The Red Road (4 page)

The judge gave Atholl a warning look, telling him to flirt in his own time. The jury were hardly listening: though they were trying to be discreet they were all aware that a message was being passed around the court. They watched as the noter put a slip of paper on the desk in front of the judge.

Atholl’s performance wasn’t for the jury, it was for Brown. He was putting on a show of a struggle. He was part of the fireworks display for the prison population. He opened his mouth to speak—

‘Well,’ the judge interrupted, fitting the note into his file, ‘I think we’ll stop there for a moment.’

It was bizarrely abrupt. Suddenly the macer was at the foot of the stairs, gesturing to Morrow to come down quickly. Morrow’s first thought was a bomb threat.

She hurried down in her noisy shoes and the macer pushed her elbow, turning her to the steep stairs for the witness room. She was barely up and through the door when the court were ordered to rise. As the witness-room door shut on a slow spring Morrow saw the judge exit swiftly, the jury being chased out by an usher and Brown being bundled downstairs to the cells.

The door shut softly on the scene.

Morrow found herself alone in the windowless room, the noise of the court muffled by the door. If it was a bomb threat then she should get out of the building. Normally they’d warn her but maybe they were assuming she’d know because she was a police officer. It was then that she realised she had left her briefcase in the witness box.

She had files in there, her laptop, a USB with other files about ongoing investigations. She had to get it. She lingered behind the court door like an eavesdropper, tried knocking softly but no one came. She could hear people shuffling about in the room, Atholl’s rich voice sounded calm and light.

It couldn’t be a bomb threat. They would have cleared the building.

She knocked again, louder, and heard someone approaching on the stairs. The macer opened the door and looked in.

‘Sorry, I’ve left my briefcase in there,’ said Morrow.

‘Oh, sure.’ The macer stepped back to let her in. Morrow tiptoed in her noisy shoes, down the stairs and across to the box.

The court staff were relaxed among themselves, Atholl’s solicitor was chatting to the noter, the macer grinned at Atholl as he finished telling a story.

‘“Get him OUT!”’ said Atholl waving an arm, playing a part. ‘“Out of my hair!”’

The macer laughed at the punchline and shook her head sadly. ‘Auch, a great man,’ she said. ‘A funny man.’

‘Yes.’ Atholl had spotted Morrow climbing back into the box, bending over and reaching for the handle of the briefcase cowering in the dark corner. ‘Sad. And sixty-four seems young.’

‘Lungs collapsed, didn’t they?’

‘After a fall. He smoked so heavily, if it happened spontaneously I wouldn’t have been surprised,’ said Atholl and called over to Morrow, ‘Did you forget your messages, young lady?’

Morrow stood straight in the box and glared at him. His accent had slipped down several social rungs.

‘Well, that was condescending ...’

A hush fell in the room. She shouldn’t have said that. The convention was that lawyers and cops pretended to get on, they pretended they weren’t on opposite sides or drawn from different social groups. The fiction was that they were all part of the same process.

She held the bag up. ‘My briefcase ...’ No one wanted to look at her. ‘Wasn’t a bomb threat, then?’

They all glanced at one another, unsure whose jurisdiction covered the business of answering.

The noter took responsibility: ‘Someone has been taken ill,’ he said carefully, ‘and we may adjourn if they’re not fit to continue.’

Brown was sick. She’d seen him looking grey and passing notes. They didn’t want to tell her, or let the jury see him vomit or pass out in case it made them sympathetic. It might still be a trick.

‘If he’s leaving the building,’ said Morrow, sorry now for her faux pas, ‘you need to notify the cops on duty.’

The noter looked aggrieved. ‘We already have.’

Morrow had insulted everyone. She wasn’t popular at the station, the squad were nearly all new and didn’t know her well enough to see past her curt manner and the negative stories attached to her: her old squad had been ripped apart by a bribing scandal, her half-brother was a famous local heavy, she said the wrong thing almost always. And now even here she’d managed to piss everyone off. She mumbled a general apology. The noter accepted with a shrug and turned away, cutting her out of the conversation. ‘So, Atholl, if we do adjourn, are you going?’

‘Yes. Want a lift?’

‘Only if you’re taking a taxi. I’m not going if you’re driving.’

‘Technically, we could walk.’

‘Uphill?’

Morrow took the stairs down out of the box.

