The Fanatic (30 page)

He had a note-pad with him, which he hadn’t yet used during his researches. He hadn’t felt the need: things stayed in his head once he had read them. He tore off a sheet and wrote his address at the top.

Dear Mr MacDonald
,

It is essential I speak to you. I am the man that you helped concerning Major Weir. Nobody else can find the Lauder manuscript
, Ane Secret Book.
Your colleagues here do not seem to know you but you know what I’m talking about. If you receive this please contact me.

Andrew Carlin.

He folded this in half and took it up to the desk. The same young woman was there who had sent him upstairs.

‘Have ye got a wee envelope or somethin?’ he asked her. ‘I need tae leave a note for one of your colleagues.’

‘I can pass it on if you like,’ she said brightly.

‘I don’t think he’s in just now,’ he said. ‘In fact, I know he’s not. It might get lost. If ye had an envelope, it would be better.’

She looked in a drawer, and found a little sheaf of small brown envelopes. ‘Will one of these do?’

‘Perfect,’ he said. He put the note in, sealed the envelope, and wrote
Mr MacDonald
on the front.

‘D’ye ken him?’ he asked, as he handed it over.

‘No, can’t say I do,’ she said. A note of suspicion had crept into her voice. ‘When you were asking earlier, I…’

‘Well, if there’s a place for staff messages or somethin, mebbe you could pit it there? It’s jist he said tae let him know aboot somethin.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll make sure it’s put up on the board. He’ll get it whenever he’s in.’ She laughed. ‘Whoever he is!’

‘Thanks,’ said Carlin.

It was all he could do. He thought briefly of the telephone directories that were kept upstairs in the Reference Room, several storeys above him, beyond street-level. Just thinking of getting there was exhausting. In any case how many pages of MacDonalds would there be? He couldn’t even be sure, now that he thought about it, that it wasn’t Macdonald, McDonald or Mcdonald. Forby the ex-directory ones. His only hope lay in the message.

He went through the swing doors, and began the long haul back up to the street.

She’d been buzzing the door for ages. While she waited in the street she considered the possibilities: he was dead on the bed where she’d left him; he had hanged himself; he’d picked up and gone, just buggered off, with one of those out-of-date guide books in his pocket. This was the third time she’d come by in six days: she was thinking of calling the police. She kept thinking she heard the click of the receiver but when she pushed at the door it was unyielding. She gave up and turned to go.

He was walking along the pavement towards her, in coat and jeans and a big old jumper. He looked even thinner and paler than before, a tattie-bogle in his long flapping coat. She smiled.

‘You’re alive,’ she said.

‘Whit day is it?’ said Carlin.

‘It’s Thursday,’ Jackie said. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve lost track of things,’ he said. ‘Thursday right enough. Election day.’

‘Have you voted?’ she asked, surprised. It seemed a stupid question to be asking in the circumstances. And anyway, would someone like Carlin be bothered about voting?

‘No yet. I was that out of it, I forgot. Whit time is it?’

‘Nearly six,’ she said.

‘Plenty time yet then.’ He got his keys out and opened the door.

‘You’re alive,’ she said again.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I am, amn’t I.’ The way he said it, it was with the usual flatness, but there was humour in it and she wondered if there always had been and she’d just not noticed. ‘But,’ he added as he let her into the stair ahead of him, ‘I have been ill.’

‘I thought you must have been.’

‘How?’

‘I had Hugh Hardie onto me, saying there was no sign of you. He asked me if I could find out where you stayed.’

‘And have ye?’

‘No’ she smiled. ‘Like I said before, not as far as he’s concerned. But I wanted to check for myself, make sure you were all right.’

‘I’m better. I had the flu. Or somethin.’

‘You look pretty worn out.’

‘It takes it oot of ye.’

‘It’s okay me coming in?’

‘Aye.’ He drew level with her going up the stairs. ‘I don’t think I’m infectious.’

‘I’ll chance it,’ she said. ‘Could do with a few days off anyway.’

‘No wi this,’ he said. ‘This was a fuckin nightmare.’

They went into the flat. ‘I’ll pit the kettle on,’ he said. ‘I’ve still nae sugar.’

He turned into the kitchen, while she walked on into the front room. Stopped where she was. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said.

‘Andrew,’ she called, ‘you’ve been done over.’

He came through. She was staring at the state of the place. There were books lying everywhere. One bookcase had been overturned. The television was on its back like a beetle. The mirror above the fire hung at a crazy angle and one of the candlesticks was lying on its side. The bedclothes were halfway across the floor.

‘Na,’ he said, ‘it wasna that.’

‘What’s happened then?’

‘They pit him on trial,’ said Carlin.

‘What?’

‘They finally pit him on trial. James Mitchel. Mind I tellt ye aboot him.’ He indicated the devastation. ‘There was a bit o a riot. Emotions were kinna high.’

‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,’ said Jackie.

‘No,’ said Carlin. ‘Neither ye have.’

