House of Dust

by Paul Johnston

  But even more interesting right now was the fact that the city’s number one chemist had disappeared twelve days back. Without leaving a trace.

  I crossed over the narrow drawbridge leading to the castle gatehouse and asked the guardswoman on sentry duty where the public order guardian was. Lately, Hamilton had acquired the habit of roaming around his domain like a lost sheep and not answering his mobile. I was directed to the command centre in what used to be the Great Hall. On the way up the winding cobbled road I couldn’t miss different shots of the panorama over Edinburgh’s northern sector. Beyond the shops, marijuana cafés and gambling tents in the central zone – tourist access only – the suburbs where ordinary citizens live stretched away to the Firth of Forth, windows glinting in the sunshine. It looked like a picture of urban serenity; unless you knew how dangerous the youth gangs had made the streets the further you went from the city centre.

  In the restored medieval hall with its hammerbeam roof I got a surprise. It must have been a month since I last visited the Council’s security headquarters, but in that time a bank of new, ultra-modern computers had been installed. The detailed wall maps of each part of the city had been replaced in certain central locations by interlinked screen panels that gave virtual displays of streets and even individual buildings. As I watched in astonishment, one panel zoomed in on the greyhound track at Easter Road. I heard a dispatcher directing a guard vehicle to the perpetrator of a mugging who was hiding in the groundsman’s shed.

  “Impressive, don’t you think, Dalrymple?”

  I turned to the public order guardian. He was looking pleased, no doubt because he’d managed to sneak up on me. “What’s all this, Lewis? Don’t tell me the Council’s finally entered the twenty-first century?” Till now the city’s leaders had always done all they could to restrict the use of computers; they wanted to control the flow of information, but all they did was land themselves with a huge, paper-driven bureaucracy that no one could handle – not even an archive rat like me.

  “Trust you to carp,” the guardian said, shaking his head. “I’d have thought technology like this would make your job easier.” Although he was in his late seventies, Lewis Hamilton was still an imposing figure, his white hair and beard giving him the look of an Old Testament patriarch. Unfortunately, in recent times his staff have paid about as much attention to him as they do to the Holy Writ: auxiliaries are required to be atheists.

  I nodded. “It probably would.” I watched a heavily built middle-aged woman move towards us. “If I were given a free rein.”

  Hamilton caught the sharpness in my voice. “We’d all like one of those, Dalrymple,” he said sotto voce. “Ah, Raeburn 124, everything in hand?” He was trying to sound like he was in command but I didn’t buy it. Neither did his deputy.

  “Oh yes, guardian,” she said, a tight smile cutting across her fleshy face. “Everything is very much in hand.” Raeburn 124 – known throughout the City Guard as “the Mist” both because she’d appeared out of the blue at the top of the directorate tree and because she came down everywhere to put a serious dampener on things – glanced at me with ill-disguised disapproval. “Citizen Dalrymple,” she said, aiming her small eyes at a point several inches to the left of me. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  I smiled malevolently. “I’ve no idea what gets you going, but I own up to whisky and the blues.”

  The deputy guardian moved her eyes off me and tried not to spit. She had a reputation among her subordinates for enforcing standards of discipline that Stalin would have been proud of. I was an independent operator – inasmuch as such a being exists in Enlightenment Edinburgh – so she couldn’t lay down the law to me. I got the feeling that kept her awake at night.

  “I don’t imagine we’ll be continuing this diverting exchange at the reception tonight, citizen,” the Mist said, smoothing down her mousy hair. She was in charge of the Corrections Department within the directorate and had been overseeing the implementation of the Council’s incarceration policy, as well as the refurbishment of the prison building. “Your opposition to imprisonment is on record.”

  I registered the snub. “That’s why you sent me an invite, no doubt.” I shifted my upper body into the line of her gaze. “Thanks very much. I’m looking forward to the event.” Raeburn 124’s face was impassive, but I could see that her fingertips were jammed into the palms of her hands. “And to the inauguration of the New Bridewell facility the day after tomorrow.”

