‘Well?’ her adversary demanded, after almost half a minute. ‘Deal?’

  ‘You’re that unsure of your case?’ she murmured.

  ‘We’re dead certain of our case,’ Benedict insisted, then seemed to hesitate. ‘Look,’ she murmured, ‘I’ll trust you not to repeat this, but Rocco’s had a nudge from the Lord Advocate . . . and I think that he’s had a nudge from the new Lord Justice General. Neither of them want the attention of the world’s media focused on our High Court for any longer than necessary, hence the offer of a plea deal. The court might even go easy on the sentence, maybe six years with parole after three. Will you put it to your client, Alex?’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I’m obliged to put it to my client. I warn you, though, “I didn’t kill her”, which is what he’s saying, sounds pretty unequivocal to me, and three years in the slammer with no career when he gets out might not sound too attractive to an innocent man.’

  ‘It will if he has any sense,’ Benedict retorted.

  ‘Oh yes? There are other parties involved, something that you and the Sol Gen seem to have overlooked: Paco Fonter, the bereaved husband, and Dr Lita Baker, my client’s wife. If Chaz accepts your deal, it means that he’s admitting that he and Annette Bordeaux were having it away, something that he also denies.’

  She paused to let her observation sink in.

  ‘I’ll put it to Chaz,’ she continued, ‘but with no suggestion that he should accept. While I’m doing that you can take my counter-proposal back to the Solicitor General.’

  ‘And what would that be?’ Paula Benedict asked, drily.

  ‘Drop the charges, without proceeding to indictment. Let an innocent man go free rather than sending him to prison. But while you’re chewing that over, I require full disclosure of the Crown case against Mr Baker, so that I can begin to frame a successful defence.’

  Twenty-Three

  ‘It arrived at half past nine,’ Alex told her father, nodding towards a thick envelope on her desk, with the Crown Office crest displayed beside the word ‘Confidential’, and her name and address, handwritten. ‘I had a look through it, and didn’t see any surprises.’

  ‘Then you haven’t looked closely enough,’ he replied. ‘It’s a classic domestic homicide. The evidence says that Chaz Baker is guilty.’

  ‘He says he’s innocent.’

  ‘So fucking what? Correct me if I’m wrong, but . . . they’ve got her on CCTV, going into the apartment, letting herself in with a key. A wee while afterwards, they’ve got him arriving.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

  ‘How did he get in?’

  ‘The door was unlocked.’

  ‘She summoned him with a text.?’

  ‘Again, yes. Pops, stop cross-examining me.’

  ‘A text sent from her phone?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Skinner’s eyes narrowed. ‘And where’s that phone now?’

  ‘I . . .’ She paused, took a quick breath. ‘I assume it was in the penthouse.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t.’

  Alex stared at him, angrily. ‘How do you know that? Have you been talking to the police behind my back? Do you think you’re protecting me from a guilty client?’

  ‘Hey, hey,’ he chuckled, ‘get off your high horse. I haven’t been talking to anybody. They’ve been talking to me. Specifically, Rocco de Matteo, at the behest, he claimed, of his gaffer, my friend Woodrow Butcher, the Lord Advocate. He called me this morning to tell me he was making you an offer, and to ask me to persuade you to accept.’

  ‘He did what!’ she exploded. ‘The bastard! He thinks I can be . . . What did you tell him?’ she demanded.

  ‘I told him that I couldn’t even persuade you to switch from Coco Pops to Corn Flakes when you were six. But I did ask him whether they’d confirmed the origin of the text that Baker received. They have, but it took a while. The victim’s phone wasn’t in the apartment. It was traced, by its signal, to a waste bin in the motorway service area halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. That’s on the route between King Robert Village and the Merrytown training complex.’

  ‘Bugger!’ she growled.

  ‘That’s the bad news. Now would you like the really bad news?’

  ‘Let me take a guess,’ she sighed. ‘Chaz’s fingerprints are on it.’

  ‘Right first time.’

  ‘Oh dear, that is not good.’

  ‘Do you still fancy defending him?’

