I was nodding my head, willing them to agree with me. ‘Precisely,’ I said, taking one step towards them. ‘So, what we have to do is charge him with something else and bring him in from Saughton this morning, and I’ll tell Patsy Barnes she can have her “interview” with Marshall, which, she claims, is all she wants.’ The dean studied me. Every instinct he had was telling him that I was pulling the wool over his eyes, but he couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on. In the end he let out a sigh. A long, slow sigh of a man resigned to his fate. He had to throw in his lot with Arbuthnot’s bastard, or lose his chance at gaining his place in posterity by taking his seat in the College of Justice.

‘What charge did you have in mind, Ms McLennan?’ he asked.

I turned to Agnes Sampson and said, ‘Charge Marshall with the abduction of DI Sam Jones.’

Bancho smiled.

Chapter Sixty-One

Moses and I stood at the entrance to an almost deserted Edinburgh Sheriff Court. I stood and stared up at the terrace of The Tower restaurant and I felt sick. If only I had worked Patsy Barnes out earlier, Joe would be safe. It was entirely my fault. Jesus, Lavender would never have let things get this far–she’d have called magazines, confirmed with editors; Barnes would have been checked out long before I’d even heard her name. I missed Lavender in all areas of my life. Lois just wasn’t in her league.

It was all arranged. Graham Marshall was to be brought into Edinburgh Sheriff Court with the rest of the custodies from Saughton, but his case wouldn’t be heard until the afternoon. Bancho was expecting trouble, as well he might, and he wanted the courts to be clear.

The difference between 10 a.m. at Edinburgh Sheriff Court and 2 p.m. is like the difference between an ant hill and a mole hill. In the morning the courts teem with life, scurrying here, there and everywhere. In the afternoon, the odd client, policeman, or lawyer stalks the halls with purpose. Bancho’s risk assessment was that, whatever was going to happen, the fewer spectators and bystanders the better. My watch showed it was two fifteen and I still hadn’t heard from Patsy Barnes. Fear ran riot through my system. I was doing a damn good job of convincing myself she knew about our plan and had disappeared back to London taking Joe’s whereabouts with her. Bancho also needed the time to get together the armed officers who were going to be watching the court. They were put in place in the early morning before business commenced. Teams of gun-toting cops might have alerted Barnes to the fact we had our own plan to rescue Joe.