Impolitic Corpses

by Paul Johnston

  ‘Here we go,’ said Hel. ‘Citizen “I’m A Very Special Person” Dalrymple strikes again.’

  I smiled. ‘No, just “Mr The Best”. One, I will share everything I find with the municipal authorities.’

  Duart raised his hands at Hyslop, who was almost at boiling point. ‘Very well, but confine yourself to informing Lachie MacFarlane. I’ll let him know.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t already?’

  Duart looked at his perfectly manicured nails. ‘We wanted to get you … on board first.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Two, D.L. Oliphant will work the case with me. Three, we will decide on all investigative and support staff.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the presiding minister after a lengthy pause. He took an envelope from his pocket. ‘Here are the details you need.’

  ‘Call me every evening at six,’ Hel ordered.

  I shrugged. ‘Timekeeping’s never been my strong point.’

  ‘Just find him, Dalrymple,’ Duart said, getting to his feet. ‘Without causing another revolution.’

  ‘You were both involved in that a long time before I was.’

  But I was talking to myself, the pair of them having departed as if I’d lit their blue touch papers. At least I hadn’t been retired.

  Then the door banged open and Heck came barrelling towards me. Sophia was to his rear, almost smiling as he hit my legs and thumped me back on the sofa.

  ‘Dadadadadada-down,’ Heck said, digging his fingers into the flab above my belt.

  ‘They’ve just hired you, haven’t they?’ Sophia said, sinking into an armchair.

  ‘We didn’t talk about money, but yes, I have to do this. The Lord of—’

  She raised a hand. ‘I don’t want to know, Quint. Knock yourself out. We’ll be here when you’ve finished. Probably.’

  My stomach flipped. I would have spoken, tried to assure her that things would change, but I didn’t have it in me.

  I was well and truly hooked by the case of the missing Macdonald.

  THREE

  Davie picked me up twenty minutes later. I managed to read Heck two pages of a book about a cave boy. He wailed when I left. Sophia and Maisie weren’t vocal, but their faces made it clear how they felt.

  ‘I’ll see you when I see you, then,’ I said, leaning forward to kiss Sophia and making contact with her cheek for a nanosecond. Kissing Maisie was definitely not on the cards. She was avoiding my eyes and using Leviathan as a particularly bulky shield.

  ‘Look after yourself,’ Sophia said, as I turned away. ‘Please.’

  ‘It’s only a missing person case,’ I said, fully aware, as she was, that many of those had turned into horror shows in the past. I glanced round, but she was concentrating on the dinner I was going to miss.

  Davie was waiting in the four-by-four. ‘What’s all this about, then? Sophia kicked you out?’

  ‘Might has well have. You mean you’re still in the dark?’

  He looked around. ‘The streetlamps here are fine.’

  ‘Dickhead. They haven’t told you about the new case?’

  ‘Not more of Bosch’s weirdoes?’ he said, pulling away.

  I shook my head. ‘Go to Ainslie Place, number twenty-five. The Lord of the Isles has gone missing.’

  ‘Shit.’ His phone rang. ‘Hang on.’ He swerved to the kerb and listened. ‘Got it, Director. Quint … Mr Dalrymple’s in the car with me now.’ Pause. ‘Aye, ma’am, will do.’ He cut the connection and drove on.

  ‘Will do what?’

  He grinned. ‘Will make sure you observe regulations.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’

  The sleet had let off, but the roads were treacherous, cars skidding on the setts. We were only a few minutes from our destination and Davie was avoiding collisions. Most Edinburgh locals hadn’t learned to drive under the Enlightenment as there were no private cars, so there were a lot of inexperienced drivers around. Dodgems Central was what Glaswegians called the city. Among other things.

  ‘So, I’m officially on the case,’ Davie said. ‘The tree-fish has been passed down to one of my people. I’ve been told to leave her to get on with it, at least till we find the Puce Emperor.’

  Angus Macdonald’s face was that colour and he had definite delusions of grandeur. Then again, he’d been involved in the initial exploitation of the oil and gas fields, so he had power and influence beyond those of leader of the opposition.

  Davie headed round the curve of Moray Place where the guardians used to be quartered. ‘Something to do with rigs and pipelines?’

  ‘You’re not as thick as you look.’ I yelped as a bear paw closed around my thigh. ‘Which isn’t thick at all …’

  He let go after he parked in Ainslie Place down from the Lord of the Isles’s house. There were other ScotPol vehicles in the vicinity.

  ‘Watch your mouth, Eric,’ he said with a guffaw.

  I followed him to the tape barring the pavement.

  ‘Detective Leader,’ said the grizzled officer with the clipboard. ‘Citizen Dalrymple.’ He smiled. ‘Always a pleasure.’

  I nodded, pretty sure he wasn’t being ironic. I still had a few fans from the old days.

  ‘Right,’ Davie said, striding to the steps that led up to the ornate white door. ‘Who’s in charge here? Or, rather, who was in charge?’

  A tall man wearing a kilt stepped forward from a group gathered in the opulent hall. His red hair reached his shoulders.

  ‘Hamish Macdonald, the Lord of the Isles’s chief of staff.’ He extended his hand to me. ‘Mr Dalrymple. It’s an honour. I’ve read your books.’

  ‘Don’t believe anything in them,’ Davie said, introducing himself. ‘You’ll remember we’re in Edinburgh, Mr Macdonald. I’m ScotPol’s local detective leader.’

  ‘Of course.’ The skin on Macdonald’s face was stretched tight; in fact, he was epidermis and bone all over.

  ‘Are you a relation?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘No, there are thousands of Macdonalds in the northwest.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Stupid question, given the government’s crackdown on nepotism.’

  The chief of staff gave me a sharp look.

  ‘What happened?’ Davie asked. ‘In detail.’

  ‘Come into the lounge,’ Macdonald said, leading the way.

  There were several portraits of Highlanders in full costume on the walls, one of them the missing lord, his hair much less snowy than now.

  I sat on what I thought was a Georgian chair. Davie consigned his bulk to a more modern sofa, a Macdonald tartan throw over the cushions.

  ‘Drink?’ The tall man was at a well-stocked table.

  ‘No, we need to get on,’ I said.

  Hamish Macdonald went to the fireplace and tossed another log on the blaze. ‘I’ve been briefed by the relevant staff members. It seems his lordship took to his bed here just after two o’clock this afternoon.’

  ‘Does he normally have a nap?’ Davie asked.

  ‘Not every day.’

  ‘“It seems”,’ I said, taking out my notebook. ‘You weren’t here?’

  ‘No, I was at parliament.’

  That institution was housed in what had been George Heriot’s School, a building that was a citizen education centre under the Enlightenment and had been recently refurbished. The pre-2003 Scottish government’s seat in the eccentric new building at the foot of the High Street was considered tainted by its use by the Council of City Guardians.

  ‘His lordship made a speech in the debate on expanding trade with South Africa this morning,’ Hamish Macdonald continued, ‘and I was dealing with the aftermath.’ He frowned. ‘The press habitually make inferences bearing no resemblance to what is said.’

  ‘So you didn’t know where he was?’ Davie said, eyeing the tall man dubiously. He had little time for bureaucrats.

  ‘I knew he’d departed because he told me he was going to. I left the details to his chauffeur and security detail.’

  ‘We’ll be talking to
them,’ Davie said. ‘Did he say anything out of the ordinary?’

  ‘Did he say he was going to rest?’ I added.

  The chief of staff rubbed his chin. ‘Yes to both questions,’ he said, brow furrowed. ‘I thought nothing of it at the time, but his last words to me were “Come to the house at seven – I should be back by then”. I should have queried where he was going, but a scrum of journalists surrounded me.’

  I glanced at Davie. ‘So where did your lord and master go?’

  ‘That’s just it. He never left the room. His valet was sitting outside the whole time.’

  ‘Let’s see the room,’ I said.

  ‘And talk to this valet,’ Davie said. He wasn’t keen on flunkies either, never mind lords.

  We were led up a marble staircase with gilded iron balusters beneath the smooth wooden rail. The first floor contained ornate reception rooms, the doors all open – presumably because the staff had been running around looking for the missing man. On the second floor, by comparison, all the doors except one were closed. The door to the room at the rear was lying on the floor.

  ‘You didn’t,’ I said.

  The kilted man looked at me. ‘What … oh, I see. I gave the order for it to be knocked down. I was worried about his lordship’s health. His heart …’

  ‘It was locked?’ I kneeled by the heavy, panelled door, which was surrounded by fragments of wood and marked by what looked like sledgehammer blows. The key on what had been the inside was turned, and the bolt – now bent – was visible.

  ‘We had some trouble breaking it down,’ said Macdonald. ‘I knocked for a good while and called him on his phones. No reply.’

  ‘Has anyone been in the room?’ Davie asked.

  ‘Yes … but only me. I wanted to see what had happened to his lordship.’

  Davie glowered at him. ‘You’ve contaminated the scene. Don’t move until the forensics team arrives.’ He made the call.

  I held off going in but could see the layout and contents clearly enough. The Lord of the Isles slept in a large four-poster bed. The curtains were drawn back and the quilt undisturbed. The wallpaper was in the missing man’s Macdonald tartan, which was too red for anywhere except a knocking shop.

  What really caught my eye were the windows. The two facing the street were shuttered, while those facing the gardens behind the terrace of high houses were uncovered. Outside both were bars too close together to allow anything but a slim pigeon to pass through.

  It seemed I had a locked-room mystery, but one with two differences – there was no functioning lock and no body. If the SOCOs confirmed that – there were two large wardrobes and three trunks – I was living my own Golden Age crime novel. Thing is, I’ve always been a noir man; Hammett and Chandler didn’t do locked rooms. What would the Continental Op, Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe have had to say about this?

  Davie and I put on white coveralls and bootees, then pulled the hoods over our heads when the SOCO leader, my not-friend Graham Arthur, waved us into the bedroom.

  ‘Well, there’s no body,’ he said, casting his eye over the open wardrobes and trunks. ‘And before you ask – yes, we have checked under the bed.’

  ‘Are those bars all secure?’ I said, watching a technician at one of the windows.

  ‘So far, yes. I take it someone was in here.’

  ‘You take nothing,’ Davie said, looming. ‘This is a no-assumptions, no-surmises, no-gossip case – got it?’

  Arthur smiled under his moustache. ‘Of course. I hope the Lord of the Isles doesn’t mind that you broke his door down.’

  ‘Watch it,’ Davie said, stepping forward. That wiped the smile from the Glaswegian’s lips. ‘What else have you got?’

  ‘Fingerprints – we’re collecting what we can find and also taking the prints of everyone who comes in here. The room is very clean and there’s nothing obvious on any of the surfaces.’

  ‘Including the floor?’ I said. A Persian carpet took up most of the space, but there was about a yard of black-painted boards at the door.

  ‘I’ve already matched those prints’ – he pointed to an area that was sectioned off – ‘with the chief of staff’s shoes. Then again, there was dust and debris from the smashed door, so they stuck out.’

  ‘Any blood?’ Davie asked.

  ‘Nothing obvious, but we’re still checking.’

  ‘Other fluids?’ I said.

  Arthur’s teeth blossomed. ‘Mr Dalrymple! We’re talking about the leader of the—’

  ‘We’re talking about my boot going up your arse,’ Davie said. ‘Answer the question.’

  The SOCO swallowed hard. ‘As I said, the room is very clean. That includes the bedding, the towels in the en suite, the curtains round the bed … and there are no soiled clothes in the laundry basket.’

  Angus Macdonald had never struck me as a sex addict, but you never could tell. I’d asked Hel Hyslop if we could access his medical file in case he had any life-threatening conditions and was told she’d get back to me. There was a quicker solution.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Davie. ‘Time we interviewed the chief of staff.’ We’d already had a go at the valet, a timid Skye native, who said he’d never moved from the dressing room, hadn’t dropped off, hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary and couldn’t imagine what had happened to his lordship, who had been behaving normally in recent days.

  ‘Mr Macdonald,’ I said, after we’d sat him down in the kitchen. Basement rooms are best for interrogations, although, apart from the magnetic strip on the wall with eight knives attached, the room was warm and unthreatening. The range was new and the cooking equipment both expensive and spotless.

  ‘I’m at a loss—’ he began.

  ‘Quiet!’ Davie roared. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to.’ Sometimes he forgot he was no longer in the City Guard.

  ‘Was your boss well?’ I asked.

  The tall man, now wearing different clothes as the SOCOs had taken his earlier outfit, looked surprised. ‘As far as I know, yes. He’s over seventy now, but he sees the best doctors.’

  ‘I’m sure he does. So it’s unlikely he’d have wandered off or collapsed?’

  ‘I don’t understand. He couldn’t have left the room—’

  ‘Just humour me, Mr Macdonald.’

  ‘He was well, apart from his heart, but he took pills.’

  I’d seen them in the en suite. I wondered if he had others with him. The label said one pill three times a day.

  ‘Known enemies?’ Davie said, licking the point of his pencil.

  ‘Some, but he has a security detail.’

  ‘Who were down here when he was upstairs,’ I noted. ‘Not exactly standard practice.’

  The chief of staff raised his shoulders. ‘I know nothing about that, but Jim and Andy have been with his lordship for over five years. They’re loyal clan members.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said. We’d be talking to them. ‘Those enemies?’

  ‘Brigands up north, though we’ve got rid of almost all of those; oil and gas explorers and their backers who want in on the Sutherland fields; crofters and fishermen whose property has been purchased by compulsory order or whose livelihoods have been affected. I suppose politicians from the other parties, not that I’m accusing anyone.’

  ‘Aye, right. Plenty of potential assailants, then.’

  ‘In theory, I suppose, but he should be safe in Edinburgh.’ Macdonald looked at me and then at Davie. ‘Shouldn’t he?’

  I shrugged. ‘The aristocracy isn’t exactly the flavour of the century here, even after the Enlightenment. Depends who he runs into.’ I gave him a slack smile. ‘Speaking of which, your boss is a businessman as well as leader of the opposition. Has he been doing any deals he shouldn’t have?’

  Hamish Macdonald’s eyes opened wide. ‘Certainly not! I’m party to all his lordship’s commercial activities. I can assure you—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Davie. ‘Details, man, we need details!’

  ‘
That’s impossible.’

  ‘Is it now?’ Davie got to his feet, shoving his chair back. ‘Something else that’s impossible is me stretching your neck from here.’ He moved round the table and stood behind the tall man, putting heavy hands on his shoulders. ‘It’s not looking so impossible from here, though.’

  ‘Just give us an idea of what’s going on,’ I said. ‘It’s in his lordship’s best interests.’

  ‘Very … very well. As you know, the bulk of shares in the Sutherland field and the ancillary plant and equipment have been sold to the Scottish state.’

  ‘But your boss still makes plenty from ground rents and the like.’

  ‘True. He also uses the knowledge he gained of the oil and gas businesses when he was in Texas to ensure that Scotland’s deals with other countries are as beneficial as possible.’

  ‘Any kickbacks?’ I asked.

  ‘No! His lordship is not that kind of man.’

  I remembered his lordship in the years before Edinburgh had rejoined the nation. He had his fingers in a lot of very rancid pies. Then again, so did some of Edinburgh’s former leaders. And Andrew Duart. Were they still playing us ordinary people for fools?

  ‘Details!’ yelled Davie into Macdonald’s right ear.

  ‘For the love of God,’ said the Highlander, shaking his head. ‘Very well, but this is confidential. His lordship has recently been negotiating with Norway’s state energy company about sustainable technology, with the Finns – who recovered their country from Russian gangs last year – about oil and gas, and with the German Federation about computer technology.’

  I remembered reading that the old capitalist had got his hands on shares of the leading companies in the Silicon Belt. What had been Glasgow’s hi-tech sector had now expanded eastwards and was being met by Edinburgh’s burgeoning online gaming industries.

  ‘Might one or other of those countries resort to underhand methods to obtain the best deal?’ I asked.

  Hamish Macdonald slumped. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time, though things have been much better since Scottish reunification. Besides, the National Party’s ministers keep an eye on the negotiations. Angus … his lordship acts in an advisory capacity.’