Impolitic Corpses

by Paul Johnston

  I couldn’t deny it. ‘That was during the war against the drugs gangs. Most of them weren’t Edinburgh citizens.’

  ‘My brother Richie was!’ shouted a red-faced middle-aged woman from the second row.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Adamson. ‘Richie Elliot was born and brought up in Portobello.’

  ‘He was also a known drug dealer who joined one of the most vicious gangs – Howlin’ Wolf’s.’ I felt a twinge of apprehension. The gangs were all mad blues fans because the Council had banned that music as subversive. That was why I liked it too. But the Wolf and his people were merciless.

  ‘According to the Public Order Directorate archive, your squad came under fire from the gang in Barnton.’

  I nodded. ‘The Wolf operated near the city line. His men slaughtered hundreds of citizens in the outer suburbs.’

  ‘But after you returned fire,’ Adamson said, moving on swiftly, ‘nine of your assailants surrendered and threw down their weapons.’

  ‘Which meant nothing.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  I raised my shoulders. ‘Guard personnel were often killed or injured by criminals who had reserve weapons behind their backs.’

  The advocate looked at his notes. ‘But these nine did not. Some time passed after they were searched and then you had them lined up against a wall and shot.’

  I didn’t feel great about that, I never had. ‘You have to understand. The city was at war. There weren’t the facilities or provisions to keep prisoners. We tried at first, but they would escape and rejoin their gangs. Our casualties were high and we had to fight any way we could.’ I was careful not to say that I was obeying Council orders. The responsibility as commander on the ground was mine.

  ‘Murderer!’ the woman screamed, getting to her feet. ‘Monster!’

  The convenor looked over his half-moon glasses. ‘Madam, this is not appropriate. You will have an opportunity to speak shortly.’

  ‘To hell wi’ you! What dae you ken aboot Embra?’ She only sat down after a glare from Adamson.

  In fact, the convenor, whose identity had been kept secret to avoid recriminations, was well aware of what had gone on in the city, having led a group of his own staff through the archives for six months. The new Edinburgh Municipal Board had given him full access. He’d been involved in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a young man and had unrivalled experience of the relevant procedures.

  ‘Madam,’ he said patiently, ‘the governing principle of these hearings is that people said to have committed crimes are brought face to face with their accusers and given a chance to explain themselves. If they accept responsibility and display contrition, they will receive an amnesty. This is a procedure that was proposed by your own elected representatives and overwhelmingly approved in a municipal referendum.’

  ‘Amnesty?’ the woman shouted, on her feet again. ‘Travesty more like.’ She pointed at me. ‘That man’s a killer, pure and simple.’

  The advocate waved at her to sit down. ‘It is in everyone’s interest that we comport ourselves in a civilized fashion,’ he said. All that got him was a pair of V-signs, which he ignored.

  To my relief, he moved on from Richie Elliot. I’d had the worst of dealings with the Howlin’ Wolf gang and a particular piece of shit in it. I blinked to dispel a vision of the psychopath in question.

  I was examined for two weeks. I’d made a lot of enemies during the years I was in the Guard and there was no shortage of citizens who hated me from the subsequent years when I acted as a freelance investigator for the Council. On the other hand, my refusal to maintain hardline directives when they were no longer necessary and my subsequent demotion from the rank of auxiliary impressed people, as did the many cases when I’d cleared out corrupt guardians and their adherents. The advocate whom I’d recently sacked advised me to have the faded DM tattoo on the back of my right hand inked back in. No chance. It was my body now, not the city’s. There were citizens prepared to put in good words for me and the fact that I showed regret for many of my actions eventually stood me in good stead. But it was a close-run thing.

  It was the final accusation that nearly did for me. I’d ridden a storm about my mother, who had been an uncompromising senior guardian – though it helped that my father had resigned in disillusion from the rank of guardian. I’d even got away with being a school and university friend of Billy Geddes, who’d been behind many of the illicit money-making schemes that had brought down his superiors; at his own hearing later, he managed to show sufficient fake repentance that, to my astonishment, he was amnestied and went straight back to his old ways. Then came my nemesis.

