Water of Death

by Paul Johnston

  “That will be for Citizen Dalrymple to ascertain,” Sophia said, breaking the silence. It looked like I was officially off the search for the missing Edlott winner. “We must now discuss how we handle the wider implications of this death.”

  The tourism and culture guardians got to their feet simultaneously and started to speak. It was difficult to separate their words but the ones that featured most were “tourist revenue”, “new Edlott initiative” and “overreaction”.

  Sophia’s expression hardened during this joint tirade. When it eventually finished, she motioned imperiously to the guardians to sit down. “Do I understand you correctly, guardians?” she asked in an incredulous voice. “Are you seriously recommending nothing more than a cursory check of whisky supplies?”

  The two guardians looked in surprise at their new leader. She was at least ten years younger than them.

  “Well, yes,” the tourism guardian said uncertainly. “Any disruption to the supply of whisky will immediately cause complaints from the city’s visitors.”

  Sophia was shaking her head. “That is completely unacceptable. Imagine how much worse the consequences will be if a tourist dies from drinking poisoned whisky.”

  The culture guardian’s normally suave appearance had gone walkabout. “But this Ultimate Usquebaugh is an unknown brand,” he said, wiping his forehead with a bright green silk handkerchief that definitely didn’t come from the Supply Directorate. “There are no grounds to presume that any of the normal brands are affected.”

  “It is impossible to be sure of that,” Sophia said firmly. “Whoever was responsible for the bottles in the Colonies could have adulterated standard-issue supplies. As medical guardian I cannot allow any whisky to be supplied either to tourists or to citizens until it has been tested.” She ran her eyes slowly around her colleagues. “As acting senior guardian I insist that the Council accepts this recommendation.”

  I was impressed. Sophia seemed to be completely committed to the health of everyone in the city whatever the danger of pissing off the drinking population. The senior guardian’s powers only run as far as a casting vote in normal circumstances but in emergencies he or she can force rulings through. No one in the Council had the nerve to argue that this wasn’t an emergency. On the other hand, Sophia was maybe overreacting by insisting that all whisky be tested.

  There was then a discussion of the practicalities. These were to be overseen by Hamilton, reporting to Sophia, with the chief toxicologist in charge of the tests. Sophia also told Lewis that he was to give me everything I needed to find who was behind the nicotine poisoning.

  As the talk continued, I drifted off into a reverie about the Ultimate Usquebaugh. What was the point of the name? I was bloody sure it had been chosen deliberately since the labels had been specially printed. I didn’t get the chance to reach any conclusion about that.

  “Citizen?” Sophia’s voice was like a chainsaw hitting a steel cable. “Do you agree that no news of the poison should be publicised in any medium?”

  “On the grounds that tourism will vanish overnight and the locals will take to the streets?” I asked ironically. I nodded reluctantly. “I suppose so. Of course, the auxiliary and citizen rumour factories will be working triple time, especially when people find out that their whisky vouchers are unredeemable.”

  “Let them drink beer,” the culture guardian said with a high-pitched laugh.

  Sophia gave him a dismissive look. “To recap. Chief toxicologist, you will oversee the testing of the stocks of whisky in the bonded warehouses, bars, the two city distilleries and citizen outlets. Public order guardian, you are to provide guard personnel to assist. Citizen Dalrymple, you are to track down the perpetrators of this lunacy.”

  No problem, I thought. We’ll be done by tea-time.

  The city’s new chief executive looked across pointedly to the tourism and culture guardians. “All other colleagues will attempt to minimise the effects of this disruption to routine activities.”

  The meeting was adjourned. I walked out of the chamber. There were gaps in the members’ desks where state-of-the-art computer equipment used to be before the guardians had it removed. For some reason the holes made me think of icons with the eyes poked out. That wasn’t the only potent image around here. It struck me that discussing poisonous whisky in the former national parliament building that was located on the site of a brewery produced a vicious cocktail of signs and metaphors. I banished them from my mind and walked out humming Will Shade’s “Better Leave That Stuff Alone”.

