Blood Lines (35 page)

I saw Jack sitting out at reception, waiting for Roddie, and I hid in the stairwell, watching through the narrow pane of safety glass. He looked great, still suntanned. Was it fake? Jack had never seemed the type to be overly concerned with his looks; he was too interested in fags and booze. I hated the fact that I was still attracted to him. It had nothing to do with my feelings for Joe. Jack loved the bad girl in me and I responded in kind. Today, he looked every inch a Pulitzer Prize winner. Was he off the booze? More likely, since his clothes looked quite fresh – maybe there was another woman on the scene?

Jack turned around, his senses aware that he was being watched. His deep blue eyes quickly scanned the room. He found me quickly and I was impressed that he didn’t betray my whereabouts.

Unusually, Roddie came out to greet Jack personally.

Normally, a meeting with Mr Buchanan was like an audience with the king; you were taken into his presence by a minion. Even Abby, the front desk receptionist, stopped her phone conversation with her friend and put down her nail file long enough to look surprised. Her eyebrows rose even higher when Jack followed Roddie into his room – he stuck his butt out and wiggled it in my direction, only Abby couldn’t see me.

Lavender was, as usual, well prepared.

The door between Lavender’s office and my room (that Roddie had taken back now that he thought I was in trouble) was ajar. Roddie would never allow this to happen in his own world. However, since he could not conceive of a secretary who would be so audacious as to insist on an open-door policy with her boss, he didn’t bother to check. We crowded into the room: me, Lavender, Joe and Eddie. Why Eddie was there was beyond me, except Lavender said she didn’t want him to miss out on the fun, and that since we were his sole employers he had every right to know what was happening. Eddie looked uncomfortable and I guessed that it was not his idea. For a man who hates confrontation this would be his notion of hell.

‘Do you have it?’

I repeated the question I had already asked Joe. To silence me he brought out a small brown glass bottle with a thick black cap on it. There was no label and no instructions but I had already been told all that I needed to know about sodium pentathol from the Alchemist. A few drops in the extra-strong coffee that Lavender had brewed specially, and Roddie would be primed to answer Jack’s questions. It wouldn’t make him pour everything out, but it would loosen his inhibitions more effectively than any booze, making him particularly susceptible to our line of questioning.

Lavender brought the coffee in on a tray and fawned over Roddie. She was a master at it. Maybe she had learned something from all those self-help books after all.

‘That’s a lovely tie you’re wearing, Mr Buchanan,’ she oozed. ‘Did you buy it in Switzerland? The Continentals have such a fine sense of style.’

She completely ignored Jack and continued simpering up to Roddie. I thought he was bound to notice her insincerity but he lapped it up like a thirsty man. Having said that, I’ve met his wife. One thing I can say for certain is that Mrs Roddie Buchanan is not a woman to sweet-talk anyone.

‘Have I said how lovely it is to have a gentleman such as yourself around the office again?’ was Lavender’s parting remark. She really was excelling herself, and it worked. He gobbled down her coffee as eagerly as he had swallowed her compliments. Jack had been primed not to drink it, although I would love to try some on him later.

We didn’t have long to wait.

Roddie appeared to get hot. He took his jacket off and then loosened the tie that Lavender had admired so much.

‘Shall we get started, sir?’ Jack asked.

Roddie liked that, the notion that the addled hack who had caused him so much grief in the past was at his mercy now. He preened himself, running his right hand through his sparse and fiercely regimented hair, disturbing his elaborate comb-over.

‘I’d like to ask you about Tymar Productions,’ Jack began.

I felt nervous. I hadn’t expected him to go straight in.

We were piled on top of each other like a human pyramid. Lavender, who was at the bottom, stuck her nose further into the room.

‘I thought you wanted to ask me about Brodie MacGregor’s impending murder charges?’

Damn it. Jack had blown it. He was too cocky, too sure of himself. He should have waited, tested the waters. We could have added more sodium pentathol if that was necessary. However, it was interesting that Buchanan called me by my father’s name, even if he had known my true parentage long before I had.

‘I want to know about Tymar Productions,’ Jack insisted.

We all held our breath.

