A package is thrown into the icy waters of the River Clyde. A flat in Glasgow’s leafy west end is ransacked during the night. And a Notorious Glasgow mob boss vows to get revenge. Will Billy Noble’s life ever be the same after christmas at Carlton Place?

Background to The Scottish Legal Fiction Prize 2007

The Scottish Legal Fiction Prize has been launched by The Firm to find the best fictional writing talent within the Scottish legal profession. Below is the first chapter of a story that will unfold each month in The Firm during the next year. Each subsequent chapter after this opening chapter, which aims to set the scene of the story and establish the main characters, will be written by a different member of the legal profession. Each writer is tasked with picking up the story from where the previous writer ended and in 1,000 words moving the story towards its conclusion, which will be printed in the August 2008 issue of The Firm.
Once all the chapters have been published The Firm will poll readers to find out which chapter was deemed the best written piece of fiction. The winner will receive the Scottish Legal Fiction Prize 2008. The brave souls who have volunteered to put pen to paper and take part in this exciting
challenge are:
Gary Moffat of Burness
David McGuire of MacRoberts
Deborah Carmichael of Miller Samuel
Lesley Philips of Balfour & Manson
Gavin Deeprose of DLA Piper
Ryan Templeman of Joyce White
C.C. Smith (pen name)
Arnold Atkins (pen name)
Neil Morrison of Miller Samuel
Brandon Malone of Bell & Scott
Louise Brennan of Davidson Chalmers

So, now sit back, relax and enjoy the first
instalment of Carlton Place.

CARLTON PLACE – CHAPTER 1

THE icy water of the River Clyde was still, bathing lazily in the moonlight of a bitterly cold December night. In the distance, Glasgow lawyer Billy Noble heard voices. Crouching low in the shadows of the riverside bushes Noble was safe, hidden from the eyes of the three men who had just left The Daily Record building across the road. He glanced at the heavy gold Rolex wrapped tightly around his slender wrist. Only the moonlight making it possible for him to see that it was almost midnight.
From their chatter Noble guessed that the three men were probably night shift reporters. He instinctively pulled his heavy overcoat close around his cheeks in case they caught a glimpse of the recognisable face that would soon be staring out at thousands of Record readers from its front page.
Noble could only imagine the smart headline that the men may have conjured up to describe his latest brush with controversy. Noble despised journalists, but recognised that had it not been for their interest in him and his work during the last 25 years he would not be living the life he currently enjoyed. The plush home in Bearsden, the many cars, the exotic holidays, the expensive jewellery would all be strangers to him were it not for the men who worked in the building opposite. The men he hated.
As the journalists stalked off into night, Noble returned his attention to the task at hand. From his old battered leather briefcase he pulled out a package wrapped in thick black polythene and held together with cords of brown tape.
As he had bound the parcel together earlier that evening in the warmth of his well furnished Carlton Place office, Noble had joked with his secretary, Veronica, in a vain effort to mask the severity of what they were dealing with that evening. Their false laughter had failed to hide their obvious unease at what the night held in store.
The two had worked together for almost 25 years now. Veronica had taken a job with the law firm of Noble and Co as a teenager, some 40 years ago, serving Noble’s father until his death nine years earlier. Since becoming Billy Noble’s secretary she had found him to be the same type of warm and compassionate man that his father had shown himself to be on many occasions. None more so than when at the age of 24 and unmarried, she had fallen pregnant.
Veronica had never broken the law in her life, not even as much as a parking ticket, yet here she was, months from retirement, doing what she would once have considered the unthinkable.
She knew that this secret had to be destroyed forever. It should have gone to the grave with old Mr Noble. Tonight it would be gone forever. Lost in the depths of the river. Banished with the many other secrets that she imagined also lay in the Clyde’s silt bed.
After taking another glance around to ensure he was alone, Noble hurled the parcel as far out into the water as his arms could manage. It was not as far out as he had wished, but he was not as young and athletic as he had once been. Within seconds the black parcel disappeared from the surface, the only trace of its internment being the fading ripples that spread across the river’s surface.
Moments later the only evidence that Billy Noble had ever been at the riverside that night was a Gitanes cigarette butt, the brand that he had smoked exclusively for 30 years, ever since visiting France as a teenager with his pretty young fiancé, Moira.
Within minutes Noble was back behind the wheel of his Aston Martin DB9 and heading back towards Bearsden to prepare for what he hoped would be a very quiet and uneventful family Christmas.
Billy Noble wouldn’t get his wish.


