Davie and I exchanged glances. “You didn’t notice anything strange going on in the street?”
“Strange?” Katharine looked at me quizzically. “I suppose it was a bit quiet.”
I told her what had happened to the surveillance team.
“That must have happened before I got here. I didn’t see any movement from behind the screen.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.” I walked round the room. It was the same as it had been when we were there earlier.
Hilda Kennedy watched me as I circled the furniture. Her eyes were restless and damp, her body loose. She was now wearing crumpled citizen-issue blouse and trousers that looked several sizes too big for her. When I stopped and returned her gaze, she suddenly smiled.
“Good lad, Allie. You came back to your mother.”
I went over and sat down next to her. “I’m not Allie, Hilda,” I said quietly. “Do you know where he is?”
“Good lad, Allie,” she repeated, clutching my arm.
I pulled it away gently. “Where’s Agnes, Hilda?”
She looked at me then smiled again. “Good lad, Allie,” she said, this time more in hope than certainty. Her head dropped and she started to weep.
“Well done, Quint,” Katharine said, giving me a fierce look as she came over to comfort the woman.
Davie and I went out into the corridor.
“What do you reckon, Quint?”
“Allie Kennedy’s several steps ahead of us,” I said, shaking my head. “I reckon he came back to get his sister out. And to demonstrate that he’s got us wrapped round his little finger.”
“He left his mother behind. We can still use her to distract him.”
I nodded slowly. “We can. But remember what happened to his father. I don’t think he’s too bothered about his parents.”
“You could be right. What do we do now?”
I went into Agnes’s room and sat down on the bed. It had been made up neatly, the pastel-coloured covers carefully arranged. I ran my eye round the different fabrics she’d hung on the walls and at the scanty collection of Supply Directorate cosmetics that female citizens get on the chest of drawers. Agnes and Allie. Christ, had she been pulling the wool over my eyes from the beginning? She’d given the impression that she was a dutiful daughter and that she grieved for her father but maybe the person she was really closest to was her brother. What if she’d only been pretending that he hurt her? What if she was a lot smarter than I’d given her credit for? Maybe Allie hadn’t come back for her; maybe she’d gone to meet him somewhere. I remembered how much she’d been in control of herself after her father’s body was found. She managed to keep going to her job after that shock. Her job. Jesus. Her job was at a tourist hostel that was about to open its doors for business.
I leaped to my feet and ran into the sitting room. Katharine looked up in alarm from the sofa, where she had her arm round Hilda’s shoulders. “Davie and I have got to go. Stay here with her. I’ll send a nursing auxiliary.”
Katharine stood up. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll tell you later. Get yourself back to my place. And don’t disappear again!”
She opened her mouth to speak but I turned away and sprinted down the corridor, Davie at my heels.
“What is it?” he shouted.
“I think I know where they are,” I said over my shoulder. “But I don’t know if we’re going to get there in time.”
It seemed to take an age to drive across the south side to the tourist hostel off Nicolson Street. We got stuck behind a sewage tank in the Grange’s narrow backstreets and had to take a long way round. I called the Medical Directorate during that time and asked for an auxiliary to be sent down to Hilda. Davie was driving like a madman, the tight smile on his lips suggesting that he was having an unusually good time. I tried to find out from the Tourism Directorate if the hostel had been opened yet but the switchboard was permanently engaged. No doubt all personnel were concentrating on the Edlott inauguration.
“Call for backup,” Davie said as we careered on to Newington Road.
I shook my head. “We can do that when we get there. I don’t want your boss sending the whole of the guard down. If the hostel’s in operation, there’ll be plenty of tourists who can be turned into instant hostages.”
“So how are we going to play it?” he asked, giving me the exasperated look I always get when I bend guard procedures.
“By ear, my friend. Like all the best bluesmen.”
“Ha.” He floored the accelerator and swerved past a delivery van.
As we went past, the shocked driver mouthed the words “Fucking guard arseholes”.
“Okay, it’s down the next street to the right. Pull up on the main road.”
