Dark Angels (27 page)

It didn’t look to me like a bargaining point–it looked like desperation. I was beginning to see just how much Hector–and others–wanted this trial to disappear. In negotiations it’s never good to let the other side see how desperate you are to settle, but to be fair to Hector he had obviously been told that we were on the same side. He was having his strings pulled, and undoubtedly knew that the same puppet masters had been speaking to me.

The prosecution and the College of Justice were keen to avoid a trial in order that Lord Arbuthnot’s reputation would remain unsullied. Perhaps they were even hoping to erect another marble monument to a dead Lord President. The Crown Office should have chosen someone else. If Hector had been a little more experienced and promised me a lenient sentence, then I might have given him what he hoped for: a simple promise to put his offer to my client. Instead I merely said that I would see him in court–not out of any misplaced
sense of loyalty to Kailash, but because I wanted her to go down for murder for a very long time. There had been times when I had felt she and I were on the same side, but the Stockholm Syndrome moments had passed, I was pissed off with her for not telling me everything straight away and I wanted her to know that I wasn’t her lap dog. As I left the court, I also had to admit to myself that, on top of everything, I hadn’t forgiven her for the anxiety she caused me over the Roddie Buchanan scandal.

Face to face time again. The journey to Cornton Vale prison seemed interminable. The M9 was full of small-engined cars pulling lumpy caravans to the Trossachs. I got no joy from riding Awesome, despite it being the first road trip we had attempted since the accident. It felt good to be riding again, but–with the misplaced guilt of the single woman–I was conscious of the fact that I had barely given my beloved bike a second thought since Joe took care of it. I made silent promises to Awesome that I wouldn’t be guilty of neglect again. I was too preoccupied with my imaginary plans of shining and polishing Awesome in a dewy-eyed Utopia that I didn’t have the time to reflect too much on my imminent showdown with Kailash.

Finally, I arrived and parked the bike. I didn’t pay much attention to the barbed wire on the fence before I signed in and asked that Kailash be brought out from her cell.

I chose not to sit down in the small, sparse interview room. My battered bike helmet was placed on the narrow Formica table, and I paced with fists clenched
so tight that when I finally released them they ached. The muscles in my jaw were unyielding and I could feel the pulse in my neck pounding. The door opened. Kailash was ushered in, wearing a white silk sari–again her guards accorded her the utmost courtesy.

The sari rustled as she moved. Kailash reminded me of Proteus, the sea-god herder of Poseidon’s seals. He had the ability to shape shift at will, he knew all things past, present and future but Proteus was unwilling to tell what he knew. Kailash was reinventing herself, and it was difficult to look at the modest, sedate woman before me now, and see her as leather clad dominatrix. She was a great actress, I’d give her that but I wouldn’t be taken in by her. I kept telling myself she was nothing but a manipulative hooker who generally got what she wanted. She wasn’t the only one–if I colluded with the Enlightenment, or some unknown men in grey, then it was because at this moment I wanted to. I was playing to my own agenda.

As Kailash sat down, she looked at me and uttered one word: ‘Why?’

I ignored her and placed her mobile before her. She picked it up in her still somehow beautifully manicured hand, and, as she read the text message, her face momentarily turned grey.

Meet u as arranged. Alistair.

‘It was sent the night he died,’ I reminded Kailash. ‘You lured him to his death.’

I could feel beads of salty sweat forming on my top lip and I became uncomfortably aware of how I must look to her. I was practically foaming at the mouth,
whereas she had regained her composure almost instantly.

Placing her mobile on the table, she again asked me the question:

‘Why?’

I stared at her blankly, but noticed that she had taken care not to give me the phone back. I wondered: if I made a grab for it, which one of us would get there first. In my heart I knew that she would–she’d need dexterous hands in her profession.

‘Brodie, I have asked you a question. Why are you upset by this text?’

‘Because you lied to me,’ I snapped back. ‘I asked you if Lord Arbuthnot was a client and you said he wasn’t.’

‘I will repeat myself then, Brodie–Alistair MacGregor was never a client of mine.’

