I needed to change the subject.
‘And what are you doing in the office anyway – two days before you get married and just before Christmas?’
‘Unlike you, my presents were all wrapped before the start of November, and in case you hadn’t noticed …’ She waved her arm around. Lavender’s wedding had taken over the offices of Lothian and St Clair – the filing cabinets bursting with contact details for florists, dressmakers and limousines and the million other seemingly vital bits of the bridezilla armoury.
‘There’s something more happening up at the Castle Rock.’
Lavender pressed her nose to the glass.
‘Did you ever doubt it?’ Lavender asked, as her voice started to crack. ‘Another victim of the Ripper?’
‘No, no – it doesn’t have to be. Absolutely not,’ I said, too hastily. She was getting married in the castle and I didn’t want anything to spoil her day. Not even my feud with Joe. ‘It’s probably a suicide: single people get very lonely at this time of year.’
‘Speaking from personal experience?’ she quipped.
I turned my head, not willing to let her see just how close she was to the truth on both counts.
Lothian and St Clair W.S. Saturday 22 December, 8.30 a.m.
‘Do you have a death wish, girl?’
Lord MacGregor shook his head in disgust and threw the weekend paper down on my desk. A silver foil container tipped over, scattering cold chicken and fried rice everywhere.
‘That,’ he continued, pointing to the offending article, ‘is professional suicide.’
Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I refused to turn round. I knew what my grandfather was referring to, and I didn’t want to face his anger. Maybe it had been a foolish move on my part; even he’d acknowledged I’d been keeping my nose clean and avoiding trouble until now. Plus I hated disappointing him, which was something I seemed to have a knack for.
‘What do you think about this?’ He picked up the article again, and threw it down in front of Lavender. She clapped her hands sarcastically.
‘Very dramatic,’ she said. ‘Maybe that’s where Brodie gets her antics from.’ Looking directly into his eyes she added: ‘They do say the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.’
Using her hand she cleared away the debris of my last night’s meal and threw it in the bin.
‘Seriously,’ said Lord MacGregor, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘Seriously, you’re a well-matched pair of drama queens!’ Lavender snorted and sat down in my seat, opening the offending article out in front of her.
Lawyer Could Force Judges to Declare They Are Masons
‘So you asked a judge if he was a Mason.’ Lavender rattled the newspaper noisily before placing it down on the desk again. ‘I hate to say it … but His Lordship has a point.’
Lavender had been told by my Grandad to call him by his Christian name, but she refused. He was now known to everyone in the office as His Lordship. Initially, it was her way of getting at him, but now they were allies. He had won her over and he was giving her away when she married Eddie on Christmas Eve.
I kept my back firmly to them; I wasn’t turning round to face their torrent of abuse, especially now I had admitted to myself they were right. The case had called six weeks ago in Edinburgh Sheriff Court, but we were still waiting for the judgement to be issued. Anyway, the action on the Castle Rock was revving up, and the rubber-neckers were gathering at the barricade.
‘We discussed this.’ Lavender inserted her face directly in front of me. ‘Are you stupid? It’s not just your livelihood on the line.’ I could feel her hot breath on my neck. She grabbed my shoulder, and pulled me round to face her; I didn’t feel it was a particularly good time to suggest she should perhaps be a little calmer on her wedding day. The consequences of my actions to Scots law were immense. If I was right, the decisions of every judge who was a Mason could be called into question if any party to the case was also a member of the Masonic Lodge.
It all boiled down to the fact that judges are supposed to be impartial, whereas Masons, by their oaths, have sworn to favour their brethren. If the ruling in this case was in my favour, the Edinburgh bar would be eating out of my hand, all bets were off, and lawyers could appeal a decision they didn’t like. Their fees would increase, and it would be new Mercedes all round. Of course, if it went against me – which, let’s face it, was likely – then the judges would really put the boot in. Lav was afraid that fees would go down but Grandad was pissed because he had ambitions for me to be a judge – and I’d just made that even more unlikely.
Lord MacGregor nodded approvingly at Lav, just wishing he’d had the courage to be so forceful – but my grandfather was too afraid of losing me; our relationship was too new and tentative for him to risk such behaviour.
My grandfather.
We had been reunited for just over two years. Weird is not the word for us lot – we make the Addams family look like the Waltons. Lord MacGregor, Grandfather to me and a retired High Court judge to everyone else, had rescued my birth mother Kailash from his son’s clutches. He continued to support her, even after she was charged with the murder of his only child. And if that isn’t Jerry Springer enough for you, my mother’s a dominatrix: a high-class one, very wealthy, but a dominatrix nonetheless. These are the family members who have the temerity to be annoyed when I make questionable decisions …
I kept up a wall of silence. It was the advice I would give to my clients. Say nothing – you can only hang yourself with your tongue. Lavender was persistent.
‘What planet were you on?’ she asked, poking me in the back with her finger.
‘When is it ever a good idea to ask a policeman if he’s a Mason?’ she continued.
I shrugged noncommittally.
‘Then you have to take it one step beyond the bounds of good taste …’
Lavender rolled her eyes and half turned to face Grandad.
‘… and suggest the judge cannot be impartial because he, like the police, is also a Mason!’
This conversation was embarrassing. I had been posturing in court like a little bantam hen and now that the heat of the battle was over I had to agree with them. It’s all well and good to have nice legal points, but it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. I stepped out of range of her finger, and turned to face them.
I caught sight of myself in the wall-sized mirror that Grandad had installed so I could practise my jury speeches. Sticking my left hand on my hip, I walked forward, looking more like one of Kailash’s girls on a very rough day than a lawyer.
‘Consider the well-known penalties of the Entered Apprentice who vows to keep Masonic secrets under penalty of having his throat cut, or his tongue torn out and buried in the rough sands of the sea.’ I coughed for dramatic effect and held their eyes, just as Grandad had taught me. I could see he was impressed.
Lavender laughed in my face. ‘What a pile of crap,’ she said. ‘You know that’s just for effect – them and you – trying to make folk think that they’re all mysterious. It’s rubbish, Brodie – but it’s rubbish that you shouldn’t mess with, given how many top people seem