Then it happened. Roddie began to talk.

‘Well, I suppose that’s alright because Tymar Productions is all about Brodie,’ he laughed.

‘What exactly is Tymar Productions?’ queried daft Jack, playing his part.

‘It’s a company, of course, formed offshore in Cyprus with a Swiss bank account.’

‘Does Brodie know about it, Roddie? May I call you Roddie?’

‘Of course she doesn’t or I would be dead. She’s too like her mother that one. I spotted her number right away. I wasn’t happy about employing her and, as you know, events have proved me right. Poor breeding. Not from the MacGregors, of course – but have you met her mother? That woman almost ruined me. All because I wanted to inform a childless man, a judge, no less, that he had a daughter. Don’t you think every man has a right to know he has a child? Men have lost their place in the world, thanks to women. Look at the way fathers are forced to act like terrorists, just to see their children.’

‘Have some more coffee, Roddie.’ Jack refilled his cup and helped it to his mouth, encouraging him to swallow.

‘Let’s talk some more about Tymar,’ Jack persisted.

A thought floated across my mind, one that I tried to dismiss but it lingered. Jack had used this technique before.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Roddie, I want to know everything.’ I couldn’t see the smile on his face but I could hear it in his voice. ‘Let’s get started, Roddie. Who first asked you to start Tymar?’

Jack’s pen was busy scratching. He knew he was on his way back to the big-time and he wouldn’t rely on a tape recorder to get all of this down.

Roddie thought for a moment, then went on.

‘Robert Girvan – yes, it was Robert who asked me. The request was rather surprising because he was a partner in another firm; he was McCoy’s partner before he was busted. I asked him why he didn’t do it inhouse, and he said he wanted to keep his business life separate from the law firm. He was paying me well, so I wasn’t going to object.’

Lavender flashed me a look that said, ‘I told you so.’ If it had been possible, she would have danced in front of me singing it. Eddie squeezed my arm.

‘We all make mistakes,’ he mouthed. I think I loved Eddie at that moment.

Roddie helped himself to more coffee.

‘So, what did Robert Girvan want Tymar for?’

‘Well, at first, Jack, I had no idea. I thought it might be a property company or something, then he made an unusual request. One that I was quite happy to comply with since it involved me getting paid a lot of money.’

He wiped his brow with a pristine monogrammed handkerchief.

‘I was under pressure, Jack; you have no idea what it’s like working with that woman. She is quite simply infuriating. Brodie MacGregor is irritatingly good at what she does, earns a lot of fees, but that puts the rest of us under pressure. Then when I had my little contretemps with Kailash and the firm started haemorrhaging money as a result of the scandal, Brodie made no secret of the fact that it was my fault.’

‘Wasn’t it?’

Jack asked all the questions I wanted to put to Roddie.

‘No,’ Roddie whined. ‘I’ve told you. I just wanted to reunite father and child – what could be wrong with that?’

‘The father was a paedophile – some people may say that was wrong.’

‘Jack, Jack … her father was a very important man; such men are always the subject of rumour and conjecture. In any event, she was long past the age when her father would have been interested in her if he did indeed have those proclivities.’

‘So you didn’t like Brodie?’

‘Haven’t I just said that? She came in here a nobody. I gave her a start and how did she repay me? She made me look a fool in front of my partners by bringing in double the amount of fee income that I did. I was forced to work harder just to maintain my position, at a time when I should have been winding down. That’s when I thought I could go to Kailash – if she had paid me enough money I could have retired and everything would have been all right. But that’s not her way; she has to destroy a man. Did you see what she did to me? It was a set-up but it looked bad. Do you know what the worst of it was?’

Jack shook his head; but we all did, nodding like those dogs in the back of a car.

‘The worst of it was that I had to ask Brodie for help.’

Jack poured himself some water.

‘Let’s get back to happier things then. Tymar is your revenge on Brodie, isn’t it?’

Roddie replied, ‘Robert Girvan’s special request was that he needed to buy a woman’s identity as a cover for the bank account and company. I sold him Brodie’s; he didn’t object. In fact, when he had to work under the little bitch, I think it kept him going when she was giving him patronising handouts.’

