“Doctor Connington is the junior proctor,” Burton said. “He handled both roles while I was working undercover.” That explained Haskins’ use of Connington’s correct title; unfortunately I’d been too distracted to follow it up.
“Where’s Katharine?” I demanded. “Where’s the Grendel?”
The bogus don’s expression hardened. “They are still on the run. We thought we had the assassin, but he managed to fight his way out of the rendering chamber.” He shook his head. “His immune system withstood the new gas compound, for all the assurances of Dawkley’s people.”
“What about Katharine?” I shouted. “Where is she?”
Wood-Lewis’s eyes were locked on mine. “He carried her out of there. He killed seven bulldogs on the way.”
“Good,” Davie said.
“Where’s he taken her?” I asked, standing as close to the bars as I dared. “For Christ’s sake, Burton, Wood-Lewis, whatever your fucking name is – where are they?”
“Don’t worry, citizen, we have them on the sensors.” The senior proctor looked at me thoughtfully. “Perhaps you can help.”
“How?”
Wood-Lewis glanced to his left and nodded to a bulldog in a stained leather apron. “The electrical charge is now off, citizen. If you agree to my proposal, I will open the barrier. If not, I will leave you in the capable hands of Jowett here.”
I took a deep breath. I was about to be manipulated by the authorities of New Oxford again, but it was the only way I could help Katharine.
“What’s your proposal?” I said in a low voice.
“Quint?” Davie was at my side. “You’re not going to help this scumbag? He’s responsible for—”
I put my hand on his forearm to silence him.
“My proposal,” Wood-Lewis said when he was sure that Davie was under control, “is that we allow the Mark Two Grendel to exit through the escape tunnel where he and his prey are currently holed up.”
“They’re in the tunnel leading from the House of Dust to the canal?” I asked.
He nodded. “We have them under surveillance. Although the Grendel is beyond our systems, your companion is not.” He gave me another tight smile. “She can lead us to him.”
Davie stepped up and put his hands on the bars without a second’s hesitation. “How do you know he hasn’t just dumped Katharine there?”
“Until a few seconds ago she was showing in mid-air on our system,” Wood-Lewis replied. “Obviously he was carrying her.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why don’t you just block the ends of the tunnel and leave the Grendel and Katharine to rot? You don’t care about her.”
“True,” he countered. “But the chief administrator and Dawkley want the Mark Two Grendel in one piece so that tests can be carried out and refinements made. We also want no more damage inflicted on the House of Dust. The only way to achieve those ends is to let him out of the tunnel unhindered and draw him to a location where we can snare him.”
“Pretty risky strategy, isn’t it?” I said, looking at him suspiciously. I knew there was more going on than he’d admitted, but this was Katharine’s only chance. “All right,” I said, glancing at Pete Pym. “But I want your assurance that you’ll let this citizen go back to Cowley unharmed.”
Wood-Lewis nodded after a credible amount of reluctance.
“And I want you to tell me what the hell’s been going on,” I said.
The senior proctor smiled. “Have no fear, citizen. You’ll be told everything you need to know and more.” He raised a finger to the bulldog and the bars slid aside. “That would be only fair,” he continued, meeting my gaze. “In exchange for you giving us the Grendel.”
I stared back at him and laughed. I stopped when I realised he was completely serious.
A lift took us up to the surface in a few seconds. The senior proctor’s nostrum told him that the Grendel and Katharine were still in the tunnel, about fifty yards from the exit to the towpath. Presumably the assassin was waiting to see if any bulldogs approached. Wood-Lewis had ordered all his forces to keep their distance until we could see where the Grendel was headed.
“So you played me for a jackass and put me on to the House of Death,” I said as we came up into a clear plastic box in the middle of a wide quadrangle. “Making sure that you didn’t make it too obvious in case I felt the hook. Why bother?”
Wood-Lewis pressed a box on the screen and watched as the shaft cover rose up. “Surely that’s obvious, citizen. We wanted you to lure the Grendel into our most secure area.” He twitched his lips. “We imagined – mistakenly as it transpired – that we could neutralise him there.”