I was reminded of President Clinton’s reply when asked about Monica Lewinsky. ‘
I did not have sex with that woman.’
Everybody else in the world considers a blow-job sex, but life and death are in the details. I was after the spirit of the truth from Kailash, and I wasn’t getting it.

‘That’s a lawyer’s reply…you’re covering your back. Was he a punter of anyone you employed?’

‘Brodie, if it will appease you–I will confirm I have never known Alistair MacGregor to pay for sexual favours.’

‘Why should I believe you–you denied any prior knowledge of the man?’

‘Brodie, I think if you centre yourself you will recall
that you never asked me if I knew him, you were only interested in whether or not he had ever been a client.’

She was a condescending bitch when she chose to be.

‘You assumed that a woman like me could only be acquainted with a man like Lord Arbuthnot if I was his whore–in my line of work I am no one’s whore, they are all my bitches.’ She smiled for the first time in a long while.

Kailash had missed the point, I was angry with her because she had made a fool of me. I would have presented her defence even if I had been aware of a prior relationship with Lord Arbuthnot, but I was not inclined to forgive her given that others knew of a bond between them. I’d bet good money that Jack Deans knew. Kailash sat serenely at the table writing in a pale pink raw silk notebook (yet another personal possession she had managed to retain) while I stood silently looking at the wall.

Kailash handed me a note. The script was immature indicating a lack of formal education. I needed all my time to find the killer; I did not have the energy to fight this hopeless case. Lack of sleep had dried my eyes. I tried to blink as reading the note was difficult on many levels. Aware that Kailash was watching me, I cleared my throat, and read its contents out loud.

‘I may not have a law degree,’ said Kailash, ‘but I am by no means uneducated. My father’s people were civilised, and had 360 different ways to cook potatoes when in
your
society there were no potatoes
to
cook.’

I flushed; the heat surged from my toes to the roots of my hair. Like a naughty child I had been found out–Kailash always seemed to be able to put herself above me no matter what the game was. She needed to do that for her ego, and I needed to avoid it for mine. Every time we met, she managed to make me feel worthless, ill-dressed, gauche, uneducated,
less…
What little grace I had left made me shift from foot to foot. My mother’s voice admonished me to apologise for jumping to conclusions, but Kailash and I had too much history for that. She stood up and stealthily walked round the table to face me, her feet made no sound on the mottled grey linoleum but her sari rustled.

Another enemy had been made; there was no way that I could see to re-establish the client agent bond. I decided to jump before I was pushed.

‘Get yourself another lawyer, Kailash.’

I moved to pick up my helmet and walk out when she issued an order.

‘Brodie–I want you in this trial and THEY have ordered you to be an Amicus Curae. As a matter of interest–what did they promise you?’

She passed by me so closely, that I could detect the individual ingredients in her old fashioned scent. Rose oil and lavender. Any herbalist would maintain that it was a soothing combination; I would beg to differ. I felt no comfort.

Placing her forefinger under my chin she lifted it up.

‘Ah…nothing but the red robes would tempt an ambitious girl like you.’

I wanted to tell her that it was my mother’s ambition she was reading not mine–then I remembered my response to Roddie’s blackmailing judicial appointment suggestion and I wondered who was really pushing me on–the ghost of my mother or the true me? Perhaps they weren’t as different as I’d always tried to convince myself. ‘Did they tell you what they would do to you…if you didn’t go along with their plans?’

‘No.’

‘They left it to your imagination…what a group of very powerful men would do if you betrayed them.’

I nodded, betrayal sounded such an ugly word. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.

‘That’s good, Brodie, because I too will leave it to your mind’s eye to conjure up my punishment for you if you betray me again.’

Squeezing my shoulder very tightly, she led me to the hard-backed chair and had me sit down. Sitting on the corner of the table so that I had to look up to her meant the dice were in her hands.

‘Is that a threat, Kailash?’

‘No, it’s a choice.’

‘It doesn’t feel like I have many options.’

‘There are always alternatives, Brodie–even when faced with inevitable death you can make a decision to be courageous, to die well.’