‘So, Brodie’s financial details are on all the registration documents of the company?’

‘That’s right! All her details except the important ones. Like a scan of her iris or her palm print, so that means she can’t actually access any money.’

‘What does Robert Girvan use Tymar Productions for?’ asked Jack.

‘I don’t know, but it’s highly illegal, because lots of cash flows through the accounts. Tymar Productions is supposedly a film production company. Not a bad idea if you want to launder money. I was always rather amused by the name myself,’ he said, starting to giggle like a schoolchild.

‘Tymar Productions?’ Jack repeated, and shook his head.

‘Oh, and here was me thinking you were meant to be clever! Don’t you see it? TYMAR? Take your money and run.’ Roddie Buchanan continued to giggle at the hilarity of it all.

Jack gave him enough coffee to send him to sleep and I was left with the prospect of seeing Robert Girvan as myself.

He had taken my identity.

He had stolen me from me.

He was a man pretending to be a woman when it suited him, in this mess of confused men and women.

Suddenly, a thought swam into my head as if my dreams had come back in one piece.

The voice behind the camera.

How sure was I that it truly was a woman? Was that why I hadn’t been able to place it?

Was Robert Girvan behind everything?

Chapter Forty-Four

‘It worked then?’ the Alchemist asked.

‘Like a charm,’ I replied, meeting him at court straight after Roddie’s performance. He nodded as if he had known that it would.

He had changed.

Not metaphorically, but literally. His hair had been dyed back to his natural colour and he wore a suit. Not a cheap suit like the ones my punters normally borrowed – it looked expensive and, from the way it hung on his scrawny frame, I would say that it was handmade. His white shirt was not new, that would have been too nouveau riche, but it was spotless and freshly ironed. Of course, he wore his school tie. It was not the same school tie that Tanya and Moira had worn in the video – it was even posher. I was surprised; Moses had not done Bernard’s background justice.

Bernard’s public-school acolytes were not at his side. They had been replaced by his mother. It was obvious that Bernard had been a late baby. Mrs Carpenter came from the same generation as Mary McLennan and, from the look of her, I would say she was just as strict.

On stout flat brown shoes she marched towards me. Thankfully, I was in my suit and the court gown hid any lingering stains that might have remained from breakfast.

‘Miss McLennan – I have to tell you that I was not happy that Bernard instructed someone other than our family solicitor.’ She told me his name. I didn’t recognise it but assured her that he was a fine fellow. She beamed, her choice of lawyers having been vindicated. Because I had agreed with her, she softened.

‘Bernard tells me that you have a fine pedigree in the law and that your father was the Lord President; I’m so sorry for your loss, dear.’

‘My grandad – who is still alive – was the Lord Justice Clerk,’ I told her. Bernard smiled at me, relieved that I knew how to placate the likes of Jemima Carpenter. I didn’t come across such posh, concerned mothers often in my line of work, but I like to think that if Mary McLennan were still alive, then I would know how to walk my own path but still keep her happy. I wouldn’t betray my working-class background, but I’d be able to blend into any environment.

‘Bernard assures me that he is completely innocent,’ said Ma Alchemist, ‘and that the police planted evidence on him. Whilst I find it almost impossible to believe that the police would stoop to such matters, I cannot believe that my Bernard was guilty of entering someone’s home and stealing their jewels.’

The Alchemist blushed.

‘Bernard has been wayward lately; you see, he has been trying to find himself ever since he left university.’

Mrs Carpenter was old enough to think that hippy-speak was still in vogue. I didn’t want to say that Bernard had been wayward for so long he’d had enough time to find himself ten times over. She patted her hair, which had clearly been washed and set yesterday. She was nervous. The diamonds on her left hand almost blinded me and I understood where Bernard had developed his taste in jewellery. He coughed in embarrassment.

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Carpenter. There must have been a stray police officer behind the matter. I have found a witness who has confirmed to my secretary that he found the jewels in a hedge, or rather his dog did.’

‘Did you say dog? Oh, now I have every faith that things will turn out all right. I have found that dogs are generally more reliable than people.’