  “You’ll be very welcome at both,” she said, the thin smile on her lips again. “Make sure you don’t get locked up in the Bridewell in the meantime.” She nodded to Hamilton. “Guardian.”

  He watched her lumber across to the computer bank. “Bloody woman,” he muttered. “She’ll be the ruin of this directorate.” He turned to the door. “Come on, man,” he said over his shoulder. “You’ve got a report to make.”

  I followed him into the courtyard. It was a close call whether the guardian or his deputy was the bigger pain to deal with.

  “All right, let’s hear it,” Lewis said impatiently. He was sitting at his desk in his quarters in what used to be the Governor’s House, the creases in his guard uniform sharper than a butcher’s knife. “Where’s that bloody chemist got to?”

  I made a show of pulling out my notebook and flicking through its pages, even though I didn’t have a lot to say.

  “You haven’t got anywhere, have you?” the guardian said with unusual perspicacity.

  “Em, no, not really,” I said, putting my notes down. “Lister 25 was last seen by his staff in the laboratories in King’s Buildings twelve days ago, on 25 March. I’ve interviewed all of them and no one seems to have noticed anything unusual in his behaviour leading up to his disappearance.” I shrugged. “Of course, being chief toxicologist he had plenty on his plate, especially considering the quality of food served up to ordinary citizens—”

  “Spare me the social outrage, Dalrymple,” Hamilton said, his shoulders slumping.

  In the past I would have laid on some more ironic observations, but baiting him wasn’t what it used to be. The fact was that Lewis was yesterday’s man. The Council was full of young, go-ahead guardians now and he’d lost his grip on what used to be the single most powerful directorate. Public order was effectively handled by his deputy, who’d been transferred from the Welfare Directorate when her former boss became senior guardian six months back. It didn’t help that Lewis Hamilton had been caught with less than pristine hands after a major investigation in 2026. He was lucky he was still in a job, but the changes in the command centre made me wonder how long he’d keep the keys to these quarters.

  “All right,” I said. “There have been no sightings of Lister 25 anywhere in the city since he vanished. I’ve collated all barracks, city line and Fisheries Guard reports.”

  Hamilton sat up. “You think he may have deserted?”

  “It had to be a possibility, Lewis.”

  “One of the city’s most eminent and experienced scientists?” the guardian said, having a stab at outrage himself. “Why would he—” He broke off. “You said it had to be a possibility, past tense. You mean you don’t think it realistically is one?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “First, there’s his record: Lister 25’s never shown any sign of disloyalty to the Council. Second, there’s the fact that he seems to have taken no personal effects with him. All his standard auxiliary-issue clothing is still in his rooms above the lab, apart from what he would have been wearing. All his lab coats are accounted for too.”

  “He’d hardly have walked off wearing a white coat, would he?” Hamilton scoffed.

  I let that go. “Third, none of his work appears to be missing. All files, materials and computer disks are present. Though the disks could have been copied, of course. And fourth—”

  “All right, Dalrymple, you’ve made your point.”

  I raised my hand. “This is the most convincing bit,” I
said. “And fourth, he doesn’t seem to have taken any of his blues cassettes with him.”

  The guardian sank further into his chair. “What?” he asked faintly. He was looking as depressed as a headmaster presented with incontrovertible proof that his star pupil is responsible for the life-size drawings of matron on the chapel roof.

  I knew this was going to be hard for him to accept but it was what made me certain. “Look, Lewis, the old scientist is a blues freak like me. I came across his stash of Robert Johnson recordings when I was investigating the Electric Blues case in 2022.”

  The guardian stared at me dumbly.

  “The thing is, he lived for his music, he used to listen to the blues every night. There’s no way he’d have walked away without at least some of his cassettes.”

  Hamilton was about to say something fierce but he held back. “Very well. The indications are that Lister 25 didn’t desert. Could he have been abducted?”