  I used to be dubious about that advice. Not any more.

  Hamilton let Davie know we were finished and the Jeep appeared in a few minutes. As we accelerated out of the Council yard, he stood on the brakes. I almost went through the windscreen.

  “Jesus, Davie.” I retracted my face from the glass.

  “Are you all right, Dalrymple?” the guardian asked, showing unusual concern.

  “Just.”

  “Sorry, Quint.” Davie had his head out the window. “Are you blind, citizen?” he shouted. “I’ll have your licence.”

  “There’s no time,” I said, checking that my nose was unscathed and looking over at the Water Department tractor that had shot out in front of us. There was no tank on tow, so the driver had probably been playing “Give the Tourists Heart Failure”. It’s a game that’s becoming more and more popular with citizen drivers.

  “Stupid bastard,” Davie said, mouthing the word again at the tractorman as we pulled past him.

  Hamilton ignored that lapse from auxiliary standards of vocabulary. He had other things to worry about. “How are we going to handle this, Dalrymple?”

  “You can put all your people on double shifts for a start. As well as the toxicology tests, we’re going to have to check where every bottle of whisky in the city came from.”

  He nodded. “Hume 253’s been working on the framework for that.”

  “We’re getting there,” Davie said. “I’ve got a team in the command centre allocating personnel to locations.”

  Hamilton was staring out at the garish shopfronts on the Royal Mile. “We haven’t exactly got much to go on, have we?”

  “You can say that again,” I said.

  We split up when we got to the castle. I set up camp in the guardian’s office and tried to track down Napier Barracks personnel who knew the dead man. It wasn’t long before I realised I was wasting my time. Everyone not on normal duties was involved in the whisky checks.

  Then Davie called me from the command centre. “A case of undocumented whisky’s been found in Bond No. 2 in Leith.” His voice was unemotional but I could tell he was excited. “It’s an unknown brand.”

  “Right.” I headed for the door. “I’ll get down there.”

  “I’m coming too.”

  “No, you’re not. The guardian needs you more than I do.” I glanced over at Hamilton, who nodded his agreement. “I’ll let you know if it’s what we’re after. Out.”

  I jumped into the first guard vehicle I came to on the esplanade and flashed my authorisation. The driver was so big that his head touched the Land-Rover’s ceiling and his knees were crushed against the steering wheel. I told him where to go and how fast to do it. A grin spread across his face and he hit the gas. As we reached the narrow passage of Castlehill a small Japanese boy wearing only a pair of shorts ran across the cobbles. His parents, one on each side of the road, looked suitably aghast. I gave them a gracious smile – my contribution to the city’s soon-to-be-strained foreign relations.

  We made it to the main spirits bond in one piece and I sent the gorilla back to the castle. I didn’t fancy another trip with him and I had no idea when I’d be finished. The warehouse is a long Georgian building on Great Junction Street with surprisingly delicate overarched windows – till you notice the heavy steel wire over the glass and the sentry post with gun slits at the main entrance. The place was under siege more often than I went up against the drugs gangs during the early
years of the Enlightenment. Nowadays Leith’s a fairly well-behaved citizen residential area, but Baltic Barracks personnel still pound the streets around the clock – especially the streets near the bond.

  A female senior auxiliary with a suntanned face emerged from the heavy door as I was being surrounded by a scrum of suspicious guardsmen.

  “Citizen Dalrymple? Baltic 04.” The woman sounded efficient beyond even the Council’s demanding standards. “I’m afraid we may have got you down here for nothing,” she said apologetically as she led me down to the cavernous cellars. There were mock-ups of the Ultimate Usquebaugh label on the walls and a horde of auxiliaries was checking stock. “The chemists have just advised me that the whisky we found is unadulterated.” She stopped at a table where a pair of white-coated auxiliaries from Lister 25’s department had set up a mini-lab.

  I looked at the bottles and the unmarked cardboard box they’d come from. The labels bore the name Braes of Oblivion and the liquid in the bottles was a deep brown colour. “There was no documentation?”