‘DI Morrow, did you know Julius McMillan?’ Atholl had stepped towards her.

She nodded, wary still. ‘Sure. Why?’

‘He died.’

Atholl’s eyes were brown with startling yellow flecks around the iris. The whites were tinged yellow. She thought he probably drank too much. She realised suddenly that they were staring at each other.

She hesitated, wondering why she couldn’t look away. ‘What did he die of?’

‘Collapsed lungs,’ he said, and smiled inappropriately. ‘The poor man smoked sixty a day.’

They were still holding one another’s eye, each on the brink of a grin. Everyone else in the court was looking away, embarrassed to witness such blatant, honeydewed attraction between two slightly unprepossessing middle-aged people. They began to talk among themselves.

‘I’m sorry for sounding condescending.’ He looked up at her, puppyish. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

Morrow hugged her briefcase like a shield. ‘Aye well, you’ve insulted me in public and now you’re apologising in private. I think that’s a bit crap.’

It was no more or less obstreperous than she would have been to anyone. They both broke into inappropriate grins.

Atholl was loving it. He called to the assembly, ‘DI Morrow: I APOLOGISE.’ He stepped closer still. ‘If we have to adjourn will you come to the funeral party with me? It’s in the Art Club. It’s only up the road.’

‘This afternoon?’

‘Yes.’ He took another step closer to her. ‘You can come in my taxi. We could have a drink.’

‘I can’t. I’m working.’ She noted that she’d avoided saying ‘on shift’ as she normally would and wondered if she was trying to sound less like someone who would leave their shopping in a witness box.

‘I see.’ Atholl glanced to the side, seeing if they were being listened to. They were, but the others were disguising it well. ‘Well, that’s a shame.’

Alex dropped her briefcase to her side and met his smile. It was nice, talking like this, sweet and fun and unthreatening. She hadn’t flirted with anyone in a long time. ‘I’ll wait until you tell me if you’re adjourning then?’

He took another step, tentative this time, and mumbled, ‘
After
your shift ...’

He looked up, seemed surprised at himself asking her out. They both laughed at how ridiculous it was and Atholl slapped a hand over his eyes.

‘God,’ he said to the ceiling, ‘after years you forget how painful ... I need drink to ...’

Morrow laughed. ‘You recently single?’

He gave a little nod. ‘Three months. Separated from my wife. I’ve got three teenage boys.’

‘I’ve got a lovely husband and one-year-old twins.’

Atholl tipped his head at her, curious. He reached up and took his wig off, held it to his chest, like a gentleman. ‘Well, DI Alex Morrow, staggering maturity on my part: I find myself pleased to hear that.’

She wanted to kiss him. Half laughing at herself, she turned and walked away up the stairs, realising only when she got to the top that she had made him stare at her backside.

She shut the door behind her, leaned against the door and laughed silently. Ridiculous. He was an advocate and an earl. He probably pulled that act on every prosecution female. Still she smiled, enjoying the afterglow as she pulled her phone out of her bag: it was nice, though.

Turning her phone on she found a flurry of calls from the office. One message from DC Fyfe. Please call back asap.

Sitting as she was in the heart of the building, the signal was low but she called anyway and got Fyfe on a weak line that cut out every three or four words.

‘Ma’am ... erious problem: Brown’s fingerprints turned up ...
last week
.’

‘What?’

Fyfe spoke slowly: ‘Brown’s fingerprints were foun ... at a murder committed ... days ago.’

Morrow stood still, shuffling the words into order. Finally she said,

‘
This
Michael Brown?’

Fyfe was certain: ‘Yes, ma’am.’

Morrow couldn’t quite take it in. ‘The one I’m here with now?’

‘Yes.’ Fyfe’s voice faded under a smog of crackle. ‘... prints at a murder ... north division ... ast week.’

It made no sense. Brown was locked up in prison and had been for months. For a moment she found herself suspicious and angry at Fyfe for telling her something that simply could not be true. Irritated, she barked into the mouthpiece, ‘Wait on the line.’ And dropped the phone to her side as she strode to the exit door.

Outside the witness waiting room she passed an armed guard who had been waiting for Michael Brown to burst out of there. He turned at the waist to see her, his fingers tightening on the butt and barrel of his gun as she fumbled her wallet open to show her warrant card before backing out to the lobby.

