In the second installment of The Firm Fiction Prize, which sees 12 lawyers turning their hand to fiction writing, Gary Moffat of Burness gives a broader insight into the life of lead character, hot shot lawyer Billy Noble. But will his father’s background come back to haunt him forever? Read on to find out.

Billy Noble was dreaming. He’s five years old and sitting on his father’s knee in the back garden of their impressive home on the south side of Glasgow. It’s a sunny day in May, but clouds flit across the sun and in the shadows Billy feels a chill.
“You be good today, Wilhelm,” his father tells him, a hint of his original German accent still present.
Billy hates it when his father uses that name, but says nothing.
“You must let me have peace to speak with my guest. You understand?”
“I do,” Billy says, his voice no more than a whisper.
“Good,” his father says. “You play here in the garden, then. I’ll come and see you later.”
Billy nods in silence again.
Noble stirred in his sleep, his head nodding in sympathy with his dream self.
Mario Zamporini stood in the open doorway of Noble’s bedroom and watched. Slowly, he moved forward in the dark and pulled a chair up next to the bed. He sat heavily, the weight of his 78 years on the planet suddenly feeling like too much to bear. Watching Noble for a moment, he tried to remember the little boy he once knew all those years ago. The little boy that used to play with his Eddie. Then he reached under his jacket and pulled a revolver from the holster fixed under his arm, touching the barrel of the gun to Noble’s cheek in a grim parody of a caress.
In the halfway state between dream and awake, reality bled into Noble’s dream as he felt the pressure on his cheek.
Billy’s in the car now – his father’s old car – sitting alone in the front passenger seat. The worn leather creaks beneath him as he shifts uncomfortably and strains his eyes to see anything in the black surrounding the car – but the darkness is absolute.
Billy turns from the window and sees now the big man sitting behind the wheel, a thin wisp of smoke drifting up from the lit cigarette in the man’s mouth. Billy recognises the man as his father’s friend from, what was it his father said, “that damned war”.
“Billy boy,” the man says in his heavy Italian accent. “You’ve been bad haven’t you?”
Billy felt the old fear he used to feel whenever he was around the man. He wanted to speak but his jaws were clamped tight.
The man reached out and placed a hand on Billy’s cheek. Billy wanted to open the door and run, but like all good (bad) nightmares he was stuck, unable to escape.
Noble opened his eyes and blinked away the dark. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw the silhouette of Mario Zamporini sitting beside him. Then the gun in Zamporini’s hand. Noble drew back in his bed, kicking the sheets away from him as he did.
Zamporini sat back in the chair and rested the gun in his lap.
“Your father would not be happy, Billy boy,” Zamporini said to Noble. “You’re a disappointment to the both of us.”
Noble started to feel his temper flare at the old man but he said nothing.
“I mean, we sat in the back of that truck, your father and I, for hundreds of miles while the allies poured in to Germany. I wasn’t much more than a boy, sixteen or seventeen, and he seemed so calm and assured. He took me with him and I was just a low level Italian translator for him – this big time Nazi officer. Even when we stopped so the driver could have a rest and we heard from some other travellers that Mussolini had been caught and killed, he took it all in his stride. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“I don’t want to hear your sad story, Mario,” Noble said.
Zamporini moved fast for an old man. He was up out of the chair and on to the bed before Noble could move. He grabbed Noble by the throat and pressed the barrel of the gun into his left eye. Noble flapped ineffectually at the old man’s arms, no match for his strength.
“You will listen to it, Billy boy, until I’m done, or so help me…”
Zamporini cocked the hammer of the revolver and the sound seemed incredibly loud to Noble in the dark of the room.
“…I will kill you now against my better judgement.”
After a moment, Zamporini moved back off the bed and onto the chair. He sighed, weary of this unruly child.
“We risked our lives getting that money out of Germany and bringing it here and I’m not about to let your conscience suddenly get the better of you. It’s my legacy too. And Eddie’s.”
“Eddie still thinks he came over here with you from Roma,” Noble said.
“Little white lies,” Zamporini responded.
“It’s blood money, Mario. I mean, you obviously don’t care about that, but I can’t live with it any longer. How many people, Jews or otherwise, died for it?”
Zamporini laughed and it echoed in his hollow chest.
“There’s blood on your hands too, you know,” he told Noble. “How did you think your father was able to establish a top legal practice so quickly over here, eh? Hard work?”
Noble had no answer for that and Zamporini laughed again without humour.
“You’ve never been stupid,” Zamporini said. “You had it figured out long before now, didn’t you?”
Noble wanted to deny it, but he knew the denial would be a lie.
“There’s none so blind, Billy boy. So you get an attack of conscience now, eh? I mean, with your celebrity lawyer status gone and your wife having walked out the door and now you want to be reborn. Is that it?”
Zamporini stood and levelled the gun at Noble’s head.
“Where’s my money?”
Noble said nothing.
Zamporini cocked the hammer again.
“Where is it, Billy boy?”
“You’re just a cheap gangster Mario,” Noble said, closing his eyes and waiting for death.


Is this the end for Billy Noble or is it just the beginning of his nightmare? Find out next issue when David McGuire of MacRoberts takes up the story of Carlton Place.