  I turned my hands up non-committally. “Doesn’t strike me as very likely. Someone would have seen him being led away. Security at the labs is tight.”

  “Do you know what he was working on?”

  I nodded. “He was overseeing several experiments and procedures: a tourist company complaint about the sewers under the Waverley Hotel, food poisoning in Corstorphine, something nasty in Brewery No. 1 in Fountainbridge . . .” I flicked pages again. “Oh, and something about soil contamination. He was working on that himself. None of his staff knew anything about it, but his assistant saw samples of soil at his work station. They aren’t there any more.”

  Hamilton stirred. “Soil from where?” he asked.

  “Some of the city farms, I suppose. Though none of them have owned up to anything out of the ordinary.” I shrugged, then put my notebook on my knee and pushed myself back in the uncomfortable chair that visitors to the guardian’s office were forced to use. He seemed to have sunk into himself and I let the silence run on, thinking about the city’s chief chemist. I’d worked with him pretty often and I liked him. He was a strange old guy with a worrying tendency to pout at you when he was speaking; he also had the most pachydermic skin I’ve ever seen on a human face. Maybe he’d shambled off to some hideaway like an elephant that knows its time is near.

  Eventually Hamilton came back to earth. “So, Dalrymple, what am I to tell the Council about the toxicologist?”

  “Tell them what I told you,” I replied. “He’s gone, we don’t know where or why. Have the file stamped ‘Level Two Active’ and maintain the all-barracks alert. What else can we do?”

  The guardian peered at me and shook his head. “Not exactly your finest hour, is it?”

  I got up and headed for the door. “It won’t exactly be yours at the Council meeting either, Lewis,” I said with more vehemence than he deserved.

  He stood up, legs braced like a boxer about to swing a punch. “Are you really going to the Oxford reception, Dalrymple?” he demanded. “You’re just doing it to irritate Raeburn 124, aren’t you?”

  “Among others,” I said, turning back towards him. “Anyone who thinks that we’ll improve things by locking up young people needs their head examining. That means I’ll be up against everyone there tonight.”

  Hamilton got up and walked stiffly to the window. “Of course it does, man. Don’t you see? We’ve got to change things. We’ll have a revolt on our hands if we don’t.”

  “You’d have liked to implement the incarceration policy yourself, wouldn’t you, Lewis?” He might have been yesterday’s man but he wasn’t completely out of tune with the other guardians.

  He nodded. “I make no secret of that. I don’t know why we had to invite those arrogant intellectuals from New Oxford to tell us what to do.”

  Neither did I, but I intended to put some feelers out at the reception. “New Oxford?” I said. “Until a year ago I didn’t even know there was anything left of old Oxford. The Council always said that the whole of England had been devastated in the drugs wars. Then again, we were always told that Glasgow was a hotbed of anarchy as well.”

  The guardian flashed an angry glance at me. “That’s what the Council itself thought.”

  I turned away again. “See, Lewis, that’s what you get when you restrict the flow of information. You cut yourself off from the good ideas as well as the bad ones. Take the helijet. Think what fun you could have had dropping bombs on the suburbs with one of those.” I waited for a response but none was forthcoming.

  That was the second time the guardian had let me get away with taking the piss. He must have been sickening for something.

  I was halfway across the esplanade, picking my way through the ranks of rusty maroon guard Land-Rovers and pick-ups, when a familiar voice assaulted my ears.

  “Over here, Quint!”

  I looked round and saw the hefty figure of Hume 253 emerging from an ancient Transit. He dragged a handcuffed young man out and pushed him up against the vehicle’s side panelling with a fair amount of force.

  I went over to the northern side of the open area by the statue of a guardswoman at attention. “Morning, Davie. What have you got here?”

  “‘What’ is right,” the big man replied. “This wee shitebag was caught in a female citizen’s room in a retirement home in Willowbrae.” He slammed the youth against the Transit again. “With her food and clothing vouchers in one hand and the other up her skirt.”