I was staring at him in bewilderment. “You wanted me to lure him into the House of Dust? Why would he allow himself to be lured by me?” Then flashes of light began to appear in the deepest recesses of my mind. I stepped away from the others, my hand at my brow. I was only vaguely aware of the great tower that was lying horizontally on the ground, its top over what used to be a pond.
The Edinburgh connection – that’s what this whole case revolved around. The mutilation of George Faulds and Lewis Hamilton’s death had been the beginning of it and I’d allowed myself to overlook the significance of those events for too long. The Edinburgh connection: that had to be it. The Grendel had addressed me by my correct title several times. Not only that, he’d addressed Davie by his first name and his old rank. And he’d used yards as a measurement rather than metres. Christ, that was it.
“This Mark Two Grendel,” I said, turning back towards Wood-Lewis. “Number Three, as he’s been designated – he was originally from Edinburgh, wasn’t he?”
The senior proctor nodded. “You’ve finally got it, citizen. From a recent review of the transcripts we made when he and his companions underwent the initial indoctrination sessions – we use powerful drugs to ascertain as much as we can – we discovered that you knew him.” He glanced at Davie. “As did you, commander.”
Davie and I were staring at each other. That explained the vague sense of familiarity I got from the photograph, as well as his use of our names and titles. But I still didn’t recognise the solid features and empty black eyes.
“Quint,” Davie said in an undertone. “Remember the wound on Dead Dod’s finger? I always thought it was made by an auxiliary knife.”
I watched as Wood-Lewis nodded, a smile spreading across his thin lips. “And remember the knowledge of guard procedures at Ramsay Garden,” I said slowly. “As well as the location of the youth’s body near the port in Leith.” I moved closer to Wood-Lewis, causing the bulldog who was escorting him to step between us. “You said this guy had people with him when he became a Grendel?” I asked, looking round the bodyguard’s solid frame.
The old academic nodded, the smile even broader.
“Jesus, Davie,” I said, shaking my head. “You know who he is, don’t you?”
Davie’s mouth was open, his expression fraught. “Auxiliary, knowledge of the port area, tendency to extreme violence . . .” His eyes opened wide. “No, it can’t be.”
“Yes, it can,” I said, biting my lip. “This Grendel is Jamieson 369.” I watched as Wood-Lewis nodded triumphantly. “The former commander of the Fisheries Guard back home, known throughout the City Guard as Dirty Harry.”
Davie’s mouth was hanging open.
“Excellent,” the senior proctor said.
“Oh no it isn’t,” I countered. Dirty Harry was the last person I wanted to be holding Katharine prisoner, especially if his innate ferocity had been chemically and psychologically enhanced by the lunatics in New Oxford.
“What do you think, citizen?” Wood-Lewis asked. “Can you trap him and talk him into surrendering? Can you terminate his career?”
I was watching a dodo flop across the grass of the quadrangle, its beady eyes regarding us haughtily as it picked its way around the base of the chimney. “The answer to both questions is no,” I said, glancing back at him. “How did you produce
that bloody bird, for Christ’s sake? Genetic engineering?”
Wood-Lewis shook his head. “No, no. That’s not one of Dawkley’s interests. It’s mechanically contrived.”
“What?” Davie said, screwing his eyes up at the extinct creature.
“He means it’s a robot,” I said. “That’s all we need.”
Except it wasn’t. What we really needed were a couple of Davie’s crack guard units, but we were on our own in this city with its stinking honeycomb of underground passages and death chambers.
As we were led to the gate I remembered that Christ Church used to be referred to as the House. My old man had told me that was a translation of the Latin Aedes Christi – the House of Christ. Now it had been turned into the House of Dust. There was a lot more than Evelyn Waugh’s handful of that substance beneath our feet; here Hamlet’s precious quintessence of dust was heaped in great mounds and used as an industrial resource.
It was hell, an inferno, the end of the world.
And Katharine was still down there.
