– ya dirty wee bastard!’ McAllister shouted. ‘D’you ken how much these fuckin’ boots cost me?’ The officers in charge weren’t expecting it. McAllister broke free and kicked Billy Palmer full in the face. There was a crack, and then the sound of a jaw breaking carried far into the night. It was always like that; the atmosphere could turn on a five-pence piece. It was always wise to watch your back.
‘I’m sorry – I didnae mean it, man!’ Billy Palmer screamed his apology through bloodstained teeth as he cowered in the gutter. His eyes held mine, beseeching me to get him out, but he was already on bail so it was Christmas in Saughton Prison for him. I didn’t think Santa would bring him anything other than another beating from Shuggy McAllister.
The situation was quickly under control. The noise had alerted Malcolm who had been inside the station keeping warm. Sergeant Munro had made him a cup of tea. Their association went back years, to the times when Malcolm himself was getting lifted for lewd and libidinous behaviour. Malcolm teetered out on the toes of his patent pumps, watching where he stepped and ignoring the fracas – it was nothing he hadn’t seen many times before.
‘Honey! You came!’ In the best tradition of a drag queen he extended his arms and hugged me, holding on as if he’d never let go. I didn’t mind; he smelled a lot better than Billy Palmer.
‘Come here,’ I said to him gently. ‘Let me see what damage that bastard has done this time.’ I pulled Malcolm under the nearest streetlamp. Gingerly, I touched his blacked eye. ‘What’s this – has your mascara run?’ I ran my fingertips over his swollen lips; tears of shame filled his eyes.
‘I was going to say that you could do with some leeches – but I forgot you married one.’ Malcolm is a Beaton, a family known throughout Scottish history as healers. As he himself said many times, ‘Life in Glasgow was tough for a pansy.’ He went to Amsterdam and honed his skills, patching up people who preferred not to go to a hospital. That’s how he met Kailash.
It was hard to tell that he was upset, apart from the tears, because his face had been so frozen by Botox and Restylane fillers. Blowing his nose noisily into an immaculate handkerchief – Malcolm prided himself on his whites – he began to speak. I tried to listen, even though I’d heard it all before.
‘This guy has no right to hit you,’ I said, when he drew breath.
‘Brodie, he doesn’t mean it. I probably started it anyway and annoyed him with something I said or did.’ He tapped me on the shoulder, trying to soothe my anger. The more I looked into his broken face, the angrier I got. He’d tried to patch it up with heavy foundation and concealer, but that just made it worse.
‘He’s insulting you, Malcolm, not the other way round. Fat bastard that he is – he’s never been any good.’ I shrugged Malcolm’s hand off me; he had to be made to see that this was unacceptable.
‘I’m sorry for calling you out, Brodie, but I didn’t know who else to turn to. He gets loaded then he loses his temper, that’s all. This time the neighbours called the police.’ Malcolm kept patting his hand on the left side of his chest, checking his heart to see if it was still beating – perhaps he thought it was broken. Pulling his arm, I led him back into St Leonards.
‘Just take a deep breath and relax. I’ll check with Sergeant Munro and maybe they’ll let me see him.’
Sergeant Munro busied himself with paperwork. It was a game he liked to play with me: how long could he ignore the daft wee lassie? He was the only one enjoying it.
‘Sergeant Munro,’ I said, smiling – we may have had a longstanding association but neither of us liked it. I even lifted and lowered my lashes very slowly. I’d read in Cosmopolitan that men find it irresistible; the journalist who wrote that clearly hadn’t come across the good sergeant.
‘Miss McLennan.’ He stared down at the paperwork. ‘Your colleague, one Mr Edward Gibb, has already visited your custodies and you’re not getting to see Billy Palmer for another six hours.’ He smiled ingratiatingly – he liked to smile at me when he was winning.
‘I wanted to check the status of Derek Brown. I—’
He interrupted me, unable to hide his delight; he didn’t even have to check his paperwork. ‘Derek Brown has asked for another solicitor. In fact, he said – wait a minute, I wrote it down somewhere … I quote: “If that miserable bitch Brodie McLennan comes here, tell her I wouldn’t let her represent me if she was the last lawyer in hell.”’ Sergeant Munro grinned but Dismal Derek’s insults were like water off a duck’s back to me. However, I needed to get more information so that Malcolm could sleep tonight.
‘I take it he’s appearing in court tomorrow? Who’s his lawyer?’ If I found that out then Malcolm could speak to them in the morning.
‘Ricky Gordon,’ said Munro.
A snort of laughter came out of my nose. It was quite embarrassing, but must have just been nerves. ‘Ricky Gordon doesn’t do criminal work because of his stutter.’
‘Well, he’s doing it tomorrow – I’d get there early or God knows what time you’ll be out of Court One. I’ll get Malcolm a taxi – he needs his bed,’ he said.
No man is all bad, even Sergeant Munro, but there were a few that seemed to be devoid of anything positive – the Ripper, for one. The atmosphere in the station was tense; all the officers were working overtime trying to catch the Ripper, yet the people in the cells were the usual suspects. A young Polish police officer shouted that Malcolm’s taxi was here. Lothian and Borders police needed foreign nationals as constables to deal with the immigrants – not that I’d ever represented a Polish plumber. I wondered if it was just another PR exercise by the Scottish government.
My nemesis, DI Bancho, appeared, holding the door open for Malcolm. He looked like shit: heading up the investigation into the Ripper murders was taking its toll. I decided it wasn’t just Sergeant Munro who could have his fun – baiting Duncan Bancho always made me feel better.
St Leonards Police Station, Edinburgh Sunday 23 December, 2 a.m.
The five dead girls stared at me and I stared back.
Lips were silenced and eyes deadened. They all wanted to know one thing. Who will speak up for me?
What could I do? I wasn’t their lawyer. The dead don’t have lawyers. But though I’d gone into the operations room originally to goad Bancho, the dead girls had silenced me. I felt as if a freezing-cold cloak had been thrown on my back, and I shivered. The silent mouths asked me a new question: What will you do if he’s caught? Will you speak for him?
The operations room was a mess. Bancho’s cheeks were heavy and drawn, his skin bleached by exhaustion. He walked up to the wall that held the chilling photographs and tapped it reverentially. ‘They talk to me too,’ he muttered, scratching his head and turning to make some coffee. I didn’t bother to deny what he’d said. Waiting for the kettle to boil, he massaged his temples, trying to ease the pressure that was building. All the time he gazed unblinkingly at that wall. The wastepaper basket was overflowing, and an empty box of paracetamol was on the top. If I’d had any I would have given him some of mine. Wonders never cease – me feeling sorry for DI Duncan Bancho.
The desk was littered with crumpled paper that Bancho had discarded. Police reports, details of autopsies, newspaper clippings, buff-coloured folders with spurious leads – everything was laid out for the world to see. If it was an indication of the state of his mind, then no wonder he had headaches. I wanted to help. In spite of my revulsion, I wandered back over to the wall. The families of the victims who could be traced were located in Eastern Europe, Romania, Poland and the Ukraine. A map on the far right contained red dots to indicate the place of origin of the victim. Another map of the city of Edinburgh contained black dots to show where the bodies had been found. To my