  I examined the kid. He was about five feet six and skinny, which made him look like a midget against Davie’s bulk. That wasn’t stopping him giving his captor the eye, a non-stop litany of obscenities streaming from his blood-caked lips. He was wearing gear that must have come from the black market: Japanese combat top and trousers, top-of-the-range Bolivian trainers and a pair of ugly orange shades. There was a bright yellow tattoo of a waterfall on his left forearm, showing that he was part of the Portobello Pish. Not a gang to mess with.

  “What’s your name, pal?” I asked.

  “Fuck your hole and fuck your sister’s and fuck your—” He broke off as Davie planted an elbow in his belly. He continued mouthing words but no sound came out.

  “His name’s Pete ‘Mad Mouse’ Craig, Quint.” Davie looked round. “Guardsman!” he shouted to one of his subordinates. “Get this piece of slime down to the dungeons. There’s a rehabilitation squad wanting a word with him.” The City Guard was still coy about what went on when youth gang members were caught.

  “Your guts are on the slab,” the kid gasped, glaring at Davie with cold blue eyes. “Your balls are—” He dropped to the ground as he was straight-armed by the guardsman who’d arrived on the scene.

  We watched as the young lowlife was dragged away to the bowels of the castle.

  “I suppose he’ll end up in the New Bridewell now,” Davie said, going round to the front of the Transit. “Fancy a bite?”

  I joined him and watched as he spread out a mammoth packed lunch on the driver’s seat. There were wholemeal barracks rolls filled with bacon – a lot better than the citizen-issue equivalent on both counts – and cartons of broth, as well as what the bakers call doughnuts and auxiliaries call cannonballs. In the time it took me to finish one roll, Davie had dealt with most of the rest.

  “Still in love with your food, I see.”

  He raised his shoulders. “What else have I got to live for?” A smile spread slowly across his bearded face.

  I grinned back at him. “Apart from the attentions of a posse of guardswomen, the inter-barracks rugby championship, and the friendship of the city’s finest investigator.”

  He swallowed soup and frowned. “You think I like putting the boot into the city’s scum, Quint? That’s all they’ve let me do since I was sidelined.” Davie had got caught up in the same case that led to Hamilton being fingered. He hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of, but he’d left the city without permission and serving guard personnel aren’t allowed to get away with that kind of indiscipline. The fact that he’s close to me and has acted as my assistant on n
umerous investigations has made him plenty of enemies too.

  “You don’t have to arrest the buggers yourself, Davie,” I said. “You’re still a guard commander. You can stand back and let the beaters do their work.”

  The smile was back on his face. “I prefer the hands-on approach,” he said, brushing crumbs from his grey tunic. “That’s the difference between genuine public order professionals and jumped-up criminologists.”

  I discarded a cannonball after one bite and watched as Davie took custody of it. “You wouldn’t be referring to our honoured guests from Oxford, would you?”

  He nodded, struggling to clear his mouth. “And the Mist that’s settled over the castle.” He shook his head. “We’re fighting a losing battle, Quint. The gangs are getting the better of us – you know that.”

  “That’s why the prison’s about to open.”

  “Prison my arse,” he said. “What bloody difference will that make?”

  I looked away across the sun-dappled city and ran a hand over the stubble on my face. “What bloody difference indeed, my friend?”

  Chapter Two

  “Wake up, old man.”

  My father’s head came up slowly. He was sitting in an armchair, the lower half of his body wrapped in a tartan blanket and a large bound book on his knees. The only light in the room came from a reading lamp on the rickety table beside him.

  “Is that you, failure?” he asked, screwing up his eyes. “What are you doing here? It isn’t Sunday.”

  “Glad to see you’re keeping your wits about you, Hector,” I said, smiling as I spoke the name he’d insisted I address him by since I was a kid. I took the chair from his desk and sat down in front of him. “You’re right. It’s Wednesday. I just needed another blast of your wit and wisdom.”