We jumped down, leaving the doors open. Nicolson Street was quiet, the citizen curfew only minutes away. Tourists in the central zone are allowed out all night these days. I just hoped that if the new hostel had any guests, they’d been packed off on a group outing to the Haggis Sucker Club or some such place. I held Davie back from the corner then I stuck my head round gingerly. I was confronted by a façade with very few windows lit up and the large banner advertising its imminent opening still draped above the door.
“We’re in luck,” I said, pulling my head back. “The hostel isn’t open yet.”
Davie took a look. “According to the sign, it’s going to be opened tomorrow.” He stared at me. “Bloody hell. It’s a perfect target.”
I nodded. “And I bet we find that the booze in the bar and the water supply have already been checked by the toxicologists.”
“Christ, the bastards could kill dozens of people if they tamper with things now.”
“Exactly.” I started round the corner.
“What are you doing, Quint?” Davie caught up with me. “We can call for backup now. There’s no danger of tourists being taken hostage.”
I kept moving. “Call for it. I’m going in before brother and sister nicotine do a runner.” I heard him start talking into his mobile.
A middle-aged guardswoman appeared at the top of the steps as I approached.
I flashed my authorisation at her. “Anyone inside?”
“No, citizen,” she said. “The last cleaners left an hour ago.”
“Have you checked all the doors?”
She nodded.
I stepped back and looked up at the building. The only lights were in the upper stairwell. I remembered speaking to Agnes there when she was dangling from the roof in her harness. There was a good chance she’d have worked out a way to get into the building, probably using the fire escape at the rear.
“When your lot come, send some of them round the back to cut off their escape route,” I said when Davie caught up again. “Then bring the rest upstairs.”
“Wait, you mad bastard,” Davie called.
“Neither mad nor a bastard,” I said with a nervous laugh. Then I took the guardswoman’s key and let myself in.
I checked the ground floor quickly, turning on as few lights as I could. The bar looked pristine, the seals intact on the bottles of whisky to the rear. The place was as quiet as a mausoleum and I found myself being drawn upwards, peering at the cupola that Agnes had been painting. I started running up the stairs, feeling the muscles in my legs tighten.
I got there with the breath rasping in my throat. I tried to avoid looking down into the cavernous gloom in the depths of the stairwell and wondered where the hell the Kennedy offspring were. The hostel’s water tanks would be between the ceiling and roof. Maybe they were crawling around up there pouring nicotine into the supply. I dismissed the idea. You’d need a lot of poison to have an effect in such a large volume of water and I was pretty sure Allie didn’t have that much left.
I went from room to room, checking under the newly made-up beds and behind the cheap wooden clothes cabinets. No sign of anyone. The sound of guard vehicles drifted up from the street in the hot night air. Allie and his sister were going to have to
make their move soon if they wanted to get away. I squatted down in the hallway near the cupola and slapped my hand on the floor. It was beginning to look like I’d been wrong about the hostel after all.
Then I was caught in a web that a black widow would have killed for. I jerked round and only succeeded in tying myself up more securely. My arms were pinned against my torso and my legs, still bent at the knee, were knotted tightly together. I felt a blow against my side and toppled over on to the pungent pile of the recently laid carpet.
“Citizen Dalrymple,” my assailant said in a calm, deep voice. “You’ve got yourself in quite a bind.”
“It’s over, Agnes,” I said, craning round to look up at her. “The place is surrounded. Where’s your brother?”
She laughed. “Closer than you think.” Then she bent over me and brought her face down to mine. I was surprised to find that her breath was rank. “Allie’s going to get you.”
She stood up and grabbed the straps of the painting harness she’d tied round my chest. Then she began to drag me bodily towards the railing around the stairwell. My stomach liquefied.
“No, Agnes, no!” I forced myself to stop squealing and tried to distract her by talking. “Your brother got you into this, didn’t he? I can help you, Agnes.”
She let out a hollow laugh, panting from the exertion of dragging me.