  Baltic 04 shook her head. Her cheeks had taken on a faint reddish hue. “One of my people must have slipped up,” she said, shaking her head. I had a feeling that particular individual’s career was about to end. “We receive previously unknown brands from time to time. Contraband the guard picks up, stuff the cruise ship crews try to smuggle in . . .”

  “And there’s definitely no trace of nicotine?” I said to the senior of the chemists.

  He shook his head, already busy with another brand.

  I walked down the cellar and watched the search squads in action for a bit. It was going to be a long job. The chief toxicologist rang and told me that the main stills in the city distilleries had been passed clean. So far all the whiskies imported officially from the Highland states had come up clear too. Then Davie called to report that none of the Supply Directorate stores and shops had produced anything lethal. Five minutes later I had Hamilton on the line complaining that the Tourism Directorate was after him to release stocks of booze that had been approved. Apparently there had been what he called “serious disturbances” in several hotel bars. The poor wee foreigners were suffering. I referred him to the chief toxicologist and the medical guardian.

  I was sharing a bottle of water with Baltic 04 when a thought struck me. I called Davie. “Still no joy?” I asked.

  “No. Maybe that bottle was a one-off, Quint. Maybe this is all somebody’s idea of a piss-take.”

  “I bet Frankie Thomson’s laughing. Listen, Davie, I’ve had an idea.”

  “You’ve had an idea,” he repeated slowly. “Oh, shit.”

  “Oh, shit is right,” I said, laughing. I don’t know why I was laughing. My idea was more worrying than a pre-Enlightenment party political broadcast. “Get down to the bond. And bring your guard helmet as well as your party frock. Out.”

  I smiled at the senior auxiliary. She was staring at me, her expression suggesting I was a very sad case indeed. She was probably right.

  I went into the street. It was quiet even though it wasn’t curfew time yet. Without any whisky in the bars, the locals were probably having an early, discontented night. I thought of Sophia and wondered when I’d next have an early night with her.

  “You’re joking,” Davie said, shaking his head.

  “No I’m not.”

  “Don’t you remember what those guys are like, Quint? If they’re not on patrol, they’ll be fighting drunk. And you know what they think of ordinary citizens like you.”

  I kept quiet. For a long time.

  “All right,” Davie said, starting the Land-Rover. Hamilton obviously hadn’t let him take his Jeep this time. “But don’t blame me if you get a broken head. Or worse.”

  “I checked with the port commander. They’re not going out tonight.”

  He grunted. “Prepare to meet your doom then.”

  There was no reply to that. I was about to put the squeeze on one of the city’s most dangerous men, one who had plenty of opportunities to lay his hands on illicit whisky. He also happened to have very little hair on his head.

  Chapter Six

  The sentry inside the dock gate stared out at us belligerently when our headlights illuminated his box. Eventually he came over and registered Davie’s uniform. I held up my authorisation but he still wanted to check with his superior.

  “Wait here,” he shouted after he put down the phone.

  Davie edged forward till the Land-Rover’s bumper was touching the gate then smiled humourlessly at his fellow guardsman. “Arsehole,” he said, turning to me.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Not you.” He scowled at me. “Though this is all your fault.”

  Soon a pair of lights appeared deep inside the port area and came towards us.

  “Looks like we’re getting a welcoming committee,” I said. “Are they usually this touchy?”

  “This is the Fisheries Guard base, Quint. You know how crazy those guys are.”

  I nodded, remembering the time we’d taken a trip on a seriously rust-eaten hulk. Davie was right. The auxiliaries who get drafted into the Fisheries Guard are headbangers who are too fierce even for border duty. They’re all male, of course. They man the small fleet of ex-trawlers that patrols the city’s waters and intercepts hostile vessels, a Council euphemism for beating the crap out of smugglers and raiders from across the firth.

  The lights inside the fenced compound came towards us at a hell of a rate.

  “Jesus,” I said, getting ready to jump for it.

  “I wonder if that’s who I think it is,” Davie said.