My heart felt as if it had stopped–was she talking about me, telling me to die well?–but my face was emotionless. What did one more threat matter? Kailash failed to notice my indifference as she continued her monologue.

‘Besides, choice is an illusion…in most circumstances we opt to narrow it down. Too much freedom would unsettle you.’

My choice was not to die well, but to live well, and to do that I would have to be smarter and a damn sight more wily than I had been to date.

Kailash rose from her seat like a cat and moved from the corner of the table to stand behind my back. I could only feel her presence, which was immense. Her breath was slow and measured in my ear; mirroring her steady heartbeat, there was no outward sign of stress.

‘You’re tense?’ she said, stating the obvious as she pulled my heavy jacket off in two swift movements, giving me no time to protest.

‘You’d be better off with someone else…’ I replied. ‘As an officer of the court I can’t lead evidence that
would suggest that you met him by accident.’ It was the first time in my life that I had not fought to keep a client. Even as I spoke, it felt alien to me.

‘In life, honesty is a fool’s game,’ she replied. Letting the mask of graceful concubine slip, she added: ‘You’re so up your own arse you actually believe people are interested in what you think of them.’

‘What do you want me to do, Kailash?’

Her hands bore down heavily on my neck, making me wince.

‘Be a source of pleasure.’

A statement like that meant I had to turn to face her. I couldn’t ask what the fuck she was on about with my back to her. Was she recruiting me for her brothel or hitting on me? Kailash grabbed me by the arm and I was again astonished at the strength of her grip. Unlike Roddie, I don’t enjoy pain.

‘Let’s begin again,’ Kailash decided.

She pushed my head away from her. Facing the table I noticed that the mobile phone had disappeared without me noticing. Manipulating me by the crown of my head she twisted my neck backwards and forwards. A curtain of auburn curls fell over my face as she pushed me downwards.

‘An Indian head massage is what you need, it will dissipate the tension in your shoulders, stimulate your lymph glands, and get the drugs out of your system.’

‘Drugs? They’re painkillers.’

‘If you say so.’

Kailash had my left ear pressing down hard on my shoulder, so it was difficult to argue with her. The
pressure in her hands had eased as I felt the tension leave my scalp and jaw.

‘Effective, isn’t it?’ she said.

An involuntary sigh escaped my lips.

‘It’s an ancient traditional Indian remedy, at least 4000 years old. It began in the families; family members would sit behind one another massaging oil into the scalp, promoting and stimulating hair growth.’

Lifting my thick hair back off my face, and smoothing it around my shoulders she added: ‘Not that you need help in that department.’

I felt her eyes bore into me: seconds later the phone reappeared, just beyond my finger-tips. One question had lain heavily between us since our first meeting, asking it now could lose nothing.

‘Why did you contact the papers about Roddie?’

‘Because I could.’

She stared blankly at the wall behind me painted insipid, institutional green.

‘No, I’m not letting you away with that. You and Roddie, your actions, nearly ruined me. I’m liable for that firm’s financial problems–problems that you helped create.’

‘Why are you blaming Roddie? He didn’t contact the tabloids.’

‘Why shouldn’t I blame Roddie?’

‘He’s done nothing wrong.’ Kailash’s insistence was like hitting my head on a brick wall. She reached across and touched my hand; hers was elegant, long fingered and creative. Squeezing me forcefully, I looked from our joined hands up to her eyes.

‘No. You shouldn’t blame Roddie because he’s innocent…he has the papers to prove it.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I sputtered.

‘But you got me to sign an affidavit, so it must all be above board,’ she said, playing the part of a wide-eyed ingénue. Slowly her smile widened. Kailash was enjoying playing with me and she made no effort to hide it.

‘I thought it was a lie.’ I tried to run my hands through my hair but it was knotted and tangled.

‘You were meant to think that…You know, when I was growing up in Amsterdam, I wanted to be an actress but there wasn’t enough money in that to live on.’

‘Really?’ I answered. ‘I had heard that being a porn star was very lucrative.’ My words fell off her like snow from a dry stane dyke.