Killer Contract (Best Defence series Book 4) Read online

  I didn't know who Zack was, but you didn't need to own a smart phone or tablet to know that Larry Kirkslap was CEO of P45 Apps Ltd, a controversial games company that had taken the mobile world by storm. Kirkslap had been a male model in his teens and early twenties. He’d modelled designer wear, advertised male-fragrances, even had a nearly-hit single, and then the eighties came along; he’d been forced to find real jobs. Kirkslap had used his undoubted charms to sell high performance cars, double-glazing, insurance, toiletries, machine parts, vacuum cleaners, the list went on and on, the quality of product, along with his public profile, down and down. Then came 2008; the credit-crunch. For the first time in forty years Larry found himself unemployed.

  ‘So he invented the P45 games suite,’ Andy said.

  Unlike millions of others, I was yet to become addicted to the P45 craze. Put simply, which wasn't hard to do, they were a series of basic parlour games, no doubt dredged up from Kirkslap's childhood, adapted for mobile equipment and used to play friends or random individuals for money; the loser paying via extra charges on his or her phone bill. It was basic, puerile and highly addictive. A good player could end up in credit and run his phone for free or upgrade to better equipment. Some made fortunes. Others lost fortunes. The players decided the stakes in advance and from each game P45 took a cut. Kirkslap’s company also received commission from the mobile phone companies who benefitted from the extra phone usage.

  ‘He invented a multi-million pound series of apps just like that?’

  ‘More or less.’ Andy enlightened me further. ‘The games were Larry's idea, his business partner, Zack Swarovski, was the software engineer who redesigned them. The beauty of the games is that they cost very little to play, but are played by a great many people. And it's not like pitting your wits and life-savings against a computer programme pretending to be another on-line poker player. You are playing against actual people and the games are ones everybody can play. Your granny has as much chance of winning as you have. They're cheap, cheerful and fun.’

  It sounded too easy to me. Why hadn't somebody else done it? Gambling on kids’ games could hardly be copyrightable. Then again, what I didn't know about intellectual property rights you could have written on the back of a cinema screen.

  ‘P45's success is mainly down to Zack's designs, but also partly due to Mike Summers.’

  ‘Mike's the guy we're meeting?’

  ‘Yeah, he's the company secretary. He was an assistant with the law firm that Larry and Zack first consulted. Now he works for P45 full-time, handling all the company's legal issues. I'd hate to think what they're paying him, but whatever it is, it's got to be worth it. Mike not only carried out the incorporation of P45, he established the intellectual property rights and negotiated tie-ins with the mobile phone companies and, most recently, a lot of major social networking sites. Once the big guns were on-board, things took off globally. At the last count, the company had twenty million customers, here and in the States. Once it rolls out in the Far-East, who knows where it will go? Zack heads a team of app-designers working on add-ons and updates round the clock. With Larry fronting the show and Zack the IT brains, it's a great team.’

  The platform trembled as the three o’clock pulled into Gleann Iucha.

  ‘This Mike, you say all he's looking for today is some advice as to whether there will be a re-trial?’

  Andy nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ve already told him the Crown will at least try to have the case re-raised and he wants to know what's going to be involved: costs, timescales, etcetera. I know and you know that a Crown appeal could run on for longer than the trial did.’

  ‘If there is an appeal.’

  ‘Why wouldn't there be? My big worry is how Mike is going to take the news that I'm no longer with Caldwell & Craig.’

  ‘So long as he knows you're the reason his boss is walking around in a three-piece suit and not stripy pyjamas.’

  ‘He knows all right. He also knows that I lost the case and that Larry's liberty is all down to a stroke of good fortune. He's not daft and he’s only giving us half an hour. We need to treat this as an audition.’

  The train slowed to a halt, doors opened and passengers alighted, pushing by us until there was only one man left standing on the platform. Mid to late forties, I guessed, he was tall, muscular and carrying an iPad in a black leather case.

  ‘Mike. Good to see you again,’ Andy said as we approached. ‘This is Mr Munro, I mentioned him to you on the phone.’

  ‘Robbie,’ I put out a hand.

  Mike hesitated. Peered at me. ‘Robbie Munro?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. It was my turn to be hesitant.

