House of Dust

by Paul Johnston

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  The Quint Dalrymple Mystery Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Quint Dalrymple Mystery Series

  BODY POLITIC

  THE BONE YARD

  WATER OF DEATH

  THE BLOOD TREE

  THE HOUSE OF DUST

  THE HOUSE OF DUST

  A Quint Dalrymple Mystery

  Paul Johnston

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain in 2001

  by Hodder and Stoughton, A Division of Hodder Headline PLC

  338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH,

  eBook edition first published in 2011 by Severn Select an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2001 by Paul Johnston.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0047-1 (epub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  In memory of

  Margaret Johnston

  (1926-1996)

  Life goes by like a dream. The nightmare only begins when your brain slips out of gear and you realise that everything is turning to dust.

  I can remember when spring was a non-event in Edinburgh. We used to go straight from the damp chill of winter to summer’s deceitful blue skies, and the wind’s well-honed knives never took more than a day off at a time. Things are different now. April 2028 was even warmer than previous years. People started parading around in clothing that revealed far too much, juxtaposing the skin and bone of undernourished locals with tourist flab. In June the Big Heat that results from global warming would kick in and the city would turn into a giant Turkish bath, though not in the air-conditioned hotels occupied by our honoured guests.

  Except, come June, the tour companies might well have voted with their feet and left us to enjoy the sweat season on our own. The ruling Council of City Guardians has been losing the fight against the youth gangs in the suburbs for over a year. These days groups of Edinburgh’s generation excess even mount raids into the central zone, divesting foreigners of currency, clothing and consciousness – not necessarily in that order. The headbangers in the City Guard, no strangers to extreme violence themselves, have had more than their hands full.

  Which is why the guardians, fearful that their main source of income is about to go drier than the Water of Leith in August, have been working on a plan to put even more of a squeeze on their subjects. The appearance of the first swallows – they arrive earlier every year – coincided with the completion of the city’s new corrective facility: it was intended to turn the Council’s “perfect city” into a fully operational prison-state. Personally I’ve never been a supporter of banging people up, but no one asked my opinion. After all, I’m only an investigator. What do I know about crime and the causes of crime?

  So every night the city resounds to the frantic rush of youthful feet and the slap of truncheons on flesh. Special squads of extra-hefty guardsmen and women were formed to deal with the gangs late last year, but the so-called “beaters” end up beaten more often than not.

  The problem for me in recent months has been one of commitment. When I was a kid I loved Edinburgh for its breathtaking vistas and its glorious if blood-lathered history. Even after my home city set itself up as an independent state twenty-five years ago, I stayed on the scene. The Council’s extreme policies were better than the mayhem we’d lived through when the UK was ripped to pieces in the drugs wars, and its high-minded Platonic ideals at least meant that people were treated with a reasonable degree of fairness. But I’ve had about as much as I can take of the present regime’s iron fist. I’ve even been considering slipping over the border and heading for Glasgow – at least there’s a semblance of democracy there.

  To hell with spring. I go along with Merline Johnson. Back in the 1930s she sang about the blues being everywhere. I’ve always had a tendency to pessimism, but it took the fatal shooting of a guardian and a journey to the underworld to make me realise just how right the old diva was.

  Chapter One

  The windows to my bedroom were barred – thick, rusty steel implanted in the worn stone – and the walls were damp with condensation. I couldn’t see much out of the grimy glass, but I knew the flats across the street were also decorated with heavy metal fixtures. When the Housing Directorate started erecting the bars last year, it was claimed they were to protect citizens from incoming scumbags – though how the youth gangs’ members were supposed to climb three storeys of vertical granite was never explained. Everyone knows what the guardians have really been up to and that’s turning us all into prisoners.

  There was a tap on the window, then another. It was a small bird, a blue tit. It peered in at me, motionless, then twitched its head and disappeared in a blur of feathers. I felt the smile die on my lips and turned away. The birds are as free as it gets in Enlightenment Edinburgh – if they can avoid the kids armed with slings who trade the tiny avian corpses for stale bread from the hotels. Apparently there are tourists who regard songbirds as a delicacy.

  “You’re going to wet the bed, Quint.” Katharine took the mug from my hand and sat down on the bed. Watery sunshine was making an attempt to filter through the dirty glass.

  I shook my head at her dispiritedly.

  “What is it?” She ran a hand over her spiky brown hair and held her piercing green eyes on mine.

  “It?” I said, playing for time.

  She shook her head in irritation. “Come on, Quint. I’m not an idiot. More mornings than not since I’ve been coming back to this cesspit you call home, you wake up like a long-distance sleepwalker. Obviously something’s getting to you.”

  I took the mug back from her and swallowed the last of what the Supply Directorate solemnly swears is coffee. “Shit.” I wiped my mouth with my hand. “What do they put in this stuff?”