  I shaded my eyes from the dazzling white light and, after an excruciating delay, heard the screech of brakes.

  A door opened and the lights were doused.

  “Kill yours too,” shouted the driver. I recognised the heavy tones immediately.

  Davie did as he was told then got out. I reckoned I was better off staying put.

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  “Hiya, Harry,” Davie said. “I thought you’d be out killing raiders.”

  My eyes got used to the dark and I watched as the bulky figure on the inside unchained the gate and pulled it open. It was Jamieson 369 all right.

  “Davie, you mad bastard.” Harry punched him hard on the shoulder but kept on glaring at him. They’d been through the auxiliary training programme and had served together on the border but Harry didn’t exactly look overjoyed to see him. He was even less pleased to see me.

  “Fucking brilliant,” he groaned, coming over to my door. He was wearing a tattered cap, the peak half torn off. “Citizen Six Brains Dalrymple.” He bellowed a laugh that would have scared off a rutting stag. “Just the man I wanted to see.” He turned away. “Going into the dock lashed to an anchor.”

  “I’m really pleased to see you too, Harry,” I called after him.

  He looked back and gave me a malevolent grin. “Not for long you won’t be.” He turned to Davie. “Since you’ve decided to honour us with a visit, I suppose you’d better come to the mess hall.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. At least we weren’t going to the leaky wreck he commanded. As Harry’s maroon pick-up pulled away in our lights, I made out the shafts of what looked like pick-axes and spades standing up in the back. The crossgrips at the top gave them the look of stunted, minimalist grave markers. Considering what had happened to Frankie Thomson, I felt they were very appropriate.

  The crew mess wasn’t much better than Fisheries Guard seagoing accommodation. It was at the end of a dilapidated dock building, the windows that still had panes in them flung open in the forlorn hope of attracting a cooling breeze. A sign bearing the unit’s fish and heart emblem was hanging down over the entrance at one end. It quivered when Harry hit the door. Someone had drawn a harpoon through the heart, an act of unruliness that would have made Hamilton apoplectic. But, like all the guardians, he gave the Fisheries Guard a very wide berth.

  Davie and I followed the big man
inside. The mess was a three-dimensional pun vivant, sailors with legs in oil-stained overalls draped over the arms of armchairs that had spewed stuffing out of torn fabric. Everyone went quiet when we appeared.

  Harry, his clothes even filthier than his men’s, went straight to what passed for a bar – a table laden with beer and whisky bottles. “We’ve got company,” he shouted, pulling off his cap. “My good friend Davie from the castle – formerly of training squad J and border posts 12 and 16.” He tossed an unopened half-bottle of barracks malt in Davie’s general direction. The crewmen roared in approval as he caught it. Then Harry looked at me. Since I’d last seen him he’d either lost his hair or started shaving his head. That made the large dent in his skull even more obvious. “And this is Quintilian Dalrymple. A Council investigator.” He spoke the words like they made his tongue smart. The room went quiet again. “Andy, see if we’ve got a sweet sherry for the citizen.”

  There was a barrage of raucous laughter as the auxiliary minced out of the room. I let it die down before I went across to the table.

  “I prefer the hard stuff,” I said, picking up the nearest bottle of whisky and raising it to my lips. The cheering started again and it was only after the fifth gulp that I realised what I’d done. Or rather, what I hadn’t done. In my desperation to show I really was one of the boys, I’d completely forgotten to check the label.

  After five minutes I began to calm down. Even though the whisky was called Salamander Pride and was a product of the Council distillery in Fountainbridge, it could still have been got at. But apart from the usual burning sensation that city whisky produces in your throat, I seemed to have survived. So I had another slug.

  “Are you going to tell us what the fuck you’re doing down here?” Dirty Harry demanded. He was still looking at me like I’d just crawled out of a septic tank.

  I pointed at the table of bottles. “There’s been a case of nicotine poisoning. A whisky called the Ultimate Usquebaugh. Were you not advised by the guard command centre?”