Impolitic Corpses

by Paul Johnston

  ‘My biggest problem was with the other stuff you cut.’ She got up and went into the kitchen. I heard the oven door bang as she put the pizza in.

  ‘For instance,’ she said, when she came back in, ‘the full horror of the corruption in the Council.’

  ‘I thought I was pretty open about that.’

  ‘You didn’t say much about your mother.’

  She had me there.

  ‘And, even worse, you cut the ENT Man.’

  The stump of my forefinger immediately started to throb. I swallowed the bile that shot up my oesophagus.

  I had some explaining to do.

  NINE

  ‘Tell me all about it,’ said Katharine, after we’d finished the pizza and settled on the sofa with charged glasses.

  ‘All about wha—’

  She raised a hand and I saw callouses and deep scores. Apparently, not all the heavy work was done by males in Stirling.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But how about you tell me what you’re doing here?’

  ‘Gentlemen first.’ She smiled and for the first time I caught a glimpse of Katharine as she had been – warm and generous beneath the tough carapace.

  So I went through the case, leaving nothing out except the fact that Rory had the Lord of the Isles. I had the feeling he’d be wanting to tell her that himself. I felt comfortable talking to her – after all, we had worked together for years, as well as being lovers. Her mind was as sharp as ever. She took no notes and asked questions that cut to the quick.

  Including: ‘A right index finger?’

  I’d been telling her about what had been found in the Lord of the Isles’s room in the house on Ainslie Place.

  I might have known she’d stick on that.

  ‘And no idea who put it there?’

  ‘Maybe the old man himself. I haven’t had a chance to question him. Anyway, how did you know he’d gone missing? There’s been no official announcement or press reports.’ I’d asked that question earlier and she’d ignored me.

  ‘For the love of Bruce,’ she said, her temper fraying as it used to. It was interesting that she’d used the expression favoured in the nationalist media. Maybe Stirling claimed the victor of Bannockburn as one of their own because the battlefield was in its territory. But as far as I knew, there had never been any doubts about his sex.

  ‘Not Wallace?’

  ‘And him. Stirling Bridge, remember? Anyway, how do you think I know? I’m on the governing council. We have contacts in parliament.’

  ‘But parliament doesn’t know.’

  ‘Sometimes you’re very naive. Of course people at Heriot’s know. Why do you think you and the beast are back on the case?’

  ‘Don’t call Davie that,’ I objected. ‘You’re in his flat.’

  She looked around disapprovingly. ‘I wish I wasn’t.’

  ‘I suppose you live in Stirling Castle.’

  ‘No, that’s where the council meets – open to the public, I hasten to add. We’re in what used to be the university, along with plenty of sisters.’

  I wanted to know how the region worked, but this wasn’t the time.

  ‘You’re saying that parliament put pressure on Andrew Duart to rescind his executive order?’

  Katharine nodded. ‘That’s what we told our members to do as soon as we heard about it.’

  ‘I suppose I should thank you.’

  She emptied her glass. ‘Never mind that. I haven’t forgotten the finger, Quint. Why do you think it was there?’

  I disposed of what was in my own glass, the mild burning in my throat entering the acid house that my stomach had again become. ‘What are you getting at?’ I asked, playing for time.

  Her eyes widened, always a sign that her patience was at an end.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, which wasn’t far from the truth.

  ‘Don’t you dare call it a coincidence.’

  I saluted, which went down like a concrete balloon. ‘You think it’s something to do with me?’

  Katharine stood up and threw her glass at me. It was on target – my face – but I moved to avoid it. There was a thump on the wall, but the receptacle didn’t break. Davie would be pleased.

  ‘You’ve been making things up too much, Quint,’ she said, arms akimbo. ‘Remove the plank from your eye.’

  ‘You read the Bible up there?’

  ‘It’s not exactly a text brimming over with feminist principles. Speak, man!’

  ‘All right, wait a minute.’ I thought seriously about the finger for the first time, having been too worried to do so earlier. ‘It seems like a pretty abstruse way to attract my attention. Why not send it to my flat if that was the aim?’

  ‘How would you have reacted to that?’

  I took her point. ‘With fury,’ I said, imagining what would have happened if Maisie or Sophia had found it. Heck would probably have treated it as a fake cigarette. Which would have made me even more uncontrollable.

  ‘Which they didn’t want. Whoever planted it wants to put a very strong wind up you. They also knew that you’d be involved in the case.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s common knowledge that ScotPol use me as a consultant.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, catching my eye, ‘it’s even on the back of your books.’

  ‘Not my doing. Billy’s.’

  She shook her head. ‘I might have known. That scheming slimeball’s no doubt thriving in the new Scotland. Anyway, think about this. You made no mention of the ENT Man in The Body Politic, just mentioned your lover Caro as a casualty of the drugs wars and made up another connection to the woman I—’

  ‘All right!’ I shouted. ‘What’s your point? That someone’s pissed off I didn’t mention that piece of shit? No one knows what happened to him.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  I swallowed hard. In truth, I wasn’t – not a hundred per cent.

  After a protracted silence, Katharine said, ‘Right, I need to sleep. I’ll take the sofa. I don’t fancy the beast’s – sorry, the big man’s bed.’

  I should have gone home but I felt completely bereft of energy. At least Sophia wasn’t expecting me, though I didn’t think that through. I shuffled to the bedroom and crashed down on top of the covers, sure I wouldn’t sleep.

  The problem was that I did.

  … the Ear, Nose and Throat Man appears in Princes Street Gardens, his hulking form moving slowly, relentlessly, along the asphalt path beneath the sloping grass. The figure is darker than the darkness the Council imposes in the few hours the tourists are inactive, but I catch the odd reflection from the knives he’s holding in the few lights on the castle. He doesn’t know I’m tracking him; the lure I used was too subtle for the man his fellow gang members call Little Walter – they’re all blues fanatics – but behind his back the Slaughterman. He’s a killer, not a thinker. But he was smart enough to lie in wait for my Caro during the Tactical Operations Squad raid beyond the city line. Strangled her with a rope before I got to the dilapidated farm building, tightening so hard that she bit off her tongue. Caro. I swore then that I’d catch him myself; this wasn’t something I could leave for the Public Order Directorate. I smell him as I get closer, rotting teeth and unwashed clothes, impregnated with the body fluids of the people he murdered, cutting off their ears and noses, stuffing their mouths with soil or pieces of fabric. But he becomes aware of me too; he hasn’t survived so long without honing his senses. Stops and waits without turning his head, just extends his arms with the knives. And I run at him, leaping on to the great back and circling his thick neck with the E-string from my guitar, pulling tight the way he did with Caro, hearing him grunt. Then he shakes his body like a dog trying to cast off a flea; shakes and I struggle to hang on, my feet off the ground, my brow banging against the back of his head. Die, you fucker, I’m gasping, die, you piece of shit. But he’s too strong, and he eventually casts me off. I land on my feet and crouch, then run at him again and drive into his belly with my head, sending him
flying backwards, unaware that he’s sliced my finger off until I feel blood on my hand. I pick the digit up and put it in my pocket. Because I’m looking at him, motionless on the asphalt, lying on his side. I roll him over and see that he’s landed on one of his knives, stabbed himself in the heart, which explains the lack of jerking or drumming of boots. The ENT Man is dead. I know exactly where I am; my plan has worked. I drag him to the newly poured concrete in the stand that’s being built for the hippodrome over the railway lines, drag him into the still wet mix and submerge him, wait till the body stays down, find a rake and clear up the mess, smooth over the surface. Rain is forecast and it has already started. It’ll wash the blood from the grass and asphalt. I remember my finger. I push it into the concrete to lie with the serial killer for eternity, along with my E-string, which is still round his neck. Then I slip away into the night, the stump of my finger now screaming with pain. I have a carving knife in my flat. I’ll say I cut myself. I have to get blood on it before I go to the infirmary. I’m away, free as the wind, heart flying. And then I see what I’ve never noticed when I’ve rerun the scene before: a pair of eyes glinting above a railing, a figure that disappears into the darkness, a witness …

  I was woken by the ring of my mobile.

  ‘Are you still at my place?’ said Davie.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Are you decent?’

  ‘Piss off. What time is it?’

  ‘Just after seven. Rory wants La Kirkwood somewhere as yet undisclosed as soon as possible.’

  ‘And you’ve volunteered to drive?’

  ‘Why not? I’m in so deep with this …’

  ‘All right, can you drop me at home first?’

  ‘My thinking. I’m at the top of the road.’

  At least he hadn’t blundered in. Katharine would have loved that, his flat or not. I went into the living room. She was standing on her head.

  ‘Morning,’ I mumbled.

  She performed an impressive flip and stood up. ‘Quint. I take it we’re on the move.’

  ‘No time for breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t eat it.’

  ‘Quelle surprise.’

  She gave me a sharp look as I headed for the door.

  There was a thick haar over the Dean Village. Davie nodded to me as we got into the four-by-four, raising an eyebrow at Katharine.

  ‘I still don’t know where I’m to take her,’ he said, pulling away.

  ‘Her is here,’ she said from the back seat.

  Davie ignored that. ‘You’ll be looking forward to telling Sophia who you spent the night with, Quint.’

  I wasn’t. Katharine didn’t comment.

  ‘Ah, Edinburgh,’ she said, as we went through the western New Town. ‘I’ve heard property prices in the centre are beyond ordinary citizens. The benefits of capitalism.’

  ‘I suppose you have communism,’ said Davie, looking in the mirror.

  ‘A version of it, yes. Utopianism didn’t die with the Enlightenment.’

  That shut him up. I was thinking about what to say at home and didn’t notice we were there until we’d stopped outside.

  ‘There’s a plaque to J.M. Barrie a few houses down,’ Davie said. He was really getting his pound of flesh. ‘Peter Pan here is about to meet his Wendy.’

  I jammed my elbow into his side, hurting myself more than him.

  ‘See you later, no doubt,’ I said to Katharine, who was now lying on the back seat. ‘Thanks for taking cover.’

  She gave a single laugh. ‘I’m not doing it for you, Quint. I’m not officially in the city, remember?’

  I stalked off after slamming the door, hoping the pair of them had a challenging conversation. As I went up the stairs, I heard Heck in full scream mode. Good – that would be a useful diversion. I tried to let myself in but the chains were on. Well done, Sophia – or, more likely, Maisie.

  The latter did the necessary.

  ‘Good morning, Quint,’ she said formally, presenting a cheek to be kissed. That was unusual.

  Heck appeared at ludicrous velocity, his legs bare.

  ‘Come here, you,’ said Sophia, on his tail and laughing. She stopped when she saw me, then rallied and gave me a medium-strength smile. ‘What are you doing here, Quint?’

  ‘Er, this is where I live.’

  She came up and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I don’t mean that. You told me you were going undercover.’

  Heck burst out laughing. ‘Undercover, undercover, in the bed, lazy Dad!’ Then he grabbed my leg and started jumping up and down. I took the hint, grabbed him and swung him above my head.

  ‘Careful,’ Maisie warned. ‘He’s had half his breakfast.’

  Vomit-hair I could live without. I brought him down to my chest and planted kisses over his face and neck. He squirmed and squealed satisfactorily.

  I’d come to a decision. ‘Dearest, can I have a word?’

  Sophia looked at me impassively. ‘Of course.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘on our own.’

  ‘Secrets, eh?’ said Maisie, taking Heck from me. ‘We know when we’re not wanted.’ She carried him into the kitchen.

  In our bedroom, I sat down on the bed and patted the area next to me. Sophia complied, but warily.

  ‘What’s going on, Quint?’

  I took the plunge off that cliff in Acapulco I remembered from the TV when I was a kid, hoping to avoid a belly-flop.

  ‘Katharine Kirkwood’s in town.’

  Sophia stiffened. ‘Is she now?’

  ‘And I spent the … we slept … oh, for the love of God, we had to talk about the case and I was so tired I passed out on Davie’s bed but she was on the sofa. And nothing happened.’

  My entrails were all over the Pacific Ocean.

  ‘That was convincing,’ Sophia said, standing up. ‘Why did you have to talk to that woman about the case?’

  Good question. I wasn’t going to say it was because I felt at ease doing so. ‘She’s here in secret. There’s something dodgy going on, but I’m not sure where it ends yet.’

  ‘Oh, well, as long as you and she aren’t getting cosy.’ She bent over me. ‘Because that would lead to great unhappiness.’

  At which point Maisie and Heck came in, picking up the acidity in her tone. Maisie raised her eyes ceiling-wards and my son ran headfirst into my groin.

  When I got over the agony, I remembered something I should have followed up.

  Davie came back to pick me up. I had to endure a fraught half-hour getting Heck ready for playgroup – Sophia was taking him this morning – as he had turned into a homicidal maniac. He was very defensive of his mother, the little tyke. Maisie was working on scorn. She scored ten out of ten.

  ‘By the way,’ Sophia said, as she led Heck towards the front door. ‘The Boschean woman – Hyslop’s had her corpse removed; don’t ask me where.’

  Great. The day could only get better.

  ‘Why are you snow white?’ asked Davie, after I’d got into the four-by-four, covered in flakes.

  ‘Why are you Dopey?’

  ‘Huh. My favourite dwarf was Sneezy.’

  ‘Don’t. Where did you take Katharine?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s classified.’

  I gave him the evil eye.

  ‘Oh, all right. Number twenty-three, Arden Street, third floor. Four of Rory’s rebels were there, with guns. Lucky bastards.’

  ‘What about Rory?’

  ‘Not that I saw. Where to? HQ?’

  The haar was lifting but the dull light was being soaked up by the blackened walls. During the Enlightenment, coal was the main source of energy and Edinburgh had become Auld Reekie again. I suspected there was more snow on the way.

  ‘Not for the time being. Let’s leave Hyslop to stew. We’ve been remiss about a couple of things.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ He slammed the vehicle into first gear at the top of Dublin Street. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Ricky Fetlar,’ I said, my groin still aching.

  ‘The s
ecurity guy who was on duty when the dead woman was delivered?’

  ‘Right. Why was he so desperate that he repeatedly rammed his head into the wall?’

  ‘I asked Eilidh that,’ Davie said proudly. ‘Apparently, it hasn’t been followed up – seen as a waste of time.’

  I looked ahead as we came on to Princes Street. ‘I don’t suppose she gave you his next of kin?’

  He stuck a paw in his pocket. It came out with a folded sheet of paper.

  ‘Maureen Duff, mother, eight-B Blacket Avenue.’

  ‘Does she even know he’s dead?’

  ‘Aye, someone went round. She was stoical. A female officer stayed with her for an hour. She didn’t hear anything, not even a single cry, before she was turfed out.’

  Davie had crossed Waverley Bridge and was heading up Cockburn Street. Some tourists were already out and about, trawling the trendy shops for what they thought would be bargains.

  ‘This is going to be fun,’ I said gloomily.

  ‘At least it isn’t the death knock.’

  ‘Not far off it.’

  ‘What else have we been remiss about?’

  ‘Questioning the Lord of the Isles.’

  ‘We can go on to Prestonfield; it’s close enough.’

  ‘Assuming he’s still there. Maybe Rory’s taken him to Arden Street.’

  Davie grinned. ‘Well, we can gatecrash their little party.’

  ‘Down, boy.’

  The rest of the drive to Newington passed in silence.

  ‘Ms Duff?’ I said, when the street door opened. The detached building had originally been a town house, but during the Enlightenment it had been split into flats.

  ‘Mrs,’ corrected the short plump woman, who peered up at me through thick glasses. ‘Though ma man’s long gone. Who are you?’ Even if she had normal eyesight, she wouldn’t have seen the four-by-four as I’d got Davie to park further down the road. I left him there with instructions to pick Eilidh’s brains about ongoing developments.

  ‘Name’s Dalrymple,’ I said, eschewing the usual ‘Call me Quint’. I was hoping for a degree of anonymity to put her off her guard.