Morrow was wrong: Fyfe was dependable and wouldn’t have called to tell her this unless there was good reason. It wasn’t Fyfe’s fault. Morrow just didn’t want to hear it. She had expected Brown to jump a wall or break a window to get out, not start an elaborate game to undermine bits of evidence.

She stood in the lobby and took a deep breath before lifting the phone to speak again: ‘I’m in a public place: be careful. Now, slowly, tell me that again.’

‘OK,’ said Fyfe. ‘Michael Brown’s fingerprints were found at a murder scene in the old Red Road flats.’

‘The ones they’re pulling down?’

‘Yep. And the murder happened three days ago.’

‘Three days, for sure?’ she asked.

‘Definite. Because they’re demolishing the flats they’re checking for homeless all the time.’

‘Who’s dead?’

‘Guy called Aziz Balfour.’

Morrow shut her eyes. ‘Well, he’s in prison, Fyfe, there must have been a mistake on the prints, get them to check the match again—’

‘They have, ma’am. They’ve checked and checked. The match was high confidence each time.’

‘
High
confidence?’ Morrow squeezed her eyes tight, reluctant to hear the answer.

‘High confidence.’

She opened her eyes and found an armed officer, both hands on his assault rifle, staring fiercely at her. She didn’t know if he was thinking about shooting her or waiting for an order.

She looked away.

The court lobby was new, part of an extension to the old high court. It was two storeys high, one wall of glass, the other three had a mezzanine level running around them with a frieze of yellow limestone on it. The entire frieze was carved with a jumble of words and letters in different textures, large, small, smooth, rough. Unthinkingly, Morrow read a nonsense phrase carved deep into the frieze:

TURNS OF SPEECH

RIDDLES;

‘Is the dead guy anyone we know?’

‘No. Balfour worked for a charity.’ Morrow could hear that she was reading it from a sheet. ‘Earthquake Relief. Good man, no record or previous. Three thousand attended his funeral.’

‘So, he’s buried already?’

‘Says here cause of death stabbing. Must have released him quick for burial ... so that’s ...’

She was telling Morrow that the man was Muslim but didn’t know if it was all right to say it.

Morrow tutted. ‘So, he was Muslim?’

‘Um, yeah, probably. Says he’s from Pakistan.’

That caught Morrow’s attention. Pakistan suggested a potential hundi connection to Brown.

But the prints were impossible. She found herself wondering whether they had been found on something planted there, something movable, a cup or a bit of paper? An accomplice could have taken his prints in. There would be an explanation. She would find it.

‘Put it all on my desk.’ She hung up, slipping her phone into her pocket.

Brown wasn’t jumping a wall but it was still a weak opening gambit. Morrow had expected something better. Maybe the lawyer giving him wily advice about inches beyond conveyancing perimeters had ducked out and this was a younger lawyer’s advice. It was a change of tone, certainly.

She pulled on her raincoat and thought her way through some possibilities: visitors with cups, visitors with celluloid on their wrists, bribable officers.

She should ask to see the ACE-V report by the fingerprint analyst. The match may well have come up high confidence but there could still be a mistake in the reading. They had to do that now, show their workings, how they analysed it, how they compared it, verify the points of confluence.

She looked up and saw Anton Atholl. He was walking towards her across the lobby, clutching a bundle of files tied with pink ribbon. She found herself irritated by him now; she didn’t want to flirt any more, her mood had shifted, her thoughts on other things.

Also, there was a duty of disclosure to Brown’s defence. She didn’t know the time frames or parameters of telling Atholl about the prints. If there was bogus mileage in it, Atholl was the last person she wanted to tell. The Fiscal’s office were already pissed off about the cost of the trial and knew they weren’t getting the major players. Brown was back in prison anyway and the trial was costing them a fortune. Everyone was on a budget these days.

‘We are adjourning,’ said Atholl. ‘But we’ll meet again tomorrow?’

She wondered suddenly if he already knew about the prints. Atholl might have had them put there, for all she knew.

‘Yeah.’ Morrow wondered if Atholl was waiting for her to tell him.

‘You all off to get steaming this afternoon, then?’

‘Indeed,’ he said, nodding formally at his shoes. ‘It seems only proper in the light of a great drunk’s passing. I did my traineeship with McMillan.’