PETER Pryce didn’t utter a word as his eyes scanned around the ransacked living room of the tenement flat that had been his home until six years ago.
“And you heard nothing at all during the night, Mother?” asked Pryce, still glancing around in disbelief.
“Nothing at all Peter,” replied the ashen faced 55-year-old woman who had discovered the scene just hours earlier. “I woke at around 6.30am and came through to find it in this state. I was afraid the burglar was still in the flat so I went next door and called you straight away.”
“So, how long will we have to wait until the police show up then?” enquired Pryce, sarcastically.
The woman glanced at the floor, biting her lip she answered: “I haven’t called the police Peter.”
He looked at his Mother, incredulous. “What? Why on earth not?” he bellowed, angrily.
She looked him in the eye, “Because nothing is missing. I know nothing is missing because what they were looking for is not here any more.”
Pryce was confused, “Mother, what the hell were they looking for and who the hell are ‘they’ anyway?”
“Peter, I think you had better sit down, I need to tell you something.”
The slender man sat down on the old worn red leather sofa, his mother taking the armchair opposite.
She continued, “I should have told you this years ago, but, well, the time never seemed quite right.
“For heaven’s sake Mother, what is it?” asked Pryce, becoming even more agitated.
“Oh, Peter, I hope you can forgive me,” said the woman, tears beginning to well in her still attractive blue eyes.
The next 20-minutes changed Peter Pryce’s life in a way he could never have imagined. What his Mother told him set his life on a collision course with that of a man he had never met, a man he never wanted to meet. A man he hated nonetheless.
“It’s about your father,” said the old woman. Her voice quivered as her son listened on.


THE thick set heavy hands of Eddie Zamporini threw his copy of The Daily Record onto the round breakfast table in front of him. The grinning face of Billy Noble stared back at him as he read the headline which made him feel sick to the pit of his stomach.
“Bastard,” drawled Zamporini, sipping at his glass of freshly squeezed orange juice as he continued to read the accompanying article.
He knew that grin on Noble’s face well, he had seen it many times over the last 25 years . There was a time when the two men smiled and laughed together most of the time. The good old days. When it seemed like life would never end. They were both young, in the prime of their lives, and, better still, they had plenty of money in their pockets and even more spread around various bank accounts and bolt holes across the city.
As Zamporini’s mind drifted back to those heady days of excess, one of his men, known as Fatboy Franky for obvious reasons, stomped into the room.
“I couldn’t find it boss, it wasn’t there, I’m sure of it,” he rasped, clearly exhausted from taking the stairs to Noble’s third floor flat. “I looked everywhere, turned the place upside down, I did. The old girl never heard a thing though, she slept right through.”
“Damn, damn, damn” shouted Zamporini, slamming his fist down three times onto the paper face of Billy Noble, whose grin continued to poke fun at the silver-haired Italian immigrant.
“So, they want to play games? Well that suits me fine,” said Zamporini, becoming angrier with his every word. “I want ten men at the club in an hour Franky. If this grinning idiot thinks he can get the better of the Zamporinis he is very wrong indeed. Get the boys together and tell them I’ve cancelled Christmas. They’ll be no turkey and tinsel until that grin is wiped off his face for good.”
Fatboy acknowledged his orders and loafed out of the kitchen, the front door slamming shut seconds later.
Zamporini, who had come to Glasgow from the backstreets of Roma with his parents as a four year-old boy, went to his bedroom and dressed quickly. Back in the kitchen he finished his orange juice as he watched the first few minutes of the morning news bulletin.
Little did he know that the subject of tomorrow’s lead story would be him.

See the October issue of The Firm for the next chapter which is being written by Gary Moffat of Burness.