“The Council will be lenient if you help me catch Allie,” I gasped, trying to wedge my feet against the skirting boards. My boots made a loud scraping noise as they ran along wood that Agnes had probably painted.
“You haven’t got a clue, have you, citizen?” she said, smiling at me malevolently as she rammed me up against the railing.
I was vaguely aware of shouting from the ground floor and the thunder of auxiliary boots in the entrance hall. Then the noise faded altogether as my blood started rushing about my veins. Fuck, I’d been so blind. I’d been sold a gigantic dummy and bought it without a thought. Agnes was wearing the same clothes that she always wore – the work shirt and trousers dotted with paint, and the scarf. But I’d never seen her neck bare, never seen her in a skirt, never wondered about her unusually deep voice or the hair that she often touched like she was checking it was still in position. Jesus Christ, how cretinous can you get?
“Don’t!” I screamed as I was manoeuvred up the railing, the heart designs on the steel supports gouging my face and scalp. “Please, Allie! Don’t!”
There was a pause in the movements and then a dark laugh. “Too late,” came a hoarse whisper. “It’s all too late, citizen.”
I wriggled frantically as I was moved on to the banister and managed to grab a stanchion with my left hand. I heard Davie shouting my name from lower down and felt a crushing blow on my fingers. But I didn’t let go.
“Don’t!” Davie’s voice was near now. “Don’t do it!”
Then the weight of the body that had been on top of mine was suddenly gone. There was silence for a few moments, followed by a sickening crack. Heavy hands took hold of me and swung me back over the railing. I didn’t let go of the ironwork for a long time.
Davie cut the harness from my limbs and torso then helped me to stand up straight. I looked down into what was now a blaze of light in the stairwell and took a deep breath. The body of my assailant lay spread-eagled on the tiles of the entrance hall, the pool of blood around the shattered head glistening like an obscene halo.
“Jesus,” Davie said, shaking his head. “She just jumped headfirst. No warning. I didn’t have a chance to stop her.”
“Him, not her,” I said, kicking the remains of the harness away and thinking of Ray. There was some ironic justice in the way his killer had fallen to his death.
“What?” Davie was staring at me in amazement.
“That was Allie Kennedy,” I said, walking to the stairs unsteadily.
“Disguised as his sister?” Davie said, his voice faint. “Never.”
“A case of barracks malt on it, my friend.”
He looked at me doubtfully then nodded. “You’re on, Quint. That blow on the head you got this morning must have been worse than I thought. Are you seriously telling me that Allie dressed up as his sister and took the piss out of us for the whole investigation?” He shook his head emphatically. “No way. I know a woman when I see one.”
“Not this time you didn’t.” I pushed through the crowd of auxiliaries on the ground floor. They’d gathered in a ring around the body.
“What’s going on here, Dalrymple?” Hamilton demanded, breaking through from the other side.
“Wait and see,” I said, kneeling down by the corpse’s midriff. I took in the circle of faces then turned to what was on the ground. I was about to transgress scene-of-crime procedures but I didn’t care. I rolled the limp body on to its back carefully, hearing gasps of astonishment from the guard personnel who’d dutifully read my manual. Then I heard them breathe in even more rapidly as I undid the trousers and pulled them down. Underneath were standard female citizen off-white knickers. Allie Kennedy had taken his cross-dressing seriously. I grasped them at the sides and jerked them down.
And got a surprise that knocked the confidence, stuffing, bravado and anything else you care to mention right out of me. There was no sign at all of male genitalia. No penis, no scrotum, no nothing. Just a V-shaped tangle of black pubic hair. I felt like a necrophiliac caught in the act.
The worst was yet to come.
“What do you think you’re doing, citizen?” Sophia asked, her voice low but sharp as a dagger of ice. “Leave that woman alone and come to my vehicle. Immediately.”
I followed her through the gap opened up by the appalled auxiliaries, my cheeks on fire. Lewis Hamilton’s were pretty scarlet too.
Even Davie looked horrified. Despite the fact that he’d just won a bet with me for the first time in his life.
Chapter Twenty
I didn’t have a good time in Sophia’s Land-Rover but I eventually managed to explain what I’d been doing.
“Why did Agnes Kennedy kill herself?” Sophia asked.
“Christ knows,” I replied. My hands were still shaking and the raw patches on my arms and scalp were stinging. “She saw she was cornered. I suppose she couldn’t face a lifetime down the mines.”
“It’s a great pity we didn’t have the chance to interrogate her,” Sophia said, shaking her head in frustration. “Her brother is at large and we don’t know what he’s planning. I take it he’s still the prime suspect?”
I nodded. “Oh yes. I’m not sure exactly how involved Agnes Kennedy was with the poisonings. She was at work here or with her mother in the flat for a lot of the investigation. She was obviously up to no good in the hostel tonight. Her brother’s the guy we really want though.”
Sophia put her hand on the door then stopped. “Quint,” she said, turning towards me and moderating her chilly aloofness slightly. “We may as well face it. We’re finished, aren’t we?”
“Um . . .” I looked ahead and saw Hamilton standing on the steps with an impatient look on his face. “This isn’t a good time to talk, Sophia.”
“It’s all right,” she said, freezing up again. “It was a rhetorical question.” She engaged the door handle and stepped down. She strode purposefully towards the public order guardian but I was pretty sure she was hurting inside. The question was, would she find some way to take it out on Katharine?
I got out and went over to them.
“The chief toxicologist is en route,” Hamilton said. “Obviously his people are going to have to check every bottle in the place.”
“Obviously,” I said, trying and failing to catch Sophia’s eye. She must have suspected that she and I were history ever since Katharine came back, but the way she was taking it made me feel uneasy.
“The tourism guardian’s on his way,” Lewis added, looking at us uncomfortably. Even he had spotted that something was going on. “He wants to know if he can go ahead with the opening of the hostel tomorrow.”
; “Fucking hell,” I said, trying to shock Sophia into showing some emotion. “The building may contain the water of death and your colleague is dreaming of additional tourist income.”
That didn’t even raise a blink from Sophia. “It will clearly be impractical to proceed with the inauguration of this facility,” she said in guardianspeak. “You are to maintain the search for citizen Alexander Kennedy. The Edlott inauguration will go ahead tomorrow.”
“I would recommend postponing the latter until the former is successful,” I said, dropping into her patois. “If Allie Kennedy finds out his sister’s dead, who knows what might happen?”
“How do you imagine he will become party to that information?” Sophia asked.
That was enough linguistic torture. “Don’t ask me,” I said, giving the pair of them a sardonic stare. “Maybe he’s got friends in the guard.”
Hamilton’s chest puffed out as he prepared to lay into me but Sophia saw what I was doing and put her hand on his arm.
“Meaning that you’re guessing, citizen,” she said.
“Correct,” I muttered, heading towards Davie’s vehicle.
“Citizen Dalrymple,” she called imperiously. “I was informed that you requested a nursing auxiliary to attend the suspect’s mother. Under the circumstances I felt it advisable that the woman should spend the night under guard in the infirmary. You still intend to make use of her tomorrow, I hope.”
“I suppose so,” I replied, without much enthusiasm.
“I have also been told that your friend Kirkwood insisted on accompanying the woman,” Sophia said, her eyes flashing cold fire. “Kindly ensure that she leaves my directorate premises immediately.”
I raised my eyes to the warm blackness of the Edinburgh night sky. It was clear that Allie Kennedy didn’t have a monopoly on poison.
I found Katharine and Hilda in a secure room in the depths of the infirmary, a guardsman outside the door. I flashed my authorisation. Before he let me in, I got him to call the nursing supervisor.
“Hello, Quint,” Katharine said in a low voice. She was sitting in a chair next to the bed. Hilda was lying on her side, fully dressed, her arms wrapped round her body. She looked shrunken and weak. When I approached them, Hilda began to whimper. She put out an unsteady hand and took hold of Katharine’s arm.
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