She moved a jumble of books off the armchair and sat down in it. ‘Going to help me out then? Give me the lowdown?’

‘Tea?’ he said.

‘Aye. No, wait a minute.’ She stood up. ‘You look done in. I’ll make it.’

He shrugged. ‘Aye, well …’ Then he sat down on the bed. ‘I’m pretty knackert, right enough.’

When she brought the tea back through, he was leaning back, sprawled across the bed, his eyes closed. She put one mug down at his feet and went back to the chair with the other.

‘So,’ she said, ‘are you going to go back? On the tour?’

He opened his eyes. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I’ll go back.’

‘For how long, but?’ she said. ‘Hugh won’t tolerate much more of this on/off stuff.’

Carlin laughed. ‘Fuck him, then.’

In spite of herself she laughed too. After all, she’d never had any intention of telling him where to find Carlin. ‘Fair enough,’ she said.

‘But I’ll no leave him in the lurch,’ Carlin said. ‘I need tae go back wan mair time. Unfinished business.’

‘Who’s this James Mitchel?’ she said. ‘What did he do? What are you on about?’

He sat up and lifted the mug of tea. He began to tell her who James Mitchel was.

Mitchel who was at the centre of everything but central to nothing. Who was like a twig or some other debris caught in a whirlpool. For a moment he was held there and all eyes were on him, to see if he would be thrown to the edge, or sucked down out of sight forever. Carlin had watched, John Lauder had watched, three hundred years and a few yards apart.

Cousin John Eleis was right about one thing: by October 1677, the Duke of Lauderdale was acting to save his political life. The deliberations of the Privy Council were supposed to be secret, but the upper layer of Edinburgh society, with its rivalries and temporary alliances, was about as secret as a sieve: everybody knew that Lauderdale had declared to the Council that all possibility of compromise with the disaffected nonconformists was at an end; more, that he’d claimed there had never been any audience, negotiation, contact, treaty or capitulation between him and the rebels. By November he had arranged for the chiefs of Atholl and elsewhere to bring their wild clansmen down into the west country, to be
quartered on the people there for the winter. The Highland Host came out of the hills and settled like locusts. Lauderdale, it seemed, was determined to break the power of the conventicles in a last effort to shore up his own.

In December Sir George Mackenzie, the King’s Advocate, moved against James Mitchel. He asked the Council to bring him back from the Bass, so that he could pursue him on a charge of assassination, and for invading the persons of His Majesty’s counsellors, lords, officers and ministers. The penalty for these offences was death. He asked for his old rivals Sir George Lockhart and Mr John Eleis to be appointed counsel for the defence. This was done. The Privy Council wanted a show trial, and Mackenzie understood that: it should be clear by the end that Mitchel had had the best lawyers available, and had still been found guilty.

Mitchel was brought off the Bass and held in the Tolbooth. The trial date was set for Monday, 7 January, 1678. That morning John Lauder made sure he had no other business to attend to, and made his way early to the High Court. He had snatched a few brief meetings with Eleis and knew that the trial was shaping up to be a spectacular exhibition of legal and political swordplay. Mackenzie was taking a risk in asking for Lockhart as his opponent but he could not resist the opportunity to rub his neb in the sharn. Forby that he did not believe he could lose. The jury would be packed: army officers and burgesses loyal to the Crown would make up its fifteen. He had Mitchel’s confession to the assassination attempt. And he had gathered new evidence from other sources, which would be more than enough, he thought, to convince the already sympathetic jurors.

But Lockhart and Eleis had called Mackenzie’s bluff. They would argue against the confession being valid, but failing that they would argue that it carried with it the promise of life, and as witnesses to this they had summoned three of the men who had been present at the confession and signed it – Lord Rothes, Lord Haltoun, and Sir Archibald Primrose. In addition they had summoned none other than the Duke of Lauderdale and the Archbishop of St Andrews, since they had authorised the terms of the confession in the Privy Council. In effect they were obliging the most powerful men
in the land to come to court and tell the truth, or let a single, half-dead rebel be crushed under the weight of their bad consciences.

There was always a throng in the Parliament Close on court days, but when Lauder arrived he could hardly force his way through the crowd. Mitchel, until recently forgotten by almost everybody, was suddenly a celebrity. Lauder managed to squeeze to the front, hoping to catch the eye of one of the court officers and gain entry ahead of the rabble. Just as he was beginning to fear that he had left it too late he saw a small procession of dignitaries slipping through a side-door, his father-in-law among them. He dived after them. A worried-looking official guarding the entrance recognised him, signalled him over, and let him inside. Sir Andrew Ramsay turned as the door slammed shut, and saw Lauder catching his breath.

‘John, John. I micht hae guessed ye’d be here. Come tae see yer ain chosen fanatic receive his just deserts, eh? And yer fellow advocates humbled by the King’s prosecutor. Weill, ye’ll hae a guid view wi us. Come alang, come alang. D’ye ken the bailies? Aye, of coorse ye dae. And Maister Hickes?’