  ‘It's me, Mike.’

  He who was known as Mike, grabbed my hand and shook it violently. He pressed the iPad case to his chest. ‘Mike, Mike Summers. Okay, I've lost some hair, put on a few pounds, but...’ he patted my stomach and laughed, ‘I see you've been eating well yourself.’

  I almost laughed too.

  ‘We were at Uni together,’ Mike said.

  I really wanted to remember him.

  ‘We were in the same conveyancing tutorial class for the Diploma.’

  I cast my mind back fifteen or so years. For me, the required attendance at conveyancing tutorials had tended to be more of a theoretical proposition than a practical outcome.

  ‘I used to give you my notes,’ he added, although I was still coming to grips with the we were at Uni together part. If that was correct, then this Mike guy had to have been a mature student, because he had to be ten years older than me. His beaming smile began to dim and I sensed Andy's laser-like stare boring into the side of my head. The audition wasn't going too well, and we hadn’t passed the introductions stage yet. I reassembled my facial features to suggest slow-dawning recognition.

  ‘And you used to complain about my handwriting,’ he said, encouraging my thought process. ‘I think you still have one of my conveyancing folders. You borrowed it for the re-sit.’

  I'd always thought there was something slightly creepy about mature students. Maybe creepy wasn't the right word, but there was something unfair about them competing for qualifications with a bunch of teenagers let loose from home for the first time, and for whom studies were the least important aspect of their University life. Still, the old guys always took the best lecture notes, and I did vaguely recall a red ring-binder of conveyancing materials that I had memorised, regurgitated and spent the rest of my legal career trying to forget.

  ‘Mike!’ I said, having given up on remembering who he was. ‘Great to see you.’ We shook hands again. He had a firm grip. ‘I'll not ask how's business.’ I rubbed the lapel of his suit between a thumb and forefinger.

  He shrugged modestly. ‘I've just been reading about your smoking jury case.’

  I was unaware that my victory had made any of the newspapers given the coverage the collapse of Larry Kirkslap's trial had received. ‘It was nothing,’ I said, truthfully, whilst failing to sound modest.

  He opened the leather case, and with a few swishes of his fingers brought up an article on his iPad, using the METRO app. Who needed an electronic device to read a free newspaper?

  ‘Trust you.’ Mike held the iPad, facing me. No Smoke Without Trial, was the rather confusing headline, but at least I’d received a decent name-check. ‘Still up to all the dodges, eh? Just like Andy, here.’

  ‘To know the dodges, you have to know the law,’ Andy piped up. ‘I've joined Robbie at Munro & Co. As you can see, Robbie and I know what's required to secure an acquittal even when things look hopeless.’

  Mike closed his iPad, looked at his chunky wristwatch. ‘I'm afraid I've not got much time. I'm meeting Larry in Glasgow in an hour. He's taken a suite at Carnbooth House. I'll have to leap on the next train that comes in.’

  That gave us about twenty minutes.

  ‘No time to go to our offices, then,’ Andy said, sounding relieved.

  ‘No, let's walk and talk.’ Mike marched off towards the sta
irs leading to ground level, and we hurried after him down Station Brae to the High Street, taking a right turn past the Star & Garter Inn, built 1759, gutted by fire 2010, restored 2013. The pavement was narrow. Andy manoeuvred himself so that he was side by side with Mike, while I tagged along at the rear. ‘As you know, the reason I’m here is to ask if you think there will be a retrial.’

  Andy shook his head. ‘Difficult to say. What is certain is that the Crown won't just let it go. They're bound to lodge a bill of advocation. We'll have to lodge a challenge, instruct a top appeal Q.C.—’

  ‘But would such a challenge be successful?’ I detected a note of impatience in Mike's voice. ‘If not, I don't see the point in dragging things out and racking up lots of legal costs.’

  I wasn't sure if Kirkslap would necessarily view things the same way. Dragging things out might seem like a great idea to him. Certainly the racking up of legal fees part appealed to me, but Munro & Co. had yet to be given the nod.

  ‘What about you, Robbie? Do you think the Crown would win an appeal?’ Mike broke his stride, letting Andy walk on and leaving me shoulder to shoulder with my old University chum.