  Katharine smiled. “I think you’ve answered your own question.” She held her eyes on me. “So are you going to tell me what’s disturbing your slumbers or not?” She waited for a reply. “Apparently not,” she said, getting up from the bed and heading for the door. “I’
m off to the drop-in centre. At least the people down there converse.”

  “Hold on,” I said, stretching out to grab her arm. “Sorry. I don’t . . . I don’t really know what it is.” I glanced out of the window again. There was no sign of the blue tit. “This place is going down the bloody tubes, Katharine, and we’re just sitting around watching.”

  “Speak for yourself,” she said, her tone caustic. “I’m doing the best I can for the city’s confused kids.” She shook her arm out of my grip. “Anyway,” she continued, “what about us? Haven’t you got anything out of us being together again?”

  I bit my lower lip. “Us? What does ‘us’ mean? After the nightmare case in Glasgow back in ’26 you lost yourself in Welfare Directorate business. I hardly ever saw you. You stopped coming round here, you moved down to Leith to be closer to your work. And then you turned up out of the blue a couple of weeks ago. I mean, I hadn’t even laid eyes on you for months—” I broke off and gave her a blank stare. “If you ask me, ‘us’ isn’t worth a flying fuck, Katharine.”

  She glared at me, then the lines on her face slackened. “A flying fuck,” she repeated. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those.” She sat down on the bed again.

  I pushed her away gently, feeling slightly less suicidal. I’ve never been good in the mornings. “Well you’re not getting one now, citizen. I’ve got a report to make to the public order guardian in under an hour.”

  Katharine looked at me then shook her head. “You’d better not keep the old bastard waiting then.” She got up and headed to the wardrobe. “I presume you’ll be needing these.”

  “Here, watch it!” I yelled as a black sweatshirt and trousers were thrown over me.

  She waited till I shifted the garments off my head. “And I guess you’ll be needing these.”

  Supply Directorate underwear and socks that were beginning to show their age hit me in the face.

  “Breakfast in two minutes,” Katharine said, marching out of the bedroom. “Dearest.”

  I splashed water from the sink over my face and got dressed. At least Katharine hadn’t thrown my steel toe-capped boots at me. I reckoned that two days’ stubble would irritate the guardian intensely so I left it untouched by my blunt razor blade. I needed a new one but I wouldn’t get a voucher till next week.

  “You look lovely,” Katharine said, inclining her head towards the kitchen table as I went into the main room. “Though your hair could do with a mow.”

  I normally keep my head with less than an inch of grey matter on it. I hadn’t had time to hit the barber recently and it was double length now.

  “What’s this?” I asked, examining the crusty object on the table.

  “A barracks bagel, would you believe?” Katharine said. “Someone must have done a deal with a foreign supplier. Twenty tons of last year’s bakery products for five hundred holidays in Edinburgh or the like.”

  “Anything to keep the tour operators sweet.” I bit into the bagel and immediately wished I hadn’t. “What’s inside this?”

  “Prune and date, I think. Nice, isn’t it?”

  I grimaced as I swallowed and headed for the door. Even by Edinburgh standards it had not been a breakfast of champions.

  “Wait a minute,” Katharine said. “Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  I patted my pockets and felt keys, mobile phone, notebook and cosh – the last object essential these days given the city’s lunatic fringe. “Don’t think so.”

  She came towards me, her slim form and strong legs crossing the confined room quickly. “Tonight, Quint,” she said, enunciating as if to a backward child. “Are we doing anything tonight?”

  “Ah.” I gave her an awkward smile. “Tonight’s a bit of a problem. You see, it’s the Council’s party for the Oxford delegation and—”

  “What?” Suddenly Katharine’s face was set hard. “I thought you said you weren’t going to that freak show.”

  “Em . . . true enough, I wasn’t going to.”

  “So what’s made you change your mind?” Katharine demanded. “Surely you don’t want to stand around exchanging chit-chat with those repressive shitebags, do you?” She glared at me. “The Corrections Department is going to ruin this city and it’s all because of those supposed geniuses from Oxford.” Her eyes were wide open and her chest had begun to heave. “Prison won’t solve any of Edinburgh’s problems and you know it.”

  “Yes, Katharine,” I said as patiently as I could manage. “I know that. I’ve been against the reintroduction of incarceration all along. I was only invited to the reception so the Council could rub my nose in the new prison.”

  She was still staring at me, her lips pursed. “Why are you giving the guardians the chance then?”

  I shrugged. “I’m a glutton for punishment.” I raised my eyes to hers. “And I also want to find out exactly what’s going on between the Council and the Oxford delegation. You never know how useful that might be in the future.”