  We were supposed to be told in advance of our accusers, but sometimes – deliberately – we were caught on the hop to see how we reacted. I knew as soon as I saw the wizened young man limping painfully into the hall that I was in a vat of excrement. Davie didn’t look too chipper either.

  Peter Adamson, who had become more and more frustrated by my slipping off his hooks, licked his lips. It was cold in the former council chamber that day and I remembered numerous occasions when I’d had strips torn off me by various guardians who were either dead or had long departed the city. There had been a crew of young idealists known as the Iron Boyscouts who had conducted meetings while walking around in true Platonic style – the ancient philosopher had been the Council’s inspiration. They denied he was the ur-fascist, of course. I wished I could have walked around now – around to the exit.

  ‘Quintilian Eric Dalrymple’ – the advocate had registered that I didn’t like my full name – ‘you are accused that, on November the ninth, 2033, you brought about the crippling of Michael Joseph Garden and failed to investigate adequately the disappearance of his sister Amy.’ He gave me a scathing look. ‘Her mutilated body was found in the basement of number twenty-three Bruntsfield Place over a month later. How do you answer?’

  Every investigator fails on occasion, but this one had been particularly hard to bear. We’d been tipped off that Garden, who was only twenty-four at the time, was working for the Dead Men, a gang of brutal Glasgow smugglers. Firearms they’d brought in had led to the deaths of several innocent citizens. Davie had insisted that his team went in fully armed. I had a Hyper-Stun, a recently introduced device that could deliver electrical charges of varying strength. Not that I used it.

  ‘That was … a mistake,’ I said, trying to catch Michael Garden’s eye. He was looking intently at the convenor. ‘A set-up. Citizen … Mr Garden had refused to let his sister go out with a member of the Portobello Pish …’

  ‘One of the most violent gangs in the city,’ said the old judge.

  I nodded. ‘They decided to do the dirty on him. Told us he was a dangerous subversive, responsible for the deaths of two people, including a nine-year-old child.’ I paused, recalling the scene at the Garden family flat in Newington. It was well looked after, with ornaments and wallpaper that had recently become available after the Council’s loosening of trading regulations. His parents, both teachers, were at work at evening classes.

  ‘Before the door was smashed down, Mr Garden heard you order Guard personnel to shoot on sight,’ said Adamson, with a look of disgust. ‘Can that be true? This was years after the drugs wars. Edinburgh was safe.’

  I could have argued that Newington was equidistant from the centre and the still ravaged suburbs, but I didn’t. The case had kept me awake for weeks before and after we found Amy. Plus, Davie and I had come straight from a shootout in Silverknowes in which a guardswoman had been killed and one of her male comrades seriously injured.

  ‘I did give that order,’ I said. Actually, I hadn’t. Davie had, but I wasn’t going to drop him in it – he had his own hearing coming up. I blinked in his direction to stop him jumping to his feet. ‘I’m sorry I did. Mr Garden quite reasonably ran in the opposite direction and was shot above the knee.’ He was still refusing to look at me. ‘I regret the incident immensely and ask forgiveness.’


  None was forthcoming. I couldn’t blame him. He’d been in hospital for months and had lost much of the stricken leg. I’d contributed to a collection for a decent prosthesis – everyone in the squad had – but, again, I kept that to myself.

  ‘That’s very big of you,’ said the advocate. ‘And what about Amy Garden?’

  An image of the seventeen-year-old flashed before me. She was a slim, blonde girl with striking blue eyes whose only mistake had been to fall in love with a scumbag. Michael Garden’s shooting hadn’t been enough for the Pish. They raped and murdered her, only telling us where she was after we’d searched half the city. The wrong half, it turned out.

  Davie’s voice boomed out. ‘It’s not true that we didn’t look for her the best we could! Citizen … Mr Dalrymple was not responsible. I was.’

  I raised my hand and eventually he sat down. ‘No. The decision to reallocate some personnel after two weeks was mine.’ In fact, it was the Public Order Guardian’s but that individual wouldn’t be appearing at any hearing because he was dead. In any case, I hadn’t objected. There was an upsurge in crime in the period before the overthrow of the Council. ‘Again, I regret it enormously and offer my deepest sympathies to Mr Garden.’

