She stepped up behind him as he tossed beansprouts, sliced peppers, mushrooms, and fish, in the hot oil, stirring the wok intensely all the while. He jumped, involuntarily, as she squeezed his buttocks.
‘Careful,’ he warned her. ‘This is delicate work.’
‘So is this,’ she chuckled. ‘But I’m glad you can still speak. I was beginning to think that you’d been struck dumb. Come on, out with it, my man. What’s bothering you?’
He shrugged his shoulders as she slipped her arms, carefully, around his waist. ‘Nothing new,’ he muttered, still watching his stir-fry intently. ‘The same thing that’s been bugging me for a while.’
‘Ahh,’ said Alex, knowingly. ‘Your hold-up men! The Hole in the Wall Gang.’
He shook his head as he lifted the wok from the hob and began to spoon the contents into two white bowls. ‘Not the Hole in the Wall Gang,’ he grunted, ‘in any way. Everybody knew who they were. Old Butch and Sundance were famous in their own time, long before the movie.
‘I haven’t a bloody clue who these guys are. . save the one we nicked through his own stupidity. That’s failure, in my book, and it’s down to me.’
Alex frowned as she picked up her dish and an uncorked bottle of white wine in a cooler, and carried them through to the dinner table. ‘Andy,’ she retorted, at last. ‘You’re getting to be as bad as my dad, for taking everything on yourself.
‘You’re the head of a team, not a one-man army.’
Andy laughed, ironically, as he poured the wine. ‘Hah! You say that. Yet who gets it in the neck every time Rangers are blown out of Europe? The manager, that’s who. Not the players. When he gets back from Spain, your old man isn’t going to fire the awkward questions at Brian, or big Neil or anyone else. He’s going to come straight to me.’
She looked at him as she despatched a forkful of supper. ‘Are you sure that you’re not seeing a conspiracy when there is none? Couldn’t these robberies just be a hat-trick of one-off crimes? You’re not getting a bit paranoid, old chap, are you?’
‘Of course I am. .’ he retorted, sharply. ‘I’m a copper. But you know what they say, my love. Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean that the bastards aren’t out to get you. These raids are connected, all right, but we don’t have a clue who’s making the connections.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘Turn the screw, sweetheart. Just as hard as I can. I’ve called the troops in tomorrow for some motivation.’
‘Just like a good manager.’
‘Sure,’ he acknowledged. ‘And I might just prove it by chucking a few teacups!’
He sipped his wine, and turned his attention to dinner. ‘That’s enough of my day. What about yours?’
She shrugged, tossing her mass of dark curls. ‘I spent most of it up in the Court of Session with Mitch Laidlaw.’
‘Still the senior partner’s pet trainee lawyer, eh. D’you take him in an apple every day?’
Alex snorted, her big, round eyes flashing him a meaningful look. ‘Don’t push your luck, or your apples’ll be in jeopardy,’ she responded evenly. ‘In fact I was assisting Mr Laidlaw in a very important civil case. We’re acting for a law firm that’s been accused of negligence by a disgruntled client. To be absolutely accurate, we’ve been instructed by the professional indemnity insurers, but it’s almost the same thing.’
‘What’s it about?’
She looked at him, pleased by his genuine interest. ‘It’s quite interesting really,’ she began. ‘The pursuer was a hotelier. He owned a place called Merryston House, just outside Lauder, but he’s bust now. That’s why the action began. It centres around an extension he wanted to build, to allow him to open a new supper bar. He was given firm advice by his solicitor, a bloke called Adrian Jones, that there were no grounds for objection. The client’s interpretation of that was that there was no need for planning permission.’
Andy looked at her in surprise. ‘That’s a bit of an assumption, isn’t it?’
She hesitated. ‘Yes. . but Jones’ letter was pretty poorly drafted, and it did say that full planning permission might not be required in cases where an extension was less than a certain percentage of the total area of the property. Also, the hotel was a big baronial place, in its own grounds, with no near neighbours.
‘On the strength of the solicitor’s letter, the hotelier. . his name’s Bernard Grimley, by the way. . went ahead and got a builder pal of his to knock the thing up for him, cheap and cheerful. He’d been open for two days when the local authority came along to see him. It turned out that one of his first customers had written to them complaining.
‘Not to put too fine a point on it, the faeces hit the fan for poor Mr Grimley, and consequently, for Green Symonds, of South Queensferry, Adrian Jones’ firm. As well as giving him dodgy planning advice, it turned out that they had neglected to point out that the hotel was a listed building, noteworthy for a particular type of architecture.
‘Enter Historic Scotland, the Secretary of State’s guardians of our heritage, raising objections. Grimley tried for planning consent retrospectively, but he was stuffed. The Secretary of State called in the application, and ruled almost at once. He was ordered to take down the extension and restore the building to its original condition. .’
Alex paused, for breath and for wine. ‘That was it for the man. His business was pretty marginal, at best, and the abortive costs finished him. He couldn’t even afford the reconstruction work. In the end, the hotel was sold and turned into a nursing home, and he went back to his original trade as a metal finisher.
‘To cap it all, his wife left him last year and went to live with one of the council planning officers. He’s on his own now, in a rented house near Humbie.’
Andy shrugged. ‘So how come the case wound up in the Court of Session? Sounds to me that your insurer’s solicitor client is on pretty shaky ground.’
‘Very,’ she agreed immediately. ‘In fact we admitted negligence ages ago. The problem is the quantum, the amount of damages. The insurance company started off with an offer of seven hundred thousand. Bernard Grimley wants five million.’
‘Eh? Why are they so far apart?’
‘It’s a matter of wishful thinking. Grimley never made more than twenty-five grand in profits in the three years he owned the place. He’s forty-three, so the insurers did their sums based on likely income till his retiral, plus the costs of the work, plus loss of potential profit on the sale.
‘But the basis of Grimley’s argument is that the new bar was the missing link that would have helped him turn Merryston House into a five-star country house hotel. He’s projected vastly increased income, and a sale value of millions.’
The meal at an end, Andy rose from his seat and picked up the bowls. ‘But the planners wouldn’t have let him build the extension anyway. Doesn’t that flatten his case?’
Alex followed him into the kitchen and watched as he reached down to open the dishwasher door. ‘We think that it damages it,’ she agreed. ‘But Grimley’s argument is that if he’d been given proper advice, he’d have found another, unspecified, solution. From what we can tell, the judge seems to be impressed by it.
‘He’s had all sorts of witnesses. Architects, hoteliers, even a doctor to give evidence about the damage to his health resulting from the negligence. He’s an old acquaintance of yours, in fact. Doctor Banks.’
She frowned. ‘There was quite a commotion during his evidence. He was excused from the witness box to go and attend to one of the judges who’d collapsed on the Bench.’ She paused. ‘I heard later that he had died.’
‘That’s no surprise with Banks in attendance!’ said Andy, his vivid green eyes flashing. ‘If I never meet that man again it’ll be too soon. He must have loved being the centre of attention, the glory-seeking wee bastard.