  “Oh.” Katharine’s expression softened. “Okay. As long as you don’t turn into a supporter of imprisonment. I’d never forgive you, Quint.”

  “I know you wouldn’t,” I replied, smiling cautiously. “See you here afterwards?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m doing an overnight shift at the centre. Tomorrow evening?”

  “You’re on.” I leaned forward to kiss her.

  She let my lips touch hers for a second then pushed me away. “Give them hell,” she said under her breath.

  “Give who hell?” I asked as I turned towards the door.

  “Everyone,” she said. “But especially the bastards who want to lock young people up. They should try a few years in solitary themselves.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with that. Katharine knew much more about life inside than I did.

  I could have called for a guard vehicle to pick me up but, since the Supply Directorate had finally come up with a new front wheel for my antediluvian bicycle, I decided to get some exercise. The citizen rush hour was long past so I had the streets to myself apart from the clapped-out, diesel-spewing buses and the tourist taxis; no private cars have been seen in the city since the original Council outlawed them twenty-plus years ago, along with cigarettes, computers, television and private telephones. It had turned into about as good a spring morning as we get in Edinburgh and, as I headed up Lauriston Place towards the infirmary in the weak sunshine, I could hear the school kids rioting in the Meadows. Structured play, of course – or so the education guardian claimed. I suspected the poor wee buggers were really getting combat training so they could get home in one piece every afternoon.

  Panting from the gradient, I passed the city’s main hospital on my right and swung round towards George IV Bridge. As I was approaching a pair of dull-eyed guardsmen in grey uniforms – the body armour and helmets they wore being evidence of the youth gangs’ ability to do serious damage – a high-pitched, mechanical scream almost canted me over into the gutter. After what seemed like a very long time, the noise reduced to a steady whine that was almost bearable.

  I looked up to see the senior of the two guardsmen mouthing a phrase that would have earned him a day licking the latrines; the Council requires auxiliaries, even the muscular ones, to observe a strict language code.

  “Bloody right,” I agreed, putting my right foot back on the pedal.

  The younger guardsman stepped forward, hand on his steel-filled truncheon. He obviously fancied taking his angst out on an over-familiar local.

  “Let him be,” the older man said. His accent was the soft lilt of a Highlander; although most of them go to Glasgow to escape the marauders, a few prefer Edinburgh’s hair-shirt and haggis regime. “Morning, Citizen Dalrymple. Arse-juddering machines, aren’t they?” He stared up at the dark blue aircraft with cutback wings that was coming down slowly on the roof of the pale brown museum building.

  “Aye,” I agreed, reading the badge on his tunic. “You’re right, Knox 87.” Auxiliaries are known by barra
cks name and number rather than their own names, at least in public. This one had probably seen me at some crime scene or in the pages of the Edinburgh Guardian. “Who would have thought the top of what used to be the Museum of Scotland would end up as a miniature airport?”

  “Progress is a wonderful thing, is it not?” Knox 87 said. His ironic tone drew a shocked look from his youthful companion.

  “The New Oxford helijet is an amazing machine,” the junior guardsman said. “Vertical take-off and landing capabilities, fifty luxury seats and a cargo capacity of over thirty tons. There are twenty-two in service and—”

  “I thought I told you to stop reading those dirty aeroplane magazines, Raeburn 544,” the senior man said sternly, giving me a wink. “Take care of yourself, citizen.” He led his scandalised subordinate away.

  I peered back up at the museum roof. Transparent anti-blast panels had been built out over the streets to protect innocent bystanders like me. We weren’t provided with earplugs though. I shook my head in an attempt to regain full hearing. The New Oxford helijet. It was as good a symbol as any for the influence on the Council that the southern city had built up over the last year. Who did they think they were, these academics? First they get a contract to oversee the construction of Edinburgh’s first operating prison for ten years, then they insist on having a landing pad built for their poxy aircraft as near the central zone as possible. And do the guardians lay down and open their legs? You’re bloody right they do.

  I continued up the road and flashed ID at the checkpoint beyond the main archive. Ordinary citizens are only allowed into the tourist zone to work and technically I’m still of that rank, having been demoted for refusing orders back in 2015. But the Public Order Directorate has been using me as a freelance senior investigator for years so I’m allowed to move around unhindered, at least in theory.

  As I squeezed through a group of Indian tourists on Castlehill, I forced myself to concentrate on the report I was about to make. Lister 25 was Edinburgh’s chief toxicologist. He’d worked with me on some of my biggest cases. More interesting as far as I was concerned, he was a closet blues freak, a devotee of Robert Johnson – which wasn’t bad considering the Council banned the blues decades ago because of what it saw as the music’s subversive nature. A senior auxiliary like Lister 25 would have been for the high jump over the North Bridge if he’d ever been caught listening to the old master.