“He’ll be waiting till it’s completely dark,” I said to Raphael. “Then he’ll use his equipment to take out your street surveillance units so he can obscure Katharine from the Camera; like he did with Ted Pym on the way to Dead Man’s Walk and Raskolnikov at the Botanic Garden.”
She nodded, her eyes directed out of the window in the Hebdomadal Council chamber towards the lights that had just come on in Broad Street. “Very likely.”
“Unless he’s already killed her, of course.”
She looked round at me. “Surely you don’t want to take the risk of storming the tunnel? Your friend would not survive such a move.”
I shook my head. “You know he’ll be coming for you, don’t you?”
She motioned agreement again. “I know,” she said. “I don’t know why he didn’t fire at me during the Encaenia.”
“He wanted Yamaguchi and Verzeni first.” I was watching her face. It remained as impassive as ever. “They were involved in the Grendel project so they had to die like Raskolnikov. You’re responsible for everything in this murderous state – that has to be why he’s been gunning for you.” I moved closer. “What happened to his friends? Dirty Harry deserted from Edinburgh back in 2025 with a full Fisheries Guard vessel crew.”
“Didn’t the senior proctor tell you?” the chief administrator asked. “They all died during the fitting-out process.”
“The fitting-out process?” I repeated. Wood-Lewis had offered to brief me on the Grendels when we got to the building, but I refused; a blast of repulsion at what we’d seen in the House of Dust had made me tell him where to go. “What the hell is the fitting-out process?”
Before Raphael could answer, her nostrum chirruped and, at the same time, there was the noise of numerous feet at the far end of the room.
“He’s moving, chief administrator,” Wood-Lewis called from the front of a group that included Dawkley and Connington. For a change the junior proctor wasn’t wearing his gown. Trout lurked at the rear.
“So I see,” Raphael said coolly.
“You really must accompany us to the secure area beneath the Camera,” Dawkley said, his eyes restless. “He may well look here first.”
Wood-Lewis stepped forward. “We cannot stop him with conventional arms,” he said in a low voice. “I suggest that Citizen Dalrymple tries to distract him while we surround the area with the supermax lasers Dawkley’s people have been working on.” The sardonic way he was looking at the science administrator showed how little faith he had in that weapon. “Let’s hope they make the Grendel see sense and surrender.”
“I thought you said I was supposed to terminate his career,” I said. “How the fuck do you expect me to do that?” I glanced round. “Where’s Davie?” He’d gone off with a pair of bulldogs an hour earlier to check the weaponry options, while Pete Pym had been sent back to Cowley.
“On his way,” Dawkley said. “With a supermax.”
“You’ve given him one of your precious lasers?” I said. “Why?”
“It’s only a small one,” the science administrator said. “Perhaps the Grendel’s guard will drop and the commander will manage to train the beam on him.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps.” I gave them a pessimistic glare. “Or perhaps he’ll use it on the fuckers who set up the House of Dust.” I looked round their pallid faces. “Which means all of you.”
That gave them pause for thought.
After a few minutes Wood-Lewis and Dawkley began to look even more concerned.
“The surveillance unit outside Worc has gone down,” the senior proctor said, pointing to the large panel that had lowered from the ceiling. “He’s getting nearer.”
“Patience,” Raphael said, her expression unperturbed. “You’ve set up full blast protection on Crim Fac, I presume.”
Wood-Lewis nodded. “His explosive charges can effect only limited damage. Of course, we don’t yet know if the faculty’s a target.”
The administrators gathered round the screen with its network of coloured lines and building outlines.
“Another unit’s gone down,” Dawkley said. “On Beaumont Street. He’s approaching the faculty. Should we not intercept him?”
Raphael shook her head. “Let him be.” She glanced at me. “Remember that he has Citizen Dalrymple’s female friend with him. We don’t want any harm to befall her, do we?”
The science administrator’s face suggested otherwise, but he didn’t have the balls to stand up to his leader.
We waited for the Grendel’s next move. I could feel the sweat running down my arms. Then I heard heavy footsteps behind me and turned to see Davie approaