‘Dunno. Are we better in than out?’
It was a reasonable question. He had a reliable source in Eilidh, though no doubt Hyslop would throw the regulation book at him for going walkabout, and I had no desire to further her career. Still, going into West Pilton with a team of ScotPol officers was tempting.
‘Let’s stay with the rebels for the time being,’ I said.
‘We could always slip into Pilton on our own under cover of darkness,’ the big man said, with a worrying grin.
‘Uh-huh. I’m not suicidal yet. Besides, young Denzil’s on the door of a club called Salt and Chilli in Leith. There’s a decent chance it’s Morrie the Nut’s and maybe he’ll be there too.’
‘I’m up for that,’ said Davie, parting the flap of his jacket to display the butt of his automatic. ‘Any more clips?’
Knee Bothwell handed him a couple.
I looked at my watch. It was coming up to eight – too early to hit the club. That wasn’t a problem as there were two places I wanted to visit first.
Bothwell was driving the brown van into the centre, with four of his people in the back, and Davie and me up front. The tongueless man had been taken to the southern suburb of Liberton in another vehicle and an ambulance called to collect him.
‘What are we supposed to do while you’re carousing?’ the driver complained.
‘Discuss the French Revolution?’ I suggested.
‘That’s vieux chapeau, mon brave.’
‘Bravo, André.’
Davie turned to me. ‘Did he just make a joke?’
‘Even rebels can have a sense of humour.’
‘Aye, and pigs might form their own air force.’
I laughed, then got serious, thinking of Ricky Fetlar, who’d broken his own head open for a cause I couldn’t fathom. There was also the blond guy with the Prince of Hell on his back. Was there a connection between them? I knew someone who might be able to help.
‘You can come in, if you like, Davie,’ I said, when we turned on to Great Citizen Street. I had an ulterior motive. ‘Knee, go to the address I gave you and make sure the occupant doesn’t leave. If he tries, bring him round here.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the driver said, with an insolent smile.
I couldn’t think of a smartarse reply so I got out and went up the steps to the street door. Davie followed and then overtook me on the stairs. More fool him. I started panting, my legs burning; I really had to do something about my carcass before it imploded. I put the key in the lock and opened the door. It took Heck about five seconds to hit Davie round the knees with what might have been called a rugby tackle by someone with a very loose understanding of the laws, especially the one about biting.
‘Ooyah!’ Davie exclaimed.
I managed to pull the wee bamstick off. He accepted a cuddle, then struggled free.
‘Muuuum!’ he yelled. ‘The fat man’s here!’
‘Thanks a lot,’ said Davie, rubbing his leg. ‘Do I need an anti-tetanus jab?’
‘Definitely,’ said Maisie, appearing from her bedroom with a large textbook draped over her arm.
‘Biology?’ I asked, catching a glimpse of a skinned animal.
‘The year after next’s set book,’ she said. ‘How soon can I go to university?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Really?’ Then she realized she’d been had and stomped off.
‘Neat parenting skills,’ said Davie.
‘Here comes Heck again.’ I watched as the imp drove Goliath into a corner.
Sophia came out of the kitchen. ‘Didn’t expect to see you tonight,’ she said, looking at the pan of sliced carrots she was carrying. ‘Oh. I forgot to peel them.’
‘Little bit of boiled dirt won’t do them any harm,’ I said, leaning forward to kiss her on the lips. She didn’t resist.
‘I take it you and Davie – Heck, leave him alone! – aren’t staying for dinner, then.’
‘Busy, busy. I need to ask you something, though.’ I followed her into the kitchen, which was in a state of chaos.
‘Do I need a live-in maid?’ Sophia said. ‘Yes, urgently.’ She started to brush the bits of carrot, then gave up.
‘I’ll see what I can do. Tell me, the warehouse guard who smashed his skull in—’
‘Fetlar, R.? What about him?’ Sophia put the pan on the ring. ‘Is this something to do with his tattoo?’
‘So he has got one?’
She nodded. ‘A black boat with a red sail, on his left shoulder.’
I pulled up the Bosch painting on my phone, zoomed in and showed her.
‘That’s it.’
The said boat was on a yellowish-red expanse of water towards the top of the Hell panel, an army crossing a bridge beneath it and a cliff with a ladder leading to a tunnel above.
‘What is it about that horrible work of art?’ she said. ‘The dead woman had the toad and branchlike hands.’
‘We’ve just sent a guy without a tongue to the infirmary. He’s got the Prince of Hell bird on his back.’ I showed her that part of the panel. Then I made a connection. ‘Hang on, the blue birdman and the other guy shitting gold coins. We’ve come across a Luxembourg company called BirdMammon.’
‘And we don’t believe in coincidences, do we?’ Sophia said.
‘Generally not. Well, well.’
‘I need the room,’ she said, waving me away. ‘Heck will have driven Davie round the bend. Kids! In the kitchen now!’
‘Si, Mama,’ called Maisie.
‘We need to have a serious talk about her education,’ I said.
‘When you can afford the time,’ Sophia said, with a tight smile.
Davie walked in, hands under Heck’s arms and extended so his midriff was out of range of the kicks being directed there.
‘Yours, I think,’ he said, presenting her son to Sophia.
‘His, too,’ she said, angling her head towards me.
I beamed with pride.
‘Let’s walk,’ I said to Davie. On the way to Heriot Row – Billy had managed to keep hold of the double flat he’d had during the Enlightenment, even though it was on Edinburgh’s most expensive street – I told Davie about Ricky Fetlar’s tattoo.
‘Shit,’ he said, ‘Eilidh should have told me about that.’
‘Who knows how much Hyslop’s sharing with her?’
‘True enough.’ He slipped on the slush-covered pavement. ‘Bugger this. I wish it would snow properly. I can’t stand this soggy mess.’
‘Be careful what you desire.’
‘Aye, right.’ He glared at me. ‘About time you trained that nipper of yours.’
‘I have been training him – to nip.’
He raised his right arm and I took evasive action, which landed my left leg in chilly water up to the calf. That made him laugh. End of conversation.
We stopped outside the brown van.
‘He’s up there,’ said Knee Bothwell, nodding at the lights flooding from all the windows on the second and third floors. Unlike most houses in the street, this one had a lift, put in by Billy when getting auxiliaries to carry him up and down was no longer an option. ‘And he’s got a lady friend. Lovely-looking young woman.’
At least Billy’s company was young. He had been known to go for grannies, though that taste might have been stimulated by compulsory sex sessions with randomly assigned partners during the Enlightenment. Then again, I’d managed to control myself on that count, usually by having a cup of tea with my intended partners instead, before they went on their way. Farewell, my lovelies.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘you lot stay down here.’
‘Aw.’ Davie was crestfallen. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to beat the crap out of that thieving scumbag?’
‘Yes. He’s a cripple, for Plato’s sake.’
Bothwell laughed. ‘You’re not still reading that old fascist?’
‘No.’ The truth was I knew numerous passages of the Enlightenment’s favourite thinker off by heart. Weekly debates on h
is work had been obligatory in barracks. Davie seemed to have forgotten all he knew, despite the fact he was in the City Guard till the revolution, while I got demoted in 2018. I remembered because of Socrates, as he was presented in Plato’s dialogues. He was a great example to a private investigator – play dumb, then come up with questions that tie your interlocutor in Gordian knots. Though that technique didn’t work with Billy.
I crossed the road and pressed the intercom buzzer.
After a lengthy silence came a screech.
‘Who the fuck is it? Go away, ya cunt!’
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Urgent business.’ I stressed the last word to tantalize him.
There was a pause. ‘Oh, all right.’ The lock clicked and I pushed my way through. The hall smelled of furniture polish and the scent of flowers that were definitely not local. Billy liked to fly them in from African countries to impress visitors.
I went up the stairs, trying not to pant. On the second flight I passed a seriously attractive redhead in clothing that would have been inadequate during the Edinburgh summer. She gave me a cool look that warmed me up in a second.