  ‘Less than I did five minutes ago.’

  ‘Have you put de Matteo’s plea bargain to him?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Last night,’ Alex replied. ‘He turned it down flat, with my encouragement.’

  ‘In the circumstances it seems to me like a bloody good offer. Maybe you should go back to him.’

  ‘I won’t have to go far,’ she said. ‘I’m seeing him for lunch. He’s meeting Rogozin and the Merrytown chief executive this morning, then me, all at his hideaway.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s a cottage on a place in Perthshire, called Black Shield Lodge.’

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ her father gasped. ‘I know that place. It belongs to Cameron McCullough: Sauce Haddock’s girlfriend’s grandfather, the guy the serious organised crime people have been trying to nail for years; your half-brother Ignacio’s new stepfather.’

  ‘I didn’t know that it was his,’ she confessed. ‘But it doesn’t surprise me. I learned yesterday that he’s a minority shareholder in Merrytown.’

  ‘Is he indeed? Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘If you’re still wondering who recommended to Baker’s wife that she call you, you may have your answer.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ she asked.

  ‘I could think of a couple of reasons,’ Skinner answered, ‘but the one that appeals to me most is that he knows how good you are.’

  ‘From what you’ve just told me I’m going to have trouble proving it.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘Pops,’ she said, earnestly, ‘I need your help on this, I really do.’

  ‘It may be that the best way I can help you is by persuading your client to take the plea bargain.’

  Her eyes stayed on him. ‘If it comes to that . . . but before we get there,’ she took the police report from her desk and held it out to him, ‘take this please, and go through it. De Matteo thinks his case is watertight but if anyone can find dampness in it, it’s you. Will you, please?’

  He smiled and reached out a hand. ‘When have I ever said no?’

  Twenty-Four

  ‘Are you sure the media have no idea that you’re here?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Not so far,’ Chaz Baker said. ‘The phone lines at the club went crazy yesterday, after that guy de Matteo, the General Solicitor or whatever the hell you call him, made his announcement, but by that time I was holed up here with Lita and Letitia.’ He glanced around the lavishly equipped dining kitchen; the Venetian blinds were set at a slant, but narrow shafts of sunlight reflected from the polished black marble work surfaces. ‘Not bad, eh? Better than ours at home.’

  ‘And a damn sight better than the remand unit at Saughton,’ his lawyer murmured.

  ‘Yeah,’ he conceded, ‘thanks again for that.’

  He pushed the salad bowl across the table towards her. ‘More?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  He looked at her, frowning. ‘Will the press catch on to this place, d’ you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It depends on how determined they are. The Solicitor General . . . that’s what you call him, by the way . . . did warn them against harassing you in the pre-trial period, but it was a bit of an empty threat.’

  ‘There’s no chance you were followed, is there?’

  ‘No. I did keep an eye in my rear-view just in case, but when I turned into the Lodge driveway there wasn’t another car in sight. Besides, nobody knows I’m representing you yet. As you asked, the football club is referring all press calls to Mr Serra, your agent, and he’s saying nothing . . . assuming he sticks to the instruction we agreed you’d give him. I have to say I’m not happy with that, Chaz. We can trust him, can we?’

  ‘We can only hope,’ Baker admitted. ‘Agreed, Cisco’s stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place in this situation, representing both Paco and me. I swore to him that I’m innocent, and I think he believed me. He said he’d make no decision about whether to carry on with me until he’d spoken to Paco. I haven’t heard from him since.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Paco?’

  ‘Are you kidding? You warned me against trying to contact him, but you didn’t need to. He’s a lovely lad, most of the time, but he’s fearsome if somebody has a go at him on the pitch, as Tank Bridges found out, early doors. If he thinks I killed Annie, and that’s what he’s being told, I don’t want to be in the same county as him, let alone the same room.’

  ‘That’s wise,’ Alex agreed. ‘The police will have told him not to approach you, but who knows how a man might react in his situation.’ She paused. ‘Look, given your agent’s conflict of interests, I think you should let him off the hook, and tell the club to refer the press to my office. I’ll have to break cover sooner or later.’

  Baker showed her a sly grin. ‘That’ll do you a bit of good professionally, won’t it? Get your name in the papers.’

  She pushed her plate away and leaned forward, forearms on the table. ‘Do you think I’ve taken this instruction because it’s high profile?’ she asked, quietly. ‘I don’t need my name in the papers, as you put it. Since I turned to criminal work, I’ve been doing very well, better than I’d hoped. I don’t actually need to be seen going down in flames beside a client who appears, at first sight, to the police and to every other expert who’s looked at the evidence, including my father, the most expert of them all, to be as guilty as fucking sin. Be in no doubt; if the bookies were offering odds on the outcome, that’s the way they’d be leaning.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ he protested. ‘I didn’t mean to rile you. Alex, I’m grateful just to be sitting here having lunch with you, when I could be on a diet of porridge.’ He laid down his fork and looked her in the eye. ‘Do you agree with them?’ he asked quietly. ‘I mean . . . your dad, Christ. Look, if you want to back out, I’ll understand. I’ll find somebody else.’

  ‘I agree with them, Chaz,’ she murmured, ‘that you look guilty. The evidence says you are. But you say you’re not. I’ve had considerable bitter experience of being lied to by men; with that to inform me, I’m inclined to believe you. I’ll stay the course, but be in no doubt, I’m in it for you as much as for me. Okay?’

  He smiled, and reached out a hand; they shook.

  ‘Do you still intend to carry on working?’ she asked.

  ‘I did,’ he replied, ‘but the club’s knocked that on the head. Rogozin suspended me this morning. He was bloody brutal; he’s got no doubt that I did it. Angela Renwick, the CEO, she didn’t say anything but I could see she was relieved to have me off the pitch. Lita too, she’s been stood down. Paco Fonter’s on the injured list, and as club doctor she’d have had to treat him.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s taken Letitia to the seaside. We thought it was best to get her away from here, in case the reptiles did show up.’

  Alex nodded agreement.

  Baker straightened in his chair, flexing his shoulders to relieve tension. ‘Where do we go from here? What do you do?’

  ‘I find an investigator; someone who’ll look at the defence case forensically and help me counter it, piece by piece, so that I can plant that seed of reasonable doubt.’

  ‘Anyone in mind?’

  ‘Oh yes, but I’m not saying.’

  ‘Will he be pricey?’

  She smiled. ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Then what’s stopping you hiring him right now?’

  ‘He has to believe in your innocence as strongly as I do.’

  ‘Does he?’ Baker challenged. ‘Isn’t it just a professional engagement?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘He has to be satisfied that he wouldn’t be getting in the way of justice.’

  ‘Justice is what the jury decides, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not to him.’ She drew a contemplative breath. ‘Chaz,’ she continued, ‘this isn’t just a matter of whether you did it or you didn’t. Since you’re innocent, that means someone’s trying to frame you. In a way that makes it better for us.’

  ‘How, for God’s sake?’

  ‘It means that as well as just trying to counter evidence, we can be proactive, look for an individual who has a reason for fitting you up.’ She paused. ‘But before we go there, I have to ask you about one piece of the Crown case that they didn’t let slip during the interview yesterday. The police didn’t just find that bloodstained training top at the complex. They found Annette’s phone, with solid proof that you had handled it. Of all the bricks in their wall, that’s the one that worries me the most. Help me here, please.’

  He leaned back, closed his eyes, puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled. A frown was carved into his forehead: then, quite suddenly, it vanished.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered, opening his eyes and looking at her. ‘I know. The day Paco left to join up with the Spanish international squad, Annette drove him to Glasgow Airport. On the way back, she called me, and asked me if I was free for lunch. I was. We met in Glasgow, at One Devonshire Gardens. Towards the end, Annie went to the toilet. She left her mobile on the table, and while she was away it rang. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was Sirena, her agent, and at that point Annie was coming back, so I pressed the green button and handed it to her.’

  Alex smiled. ‘Thank you, God, for that: the call will show on the phone record. Did you speak?’

  ‘Yes, I did. When I gave her the thing I said, “It’s for you.” Annie said, “It would be, wouldn’t it, since it’s my phone,” and she laughed.’

  She nodded. ‘So Sirena would know that you had handled the phone?’

  ‘She would,’ Baker agreed, ‘and I see where you’re going, but don’t even think about her as a suspect. Annie was Sirena’s meal ticket. You could say that they made each other, but without Annie, Sirena would be just another hustler. Plus, Annie was a tall, fit woman, and strong, for all she was model thin. Sirena’s mid-forties, five feet and a couple of inches and she smokes like a chimney. No way could she have handled Annie physically.’

  ‘But she might have known someone who could,’ Alex declared. ‘It’s a starting point and at the very least she has to be eliminated as a potential suspect. How do you get on with her?’

  ‘I can’t stand the bloody woman; neither could Paco. She bullies Annie, treats her like shit. From the day she moved to Edinburgh she’s been going on about it being the pits, and how she should get Cisco to move Paco to London, or go herself and leave him here.’

  ‘Then she does need looking at. You have a point though,’ she conceded. ‘She seems to have zero motive.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be diverted by you picking up her call: your prints on the phone may just have been a bonus to whoever set you up. After all, it was dumped; there was no certainty the police would ever find it.’

  ‘That’s most likely. I just don’t buy Sirena for this.’

  ‘Is there anyone you think would like to see you put away for life?’

  Baker grinned. ‘Quite a few of the footballers I’ve coached, I reckon; and then there’s Claude Chaplin, the chairman of FC DuPain. He and I definitely did not get on.’

  ‘Did he ever threaten you?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Oh yes, but only with legal action. Chaplin’s a dry stick. He’s an accountant by training, but he made his money in the telecoms business. He isn’t mega-rich though, like the Arabs who own City, or even just super-rich like Rogozin. I thought he was when I took the job at DuPain. He promised me a fifty million euro transfer budget, but he only ever came up with five. I took his club to sixth in the league even with that, and he used my success as an excuse to renege on his word about the budget. He also welched on a performance bonus that he’d promised me verbally. So I quit.’

  ‘He didn’t like it?’

  ‘Not a bit: he went to court and got a French injunction against me working elsewhere, then he sued me for breach of contract. He even froze my assets . . . or as many as he could get his hands on, which wasn’t actually all that much. It dragged on for almost a year. I was told I had a winning case, but it was nasty, very nasty . . . until Dimitri turned up out of the blue and bought me out of my contract with him. I’ve got to thank Cisco for that; he brokered the deal as part of Paco’s transfer to Merrytown.’

  ‘And Chaplin’s action against you?’

  ‘It was dropped and my assets unfrozen. Chaplin still holds a grudge though. After I left, DuPain went on the skids; they were relegated last season and he blamed me, not the tosser he got in to replace me. He was pretty vocal about it in the French press.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Mmm,’ he mused. ‘I suppose. You never know.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Alex countered. ‘Whoever did this is part of your circle at Merrytown. Do you leave clothes at the club?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure. I always keep a spare suit there and at the training ground, in case I need one in a hurry.’

  ‘And a belt?’

  ‘A couple of those too.’

  ‘Good. That tells us that whoever framed you must have access to the club to get hold of your belt, and then to dump the top in the laundry at the training complex. That narrows it down.’

  ‘Sure,’ Baker retorted, glumly, ‘to more than fifty people: everybody’s in and out of the place, from the chairman to the tea lady.’

  ‘Let’s rule her out, shall we,’ she grinned. ‘This has to be somebody you know, somebody who’s familiar with you and your movements. And it has to be somebody who’s aware of your relationship with Annette, whatever its nature.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘What do you think I mean?’ she snorted. ‘Come clean, Mr Baker: were you and she lovers?’

  ‘Honest to God, no!’ he protested. ‘We were friends, that’s it. We were discreet about it, for obvious reasons, but . . .’