Wearing Purple

Chapter 39

I had finished my day’s work and was about to head for the GWA headquarters when the phone rang. It was Greg McPhillips, and I could tell as soon as he opened his mouth that he was not a happy boy. Inevitably, that meant that I wasn’t going to be happy either.

‘I’ll give you the bad news first,’ he began, ‘since there isn’t any good news.’

‘Greg, pal,’ I told him. ‘Right now there isn’t anything you could tell me that I’d class as good news, so don’t be bothered. What is it?’

‘Well,’ he said, as if he really didn’t fancy his job at that moment. ‘These German washing machine makers have moved very fast. I have just had a visit from their lawyer, who only happens to be a partner in the biggest firm of ambulance chasers in Scotland.’ I knew that lot. You never heard good news from them, unless you were their client.

‘The independent testers the Krauts employed turned out not to be very independent after all. They arrived in Glasgow on Friday, and they worked all weekend, taking the machine apart, looking at the wiring, scraping bits off, sending samples for lab analysis and so on.

‘They reported this morning. Essentially they agreed with the police guys and the Trading Standards people that the accident could have been caused in the way they said. However, they came up with an alternative solution.

‘They said that it would have been possible to rig a small incendiary device to the housing of the wiring that would have melted it and allowed the wiring to fall against the casing of the machine, rendering it live. It would be a very simple device, they said, triggered by a mercury-filled rocker thing, which would go off as soon as the machine started to spin. That’s an old terrorist and Special Forces trick, apparently. They use it to blow people up, but the principle’s exactly the same.

‘The mercury would vaporise with the heat, and the fuel element, which is similar to plastic explosive, would burn itself out too; the rest of the device would be identical to the casing of the wiring itself, i.e. rubber. So all you’d have left once the thing had done its business would be slightly more melted rubber than you’d expect to find.

‘They say that they found slightly more melted rubber than usual, so their scenario is a possibility.’ Greg paused, probably waiting for me to explode, but I held it together.

‘What our ambulance chaser friend had to say was that his clients were very interested by this. He pointed out that on the face of it, since there was no reported breakin to your place — indeed since the Scottish Power guys had to break in themselves — the only person who was in a position to lay such a device was you.

‘Now my professional colleague is clever. He told me that he wouldn’t dream of making this allegation to the Fiscal, because you would immediately sue for huge defamation damages, with at least a fifty per cent chance of success. However if you press ahead with a civil action, then under the privilege of the witness box, he will enter his experts’ theory as a defence, and invite the jury to reject your case.

‘In other words, Oz, he’s saying that if you sue his clients, you’ll be accused of murdering Jan.’

That did it. I have never experienced such a red, howling, venomous rage in all my life. ‘I want his name, Greg,’ I roared. ‘I want to know who this bastard is, because I am personally going to tear his fucking heart out!’

‘I don’t blame you, Oz. That’s why I’ve no intention of telling you who he is. Anyway, there’s a whole queue of people waiting in line to do much the same thing to this guy.

‘I want you to calm down, and take time to think this over, rationally.’

‘Raise the action Greg,’ I shouted at him. ‘Sue the bastards until they bleed. I don’t care what it costs.’

‘Oz,’ he said, patiently. ‘My father and our partners are not ambulance chasers. I’m not going to accept that instruction from you, or any other, until you’ve had at least a week to think about it. Come and see me next Monday. We’ll discuss it then.’