  Finally, he turned his eyes on me. ‘Fuck your regret and sympathy, you piece of shite,’ he said in a low, venomous voice. ‘You know what happened to ma parents? Dead, both of them, two weeks after Amy was found. Hanged themselves together in the bathroom. Can you live with that, Dalrymple? Cos I cannae.’ He pulled a knife from his pocket and ran it along his throat in a single, blurred movement. People pushed away from him, screaming, as the blood fountained.

  The hearing was immediately adjourned.

  The following week, the convenor called me to appear again.

  ‘Mr Dalrymple, you are in no way responsible for what that poor, misguided man did.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I said firmly.

  The judge shook his head. ‘I am minded to offer you a full amnesty because of your indubitable contrition. But it can only apply if you accept it.’

  Sophia was in the front row, paler than ever. She knew that other Council operatives who had refused amnesty were in jail. That morning she’d told me I had a duty to her and the kids – wee Heck was only a couple of months old at the time – to stay with them. But I had some kind of death wish, as if the weight of all the violence I’d perpetrated on behalf of the Council had hit me at last.

  ‘I will not accept amnesty for this,’ I said, catching the convenor’s eye.

  There was loud whispering in the hall. Sophia was looking down, her ice-blonde hair pointing at me like a featureless, ghostly face. From that moment things were never the same between us.

  ‘You will,’ came a firm voice from behind me.

  The noise stopped immediately.

  I turned to see Lachie MacFarlane, provost of the Municipal Board that had taken over from the Council, standing on a chair. Although he was only four feet seven inches in height, he dominated the space. Behind him stood his deputy, Rory Campbell.

  ‘Quint Dalrymple was one of the saviours of this city,’ Lachie said. ‘Without him, the revolution would not have succeeded and countless lives would have been lost.’ He smiled at me sadly. ‘I know how much he is haunted by the decisions he had to take, both as a member of the City Guard and as an often-unwilling servant of the Public Order Directorate after his demotion. I am here to publicly offer my support and to beg him to accept the offer of amnesty.’

  ‘As am I,’ said Rory, his actor’s voice carrying to the four walls.

  I looked at Sophia. She nodded once, her lips set in a straight line.

  So I buckled. But I couldn’t get the sight of Amy Garden’s ruined body from my mind for months. It still comes back, one of the legions of revenants from the Enlightenment Party’s well-intentioned but ultimately tainted regime. Of course, for some Edinburgh citizens the fact that the two most powerful men in the city intervened to keep me out of jail made me even more unacceptable. Even now, they turn up at bookshop and library events and heckle. Good for them.

  ‘Quint? Hallooooo?’

  I opened my eyes and took in the scene. The orange glow of streetlights, not all of them operational, was obscured by heavier rain. I could make out tenements a lot less salubrious than those in the New Town.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Madeira Street.’

  ‘Brilliant. Our family dentist was round the corner. I still hate this area.’

  Davie handed me a blue-and-white ScotPol umbrella. ‘Come on. Time to be mystified.’

  I followed him to the door of number thirty-five. A pair of junior officers, one male and one female, stood on either side of the entrance. Both were in high-visibility jackets, the peaks of their uniform caps making the icy water cascade in front of their faces.

  ‘Sir,’ said the woman, with a faint smile.

  Davie returned it. I might have known. He’d always been one for putting himself about. Ironically, that was more likely to get him in trouble now than during the Council’s time. Hel Hyslop, the less-than-user-friendly director of the nation’s police force, had made it clear that fraternization between officers of different rank was a sacking offence.

  ‘Anything to report?’ Davie said, turning his gaze on the male officer.

  ‘No, sir … nothing, sir,’ he stammered. He couldn’t have been on the force for more than a month.

  ‘No one showing any interest,’ confirmed the woman, whose name badge identified her as C. Badenoch, a good Highland name. ScotPol regulations required fifty per cent of officers in each city or region to be non-local. The idea was to avoid over-familiarity and the corruption it could engender.

  Davie led me inside. There was an unusually large common area on the ground floor. The bicycles that every citizen had during the Enlightenment were still numerous, but at the rear a white crime scene tent had been erected. The shadow of a bent figure was visible in the powerful lights.

  ‘Your favourite Glaswegian,’ Davie said, in a loud whisper.

  ‘Detective Leader,’ said the man wearing white coverall and bootees. He was tall and thin, his face disfigured by a ludicrous Zapata moustache. His name was Graham Arthur, a mixture of first and surnames that made me smile. Graham Arthur What? He glanced at me. ‘Ah, Mr Bad Penny.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Davie said, ‘or you’ll be on the next train to the great green place.’ His tone expressed what he felt about Glasgow, which had been known as the Wild West until the authorities managed to overturn the open-carry law. Glaswegians were still allowed to own personal weapons but had to keep them in their homes. Which didn’t stop Saturday-night not-at-all-OK gunfights. ‘What have you got for us?’

  Arthur pointed to the array of sealed evidence bags on the table in the tent. ‘There’s no lack of material, but I gather twenty-three people live on this stair, so most of it will turn out to be irrelevant.’ He gave a smile that revealed gleaming white teeth. Those, more than his accent, distinguished him as an outsider. ‘These are the business.’ He picked up two bags. ‘Care to show off your skills, Mr Dalrymple?’

  I could never resist a challenge and took out my pocket magnifying glass. ‘Bits of tree bark in this one,’ I said. The second was hard to make out in the light. ‘Fish scales. A large cod, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps?’ said Arthur, unimpressed by my lack of certainty. I’d never claimed to be an ichthyologist. ‘So the individual who dressed up as a tree and fish took his costume seriously.’

  Davie gave him a dubious look. ‘That’ll be my area of specialization. Anything else?’

  ‘What was the assailant wearing on his or her feet?’ I asked. ‘I assume the fish made up the bottom half?’

  The SOCO nodded. ‘I don’t deal in assumptions, but that was what the witness said, was it not, Detective Leader?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Davie. ‘Makes sense – fish go deep and trees go high.’

  He was right, in his inimitable way,
but an image I couldn’t identify was floating at the edge of my consciousness.

  Graham Arthur gave another of his blinding smiles. ‘And fish don’t walk. There are numerous footprints and the rain hasn’t exactly made it easy to separate one from another. However, I have good prints from the victim, who was wearing a pair of trainers with a complicated pattern.’ He found a photo on his camera. There was a mass of knots and crosses.

  ‘So anything near those, ideally behind them, will be the assailant’s,’ I said.

  The SOCO found another photo. It was a mess of different prints, many of them smudged. ‘I’ll see what I can do in the lab,’ he said.

  ‘You do that,’ Davie said brusquely. ‘Come on, Quint.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, kneeling down. ‘What are these marks? Looks like something’s been swished across the floor. Like a narrow tail?’

  Arthur nodded. ‘My initial conclusion too.’

  I followed Davie up a staircase that was well worn but didn’t have the stench of Enlightenment times. People didn’t boil cabbage and turnips much these days – ready meals, mostly made in Fife, were the thing. Money had been invested in the sewage system too.

  Davie nodded at another female officer, but she responded by standing to attention. One who resisted his charms, such as they were. He was in his forties now and carrying plenty of weight, though most of it, unlike mine, was muscle. She must have been about his age, but was whiplash thin.

  ‘There have been no visitors, Detective Leader,’ she said, ignoring me. I suspected she knew who I was and didn’t approve of civilian involvement in ScotPol cases. Not many officers did.

  ‘I take it the witness has stayed inside,’ I said.

  She – T. Fabianski – kept her eyes to the front. ‘My instructions were to keep her here and I have fulfilled them to the letter.’

  I smiled at her, having remembered she was a former member of the City Guard. Many of them never got past the fact that I’d been demoted. ScotPol wouldn’t have found enough volunteers to fill its ranks in Edinburgh if it hadn’t allowed in former members of the Enlightenment. They had to go through a rigorous process of de-auxiliarification – only a former auxiliary could have come up with that term, let alone pronounced it.