  ‘The Crown doesn't need to appeal. Kirkslap wasn't acquitted. The trial judge had to reject the guilty verdict, but the case was deserted pro loco et tempore, not simpliciter. The Crown will regroup and slap a new indictment on him any day now. That's what I think.’

  Andy looked slightly miffed when my opinion did not concur with his own.

  ‘Will the Crown be allowed another bite at the cherry?’ Mike asked.

  By this time we had reached the traffic lights at the railway bridge. ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘The problem with the trial wasn't the fault of the prosecution. The Crown prosecutes in the public interest, and it's hardly in the interest of the public for a murderer to go free just because fifteen jurors weren't made to promise to do their jobs properly.’

  ‘Can't we argue double-jeopardy?’ Mike asked. ‘Say that Larry's tholed his assize?’

  Unlike my conveyancing knowledge, years of intellectual property rights law had obviously not completely erased my old Uni-chum's memory of criminal procedure, but, unfortunately, that's what Scottish criminal procedure was now: a memory. Once upon a time, due process was jealously guarded by the judiciary. A prosecution had to be done properly or the accused got the benefit. Those days were long gone. Section 300A of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 allowed the remedy of just about any procedural irregularity. You could have powered Parliament House if only there had been some way to rig up an electrical turbine to the judges of yesteryear who were spinning in their graves.

  ‘Does that go for your smoking jury client too?’ Mike asked.

  I didn't think the Crown would bother to appeal that. Deek Pudney had only beat up a cop. He hadn't killed a young woman and dumped her body in the woods.

  Our small party proceeded on its circular route, under the railway bridge, up the hill and into the car park at the rear of the railway station. We talked some more until the train was due, Andy and I trying to sell Munro & Co., Mike holding his cards as close as the leather encased iPad he kept clamped to his chest.

  ‘Do you two actually think you could handle a retrial?’ Mike said, when we were back on the Glasgow bound platform again.

  ‘Definitely,’ Andy said.

  The rails began to hum as the three–thirty rolled into town.

  ‘Without the experience, support and resources of Caldwell and Craig behind you?’

  I had a feeling the case was slipping away, and that our sales pitch had been a waste of time. ‘We both used to work at Caldwell & Craig. When it comes to crime,’ I jerked a thumb at Andy and them myself, ‘we are the experience of Caldwell & Craig. We have an ex-PF providing support and Larry Kirkslap's financial resources are all the resources that we're going to need. This time around we'll know exactly what the Crown case will be. We can study the first trial, discover where the Crown landed its biggest hits and dodge them in the re-match.’

  ‘And the result?’

  The train slowed to a halt.

  ‘Who can tell? It sounds like it was a strong Crown case, but with me, Andy and—’

  ‘Robbie, it's been great seeing you again. Andy, thanks for everything.’ Mike shook hands with each of us in turn. ‘No disrespect.’ He looked around the small railway station, mid-way between Scotland's two main cities, where only every second train felt the need to stop. ‘But I think Larry's interests would be best served by a larger legal outfit handling the case.’ The train doors parted. Mike stepped between them and onto the train. With a farewell wave of his iPad he was gone.

  ‘That's that then,’ Andy said, as we trudged back down the stairs from the station.

  And it very nearly was.

  I'd given my dad a loan of my phone on Monday evening and he hadn't given it back to me yet. Andy let me borrow his. I punched in 141, then the number.

  ‘And do you know who has stolen your iPad, Sheriff?’ asked the British Transport Police receptionist at Queen Street Station, once the main switchboard had patched me through.

  ‘Robbie, stop it,’ Andy hissed in my ear. ‘You're going to get us both the jail.’

  My finest Albert Brechin impersonation didn't provide a name, just an highly accurate description of Mike Summers.

  ‘He's on the three-thirty from Linlithgow,’ I said, trying to keep Andy from yanking his phone out of my hand. ‘If you hold onto him, I can be there inside an hour to identify my property.’

  ‘Robbie!’ Andy realised that the ticket-seller was giving us funny looks. He pulled me outside. ‘I’m having no part of this. A false report to the police—’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘to buy us some time. Do you want this case or not?’