‘What the hell do you want?’ came the cracked voice from his open door. Billy was in his wheelchair, wearing a silk dressing gown that showed more than it covered up. ‘What is this business?’
I walked past him, but he quickly overtook me on the teak floor.
‘You interrupted me at a very juicy moment, Quint.’ His lips twisted lewdly.
‘Spare me,’ I muttered, heading for the drinks table, which was huge. ‘Want something?’
‘I’m all doped up and Rowena will be back as soon as you’re gone.’
Way too much information, especially given the disarray of his single garment. A pharmaceutical company in one of the many ultra-religious American state-nations – with typical hypocrisy – had produced a pill that gave you ‘an erection St Simeon Stylites would be proud of’, according to the ad. Billy had obviously been convinced.
‘Where to start?’ I said, pouring myself a decent dram of something in Gaelic that I couldn’t pronounce. The old language had been compulsory in schools in the Lord of the Isles’s domain since reunification. He’d tried to make it compulsory across Scotland but had been told by parliament where he could insert that.
‘You’re the bloody storyteller,’ said Billy scathingly. ‘Which reminds me. The Finnish contracts have come in. You need to sign them. They want to make a TV series out of The Body Politic.’
‘I thought Finland only recently reconstituted itself. Have they got the money?’
‘What do you think? Everyone needs wood.’ He cackled. ‘Except me.’
I groaned. ‘All right, listen. This is for your ears only, definitely not Rowena’s.’
‘Don’t worry, pillow talk’s not my thing.’
‘Why am I not surprised?’ I told him about the reappearance of Angus Macdonald and the pressure that was being exerted on him.
Billy watched me carefully. ‘Why hasn’t that been on the news?’
‘Care to hazard a guess?’
He gave his lopsided smile. ‘You’ve finally found out that the new Scotland is about as united as that Manchester football team, have you?’ The English city was notorious for longstanding gang warfare and had recently become part of Merseyside. As far as I knew, the area wasn’t in Nor-England.
‘How much do you know?’
‘What’s in it for me?’
I took out my phone and called Davie. ‘Hey, Thunderboots, Billy wants—’
‘No!’ screamed my host.
‘Stand by,’ I said, then cut the connection.
‘Bastard,’ Billy hissed.
‘No, I think his parents were married.’
‘Ha fucking ha. All right, I’m glad old Angus is back in town. I heard his wife’s been kidnapped.’ I nodded. ‘If he doesn’t sign those deals, the Nor-English will get nasty. Good sources have reported that they’ve got an army fifty-thousand-strong.’ He grinned. ‘Another thing that hasn’t been mentioned in the media.’
I stared at him. ‘I thought the place was a gang-haunted wasteland until recently.’
‘It was. Then Nigel Shotbolt took over. He’d been a gang leader himself, of course, but he has more … what could it be called? Not nous, but animal cunning. He’s also a very effective demagogue. His speeches about Nor-England’s destiny being to reunite the country go down like … well, Rowena.’
‘Get a grip, you old libertine. Where did he get the money to create an army?’
‘Where do you think?’
I took in his expectant expression, like a devil’s sick for sin. ‘What, from here?’
‘Bravo. The bankers in the shiny new financial centre that the Enlightenment built lend to anyone they think has a future.’
I was shocked and it must have showed, because he laughed. ‘Does the government know?’
‘Duart and a select few of his cronies, yes.’
‘What about the Lord of the Isles?’
‘Not sure, but I’d say he doesn’t. I doubt he’d countenance that kind of deal, even though he’s a major shareholder in most of the banks.’
‘So Andrew Duart might be behind the kidnapping of Lady Margaret.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’
‘And the contracts that are to be made over to BirdMammon – that company’s a front for the principal minister and his circle?’
Billy shrugged, his shoulders uneven. ‘Could be.’
‘How do you know all this?’ I demanded. ‘Have you got shares in the banks? Were you involved in those loans?’
‘Yes. And no. We need to stop Angus making his energy shares over to that company, no matter who’s behind it. Scotland needs to keep control of its energy sector. The economy will collapse without it.’
I still smelled rodent. ‘You’ve got shares in the energy companies too.’
He nodded. ‘I’m a businessman. What do you expect?’
‘Certainly not any trace of morality.’
He cackled. ‘Don’t get on your big stallion with me, pal. How do you think I was able to pay the advances you happily pocketed?’
I might have known. As ever, I was complicit up to my oxters.
‘Doesn’t Duart know about the military threat from the Nor-English?’ I asked, draining my glass and denying myself a refill.
‘Of course. He thinks we can beat them.’
It was my turn to cackle. ‘What with? The Scottish Defence Force is half the size of the army you’re talking about, and most of them are guarding the oil and gas installations.’
Billy wheeled himself closer, his face unusually serious. ‘You haven’t heard of the secret weapon?’
My stomach decided it didn’t like whisky any more. I managed to swallow the liquid that had suddenly filled my mouth.
‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t.’
I reached for my phone again.
‘No, it’s not that I won’t. I can’t because I don’t know.’
‘You’re not a whoring friend of the defence minister?’
‘Believe it or not, that arsehole’s happily married. He’s terrified of his boss. In fact, he might not even know about whatever it is.’
‘Where did they get it, for fuck’s sake? Is science and technology that advanced in Glasgow?’
‘Aberdeen’s the armaments place, I hear.’
Which explained that city’s failure to join Katharine and the late Dougie on their mission to Embra.
Billy smacked my thigh. ‘What are we going to do about the Lord of the Isles? He’s got to sign the papers with the Nor-English.’
‘I doubt he’ll do that. Lady Margaret’s his priority.’
‘Where is he, anyway?’
‘I told you, Lachie’s got him.’
‘Bloody interfering dwarf.’
‘He’s got principles. You don’t even know what those are.’
He laughed, but his expression remained sombr
e. ‘What to do?’
‘That’s what I came to ask you.’
We sat there like a pair of salmon who had spawned and were waiting for the end.
‘I need to talk to Angus,’ Billy said. ‘I can talk sense into him.’
I decided against asking how he imagined he could manage that.
‘OK, I’ll get a message to Lachie.’
Billy snorted. ‘I bet he’s hiding like a timorous beastie.’
‘He led the revolution.’
‘So what? Life goes on, fuelled by the lust for profit. I’ll make contact with the Nor-English – butter them up and keep them here.’
‘You could always take them to your favourite massage parlour.’
He laughed creakily. ‘I doubt Gemma Bass would go for that. She’s a very driven woman, not given to the pleasure of the flesh. I tried.’
I considered telling him about her Bosch belt buckle but decided against it. In the past, information I’d passed to Billy had come back to bite me in the groin.
My phone rang. Davie came on, breathless.
‘Get down here. Rory says the base is being attacked.’
I stood up and headed for the door. ‘Who by?’
‘I’ll give you one guess.’
‘Hyslop.’
‘Is the correct answer. Now run.’
I did my best.
ELEVEN
At the van, I stopped by Knee Bothwell’s open window.
‘Get in, man,’ he said, revving the engine.
‘Come on, Quint,’ added Davie.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Fuck’s sake!’ yelled Bothwell. He grabbed his phone and punched buttons. ‘Rory? Dalrymple’s turned yellow.’ He handed me the device.
I heard gunshots before Rory Campbell’s voice came on. ‘What’s going on down there?’
‘Frontal attack by ScotPol armed units. I’m getting our people out the back. You need to be here, Quint.’
‘Shit. Can you see who’s in command?’
‘No. They’re advancing behind armoured vehicles.’
‘And you haven’t heard from anyone? Hyslop, for instance?’
‘No, this is a kill mission.’
I took a few moments to think. ‘If it is, make sure you get out. I don’t see the point of Bothwell and his men walking into a wall of bullets. Besides, this shows that Hyslop and Duart are rattled. I need to keep probing elsewhere.’
Impolitic Corpses Page 20
