Penitent, by Mark Leggatt. Review

(Fledgling, £10.99)

Leggatt’s fourth novel, the dark thriller Penitent introduces Hector Lawless, an Edinburgh lawyer working for a venerable firm based just off the High Street which is headed by Lord Campbell, a stuffy, old-school-tie sort – or, as Lawless would have it, “a sleekit gype”.

Hector is on the autism spectrum, a creature of habit whose life is all about order, routine and little rituals that keep anxiety attacks at bay. He has no friends to speak of, and his only relationship ended 20 years ago. His colleagues find him difficult to get on with and resent his presence in the office, but his incredibly focused, methodical approach has been a real asset to the firm.

He’s also a man of great suppressed anger. He lives in the plush Georgian flat left to him by his parents, but deeply resents the New Town, so respectable on the surface, but “you can smell it on your hands, the reek of the filth that once lined her streets and seeped into the sooty, rain-sodden stone, and hangs there like sickness in an old whore”. His apocalyptic desire to see it washed into the sea is the first sign of the avenging angel within him, a fury just looking for an outlet.

On the morning the story opens, Lord Campbell has chosen to speak to him on a matter of great delicacy. There have been allegations of the sexual abuse of boys at their mutual alma mater, the prestigious King George’s School on the shores of the Forth. One of the alleged perpetrators is another former pupil, Secretary of State for Scotland Mungo Hastings, the other is as yet unknown. Bristling with indignation, Campbell insists that the matter must be investigated, thoroughly and discreetly, and that Lawless’s forensic methods make him the ideal man for the job.

Penitent by Mark Leggatt (Image: Fledgling)

This is an incredibly sensitive task. Mungo Hastings once provided an alibi in court to get a friend off a child abuse charge. That friend is now the Prime Minister, so this investigation could conceivably bring down a government. Hector is under no illusions about the enormity of what’s facing him. He knows that the forces of the British State will do their best to discredit and destroy him, that he’ll become a household name and will no doubt, if he survives, have to leave the country. But he’s also convinced he’s the man for the job.

Most of the first 100 pages is devoted to Hector’s preparations for investigating the allegations and defending himself against the inevitable retaliation of MI5 and the police, which involves buying a multitude of items online and constructing an undetectable panic room in his flat. After this drawn-out build-up, Leggatt pulls out the pin and the plot detonates in a flurry of murders, double-crosses, intense surveillance and daring escapes. It’s like seeing Jason Bourne dropped into a Jacobean revenge tragedy, and includes the most memorable use of the Forth Rail Bridge in fiction since Iain Banks. Then, at the midpoint, comes a new development that throws a spanner into Hector’s carefully-laid plans and sends the story spinning off in an unexpected new direction.

By telling almost all of it from Hector’s viewpoint, Leggatt immerses us in his distinctive way of perceiving the world, his cool reasoning punctuated by swells of anxiety and anger, and overwhelmed in stressful moments with feverishly compulsive trains of thought. It’s a masterclass in tension, and we’re right there with him as the terrifying ordeal begins to reshape the person he is and opens a path to a new life he’s never considered.