  ‘Not if it means breaking the law.’

  ‘Not breaking—’

  ‘Wasting the time of the police, malicious mischief, attempting to pervert—’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I said cutting short the list of crimes before we got to high treason, ‘we’re bending it a little, but all in the interests of justice.’ Had the boy learned nothing during his time with me?

  ‘This is not about what’s in the interests of justice. This is about what’s in the interests of Robbie Munro.’

  I'd always had difficulty distinguishing between the two, but now was not the time for a jurisprudential discussion. ‘Are you coming or not? We’ll need to run. My car is parked back at the office.’

  I had trotted a few paces before noticing that Andy was still at the entrance door to the station. I jogged back.

  ‘It’s no good, Robbie,’ he said. ‘I should have known it would be like this. I can’t work this way. Let Kirkslap go where he wants. He’s stuffed anyway. Someone else can get him a life sentence. At least I’ll be known as the lawyer who got him off.’ He glanced up at the timetable on the wall. ‘Thanks for the job offer, but I’m hot property just now. I think I’ll catch the next train back to Glasgow and see if anyone is hiring.’ He laughed. ‘Before I start to cool down.’ He stuck out a hand. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Robbie, but it’s for the best. You know that. I’ve got my career to think about, and it’s just not going to happen here. Say bye to Grace-Mary for me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll catch up with you and Joanna in court one of these days.’

  I didn’t know what to say. We shook hands. Andy re-entered the foyer and set off for the west bound platform.

  As soon as he was out of sight, I was off and running.

  Chapter 14

  Ask any respectable, law-abiding Sat Nav and it would tell you that, thanks to the new-improved M74, the journey time from Linlithgow to Carmunnock was around forty-five minutes. And it probably was, if your assistant could work the Sat Nav app on her shiny new mobile phone, and you were not relying on a vague notion of where you were going and the Robbie Munro unerring sense of direction.

  ‘You’re not Andy,’ Larry Kirkslap said, when, the eagle having eventually landed, h
e met Joanna and me in the opulent lobby of Carnbooth House Hotel. ‘I was told my lawyer was here.’ Kirkslap pointed a thick finger in my face. ‘If you’re from the Sun, I’m going to—’

  ‘We're your new lawyers,’ Joanna said.

  Kirkslap lowered his hand, checked a chunky gold wristwatch. ‘Are you with Mike?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘I’m Robbie Munro, and this is my colleague, Miss Jordan.’

  I'd seen Larry Kirkslap on the telly many times; most recently during his month long trial. There was usually a video-clip on the news of him entering or leaving the High Court. I'd formed the impression that he was a great big tall man. He wasn’t. He couldn't have been over five foot six in height, and yet his presence, call it charisma, was, like his bulk, immense. He shook my hand, took Joanna’s and kissed it.

  Once my assistant had extracted herself from his grip, Kirkslap swept a quiff of hair back across his head. Hair that was thick, expensively styled and... well, kind of orange. Kind of, because it wasn't a colour with which I or, I felt certain, Mother Nature was entirely familiar.

  He must have noticed our stares. ‘Don't,’ he laughed. ‘Supposed to be Autumn Hue, more like Iron Brew, eh?’

  Kirkslap looped a long arm around Joanna’s shoulders and led her, me following, from the lobby and into the cocktail bar. Short, stocky, plenty of orange hair: if they ever remade the stage musical of Disney's Jungle Book, the man was a shoo-in for the roll of King Louie. I liked him. I also liked his taste in women, for reclining on a huge cream settee in front of the magnificent fireplace, was an extremely attractive auburn-haired young lady, patiently awaiting Kirkslap's return with only a chilled bottle of Veuve Cliquot and a bowl of strawberries to keep her company.

  ‘Now I don't want you looking at me,’ Kirkslap said, and still on the subject of his hair, ‘and thinking that I'm some sort of queer. There's a lot of them about these days. Brokeback Mountain. Put me right off Westerns that did.’ The man was a walking breach of the peace. He put on a fake American accent. ‘If I end up with a sore ass I want it to be from my hand-tooled, sliver-trimmed Mexican saddle and not from some sexually confused cowboy.’