because he would see them all off, and any fancy man too. Tomorrow, he would be feeling better, stronger, somehow he would sort it all out. She must still love him.

He traipsed up the garden path, feeling lower than ever, and came to a halt on the doorstep, breathing in, pulling his shoulders back and forcing his mouth into a confident grin. So fortified, he strode into his hall, and as he did so, all the lights in the house were switched on and a raucous cheer went up. He saw that his hallway was crowded with people, with his friends and with his family, and, bewildered, he stood blinking in amazement at them all. As he waited, struck dumb, Margaret elbowed her way through the assembled throng towards him. Her face shining with delight, she planted a huge kiss on his lips, and as he responded the crowd erupted, clapping and whooping at the pair of them.

‘Surprise! And happy thirtieth anniversary, my darling,’ she whispered in his ear. Glancing at her he was struck by how pretty she looked, dazzled by her figure, now shapely in a cream outfit with the navy embroidery on the collars. It was her going-away dress.

‘What do you think?’ she said twirling round like a model in front of him. ‘I tried out lots of new outfits, but I didn’t like myself in any of them. So I dieted for weeks and weeks, very difficult when you’re trying out new recipes for a party too, and yesterday, for the very first time, I managed to do up all the buttons on this!’

Tears welled up in Eric Manson’s tired eyes, and he felt that his legs were about to give way, but he put his arm around his wife for support, kissed her cheek, then took a long draught from the champagne flute that had been thrust into his hands. Opposite him, a glass in her hand too, stood Elaine Bell. She gave him a quick thumbs-up, which, smiling wanly, he returned.