A slight, purse-lipped man in clerical dress made a half-bow, which Lauder returned. Hickes was the Duke of Lauderdale’s chaplain, a detestable scribbling Englishman who made no secret of his hatred of all things Scottish. Lauder groaned within himself. He had hoped to avoid his father-in-law, who would be bound to ruin his attention to the legal details of the case by crass interventions and asides, but he was prepared to abide him in return for a good seat. To be in the same party as the sneevilling Hickes, however, was intolerable. Sir Andrew must loathe him, but perhaps saw him as a useful conduit to Lauderdale if the latter should retain his position as Secretary of State.

The bench was being prepared for the judges. Below it, a huge table was spread about with various papers. At one end of this sat Mackenzie, the King’s Advocate, running over details with an assistant. At the other end Lockhart and Eleis were doing the same. None of them looked up as the party took their seats. Some of the other places in the public gallery were already occupied, but Lauder knew that when the main
doors were opened the place would be filled to capacity.

He was relieved to find himself at the end of a row, and some distance from Hickes. But Sir Andrew was next to him, his excessive size already squeezing Lauder right to the edge. The Ramsay wig had been freshly preened for the occasion, and smelt of perfume. The Ramsay breath was thick with drink.

‘Noo, John, we’ll be in a position tae gie each ither the benefits o oor different experiences, will we no? Ma erse was on the bench, and you hae had yours at thon muckle table where yer fanatic’s proctors are tryin tae conjure a wey tae save him. So we’ll keep each ither richt, eh?’

‘Nae doot, my lord,’ Lauder murmured. He was looking around, nodding acquaintance at the many other lawyers who had come to watch the spectacle.

‘For example,’ Sir Andrew went on, belching a soft, wine-rich breeze across his son-in-law’s face, ‘explain tae me this. Sir Erchie Primrose is cited as a witness by the defence, is he no? But he’s also Lord Carringtoun, Lord Justice General, and hence should preside frae the bench. He canna be baith witness and judge in the same case, can he?’

‘No, ye’re richt, he canna. But there will be five ither justices. Either he’ll step doon, or the counsels will agree no tae call him as a witness. The latter, I would think. The defence has ither equally impressive witnesses.’

‘Aye, they hae that, the impident divils. But it’s a kittle business for Mackenzie, tae ken whether Primrose is mair danger as a witness or a judge, eh? He’ll mak trouble either wey.’

Primrose, a staunch Royalist who had fought with Montrose against the Covenanters, had little reason to love James Mitchel. But he had recently been removed by Lauderdale as Lord Clerk Register, a post which he had held since the Restoration, and from which a lucrative income could be made as it controlled the registration of all property transactions in Scotland. He had been appointed Lord Justice General as a sop, but who would prefer prestige to a steady flow of bribes and percentages? Worse, it was Lauderdale’s queenly wife who had got him shifted, and it was certain she had not done it to expunge corruption. The post was still vacant but in these days when everyone of a certain
rank was, had been or hoped to be a judge, privy counsellor or government official, when position and title were valued only because with them came the power to blackmail, fine, tax or otherwise extort and make yourself a fortune, it would not be long before it was filled. Primrose’s new job was more arduous and less remunerative than his old one and he was furious about it. Sir Andrew’s point was, Lauder acknowledged, a good one.

Sir Andrew, meanwhile, had swung his belly round and was expressing loudly a mixture of wind and opinion in the opposite direction. ‘And as if his grace St Andrews and my lord Lauderdale didna hae enough on their plates athoot haein tae come here and swat this wretched flea Mitchell It’s an outrage, is it no, Maister Hickes?’

Before Hickes could reply the court rose as the Lords of Justiciary, bewigged and in their red robes faced with white, entered and took their seats on the bench. Primrose, ermine-draped, was at their head, preceded by the mace-bearer. Sir Andrew dunted Lauder in the ribs.

‘D’ye ken aw thae venerable justices?’ he asked.

‘Aye, of coorse.’

‘So ye ken him at the end there?’

‘It’s Sir Thomas Murray of Glendoick,’ said Lauder shortly, wishing his father-in-law would shut up.

‘And ye ken whae’s cousin he is?’ Sir Andrew was almost slavering, a sign, Lauder now recognised, that he was about to impart some scandalous or at least succulent information.

‘Murray?’ said Lauder, suddenly interested. ‘Wi that name he’ll be related tae maist o Perthshire.’

‘Aye, but the particular connection I mean is tae Lady Lauderdale. He’s
her
cousin. Nae wunner Primrose canna bear tae look at him.
He’s
tae be the new Lord Register. For a share o the profits tae her ladyship, naturally.’

At that moment the court officers opened the doors and the crowd stumbled and clattered in. As soon as the place was full two soldiers brought the prisoner Mitchel in from another entrance, and seated him at the bar. Lauder looked along the row and saw Hickes writing in a pocket-book, probably a note about the undignified Scots way of doing things, the absence of due pomp and ceremony. Still digesting Sir
Andrew’s titbit, Lauder turned his attention back to Mitchel.