An answer came back almost immediately.
‘What are you on? Don’t you ever give up? Anyway, well done. See you at St Bernard’s Row at nine am. We’d better let DCI Bell know what we’re up to, so I’ll go to the station first thing. Have a good sleep, Sherlock.’
11
Wednesday, 14th December
Flora Erskine woke and with consciousness came, again, the feeling of dread, a sensation of acute anxiety which she felt would never be allayed, would be with her for always. How simple and easy things had been before David’s murder. Every day must have been accompanied by hope, only she hadn’t recognised, or valued, it at the time, but its absence was unmistakable, making everything that was colourful, colourless, and everything vital, dead. She lowered herself out of bed slowly, feeling as fragile as if she had a hangover. She found her white silk blouse and black jacket and skirt without difficulty, and rummaging in her tights drawers she pulled out holed pair after holed pair before settling on one that had nothing more than a slight gash in the underside of one sole. She’d see to it later. Already the familiar pain behind her eyes had arrived, as if the effort of keeping back the tears was too much for them, the pressure building up inexorably and unbearably. Today was going to be even worse than yesterday. She was scheduled to appear in court, and every appearance was still nerve-racking, an ordeal from start to finish, even when she felt at her most equable.
When she first began devilling she had carefully sketched on a piece of paper the positions she had to adopt at the Bar, standing on the right-hand side for the pursuer and on the left-hand side for the defender. Any mistake and inexperience was apparent, vulnerability exposed. She had tried to master the tortuous terminology used before the Bench, with all its subtleties, euphemisms and codes. So important to prefix things known with ‘As I understand it…’, in order to prepare for the revelation that the supposed fact was, in fact, incorrect. Crucial to remember to ‘be obliged’ to the judge for any assistance rendered by him, or for any order granted or even refused by him, even though in the case of refusal the words had a sarcastic ring. Fundamental always to substitute ‘I regret that I am unable to assist my Lord any further’ for ‘I don’t know’-any admission of ignorance, legitimate or otherwise, being as unprofessional as the wearing of a pink wig. No doubt, one day, she would be able to speak the arcane language effortlessly and expertly and exchange ‘If my Lord is so minded’ and the rest of the flowery nonsense with the best of them, but, just now, the use of such such unnatural and confusing terms required unbroken concentration. She didn’t feel like breakfast. A cup of coffee with four sugars would have to do.
She left the house to walk to work. The sun was out and the wet pavements shone in the bright light like mirrors; all of yesterday’s snow had melted in the overnight rain and the sky was a deep, clear blue. The day could not have been more beautiful. She recognised its magnificence, but felt none of the elation that such beauty normally evoked in her. The interminable inner monologue that she now conducted involuntarily with herself occupied her until she reached Parliament House. Had she told him that she loved him? He could have been in no doubt. Would it have mattered to him anyway? Yes, because it would have mattered to her. She had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she had not been aware of leaving the New Town, climbing the Mound or crossing the busy High Street.
The ladies’ gown room was surprisingly full for a Wednesday morning. At least eight members were searching for their wigs, adjusting their gowns and jostling for a view of the only two mirrors. Mrs Shaw, the gown room assistant, was busily sewing on a missing blouse button and, for once, her CD player was silent. As if to compensate for the loss, she was humming ‘Shall we dance’ in a loud, mechanical drone, her head bent over as her needle and thread worked their way through the white material.
Flora knew that she had been the subject of gossip; she was conscious that her affair with David Pearson had been considered state of the art tittle-tattle, replacing even the fevered speculation about the sexuality of the latest judicial appointment. Maria had told her that the cat was out of the bag after attending her last stable dinner. At the gathering her friend had been quizzed by at least three of their male colleagues, in various states of intoxication, about Flora’s ‘affair’. Each had adopted a different approach; the first, and boldest, had spoken of it as a fact, daring Maria to deny it if it was untrue. The second had inquired, in tones of sympathy, how Flora had become entangled with such a rake, no doubt hoping that Maria would not recognise the assumption, implicit in the question, of the existence of the affair, and would inadvertently confirm it. The third, unmistakably rat-arsed, simply propositioned Maria, suggesting that with ‘Flora and David’ they’d make a fine foursome.
As Flora knew that she had not breathed a word to anyone apart from Maria, upon whom she could rely, David must have been indiscreet, maybe even boastful, and the thought made her cringe as she began to envisage what he might have said, who he might have told. She was as sure as she could be that no one had seen them together in any circumstances other than those which could be satisfactorily explained by work. But her fellow members were observant, fluent in body language and with memories like elephants for any smut doing the rounds. It was not as if she had not been aware of his reputation before they appeared together in the Mair case. That knowledge should have forewarned her, but, in some strange way, it had disarmed her because he had behaved so differently from the stereotypical philanderer she had imagined. She had anticipated arrogance, flirtatiousness and, on refusal, unpleasantness. Instead, he’d seemed diffident, shy even, and had appeared genuinely disappointed when she had turned down his first tentative invitation to dinner.
She walked purposefully to her locker, extracted her white wig from the black and gold box in which it was kept, unhooked her gown from its hanger and then waited patiently for Marianne Edgecombe to finish her toilet in front of the mirror. As usual the woman carefully collected all the unruly strands of red-gold hair from beneath her wig to pin them up, before, as if there was all the time in the world, reapplying, to her already immaculate make-up, more mascara and more lipstick. While she was carelessly hogging the mirror, others attempted to straighten their wigs in the little reflecting glass left. After two minutes Flora gave up waiting for the endless retouching exercise to be completed, and went instead to use the mirrors in the loo. Remembering her holed tights, she searched in the cupboard below the sink for a spare black pair, and on finding an unopened packet she quickly changed into them, disposing of the damaged ones in the wastepaper basket. As she left the loo she checked her wig. It was fine, sitting straight at mid-forehead level and, so far so good, no tears. Yesterday her eyes had been permanently bloodshot, and she had muttered, in response to the few discreet enquiries their state had elicited, something about the itch and irritation caused by her conjunctivitis.
In the library she collected Burn-Murdoch on Interdict, Robinson’s The Law of Interdict and the annotated volume of the Rules of the Court of Session. She then went out to the hall to perch on the fender by the great fireplace, to wait for the tannoy to announce her case and to watch her colleagues striding up and down as they gossiped or discussed their business. Just as her thoughts had involuntarily begun to drift back to David, she heard over the tannoy ‘Court 6. Interim Interdict before Lord Lawford: Agents-Wright, Elgin and Brown.’ She returned to the law room, grabbed her papers and books and ran to the modern courtroom. Disliking an audience, she was pleased to see that only one member of the public was present, a black-haired man who glanced furtively at her as she entered the room and then, as if displeased by what he had seen, immediately turned his head away, crossing his legs and facing the wall.