Watcher by Grace Monroe Page B

the date of the entry. Six months ago. Before I could read any more – not that I really wanted to, having established that I clearly wasn’t the vice girl he was looking for – Lavender staggered into my office labouring under the weight of a tray of coffees and a basket of muffins.
    ‘I don’t pay you enough to turn up to work on your wedding day!’ I shouted to her, while quickly closing down my web access. She held a handful of napkins between her teeth – it was bliss: for once she was unable to answer me.
    At Lothian and St Clair, we’re family. It’s a small court practice and if it’s a day when the court is sitting, at least one of us has to be there. My well-publicized fights with the Law Society and the Edinburgh Bar Association meant we had difficulty getting solicitors to work for us, so our choices were limited.
    Eddie was nervous about the wedding ceremony, so he came in for me to hold his hand. Lavender didn’t trust us to appear on time for the ceremony, so she had everything arranged.
    I pulled the plastic lid off a takeaway coffee cup. ‘I asked for a skinny latte!’ I said, grabbing a bran and molasses breakfast muffin. I dropped it like a hot potato as Lavender smacked the back of my hand.
    ‘The dress is a size ten. I told you at the time you’d never stick to that diet – you lost twenty pounds on that bloody Atkins Diet, which, by the way, we all had to suffer for with your cranky cravings for carbs, and now you look as if you’ve put on thirty. Skimmed milk isn’t going to cut it, Brodie.’
    ‘Well, this won’t make much difference either then.’ I grabbed the muffin out of the basket, making sure to take a big bite before she could snatch it and give it to someone else. I wandered over to the outsize mirror. Breathing on it, I pulled my sleeve over my hand, and rubbed.
    ‘Bloody hand prints – again,’ I said.
    ‘Better than bum prints!’ She laughed. Lavender’s natural curiosity had led her to develop skills that would have given Sherlock Holmes a run for his money. She had been unable to settle until she’d uncovered the origin of the strange body prints I periodically found on the mirror. Apparently, a security guard and a cleaner were having an affair – and they were rather partial to watching themselves. It was bad enough that illicit sex was taking place in my office whilst I wasn’t getting any, but these two?
    ‘There’s nothing on at court today,’ Lavender told me. ‘A few custodies that Danny can cover – you and Eddie have a deferred sentence each. Get your arse into court early – ask the fiscals to call your cases first. I want you in and out of court – you will be at the Sheraton no later than ten thirty a.m., Brodie!’ she ordered. Lavender ran the office like a border collie herding a flock of sheep – I met Eddie’s eyes and held them. We were having our heels nipped – if we knew what was good for us, we’d obey her commands to the letter.
    ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ I asked Lavender. ‘Don’t you know it’s bad luck for the bride to see the groom on the morning of the wedding?’
    ‘I know what you two would get up to if I was stupid enough to leave you to your own devices – I’d be left standing at the altar while you acted like this was just any working day,’ she replied.
    There was one cup of coffee remaining on the tray. Eddie, Lavender, Danny the agency lawyer and Louisa the trainee were all sipping away in companionable silence watching the winter sun struggle to rise above the Castle Rock. The door creaked open – Grandad was here. At first it irritated me, him hanging about the office controlling things, demanding to see me rehearse my jury speeches – but I couldn’t deny that I had improved under his tutelage; so much so that the challenge had gone out of defence work. Maybe it was having Connie in my life, but suddenly I wanted the streets of Edinburgh to be safe so she could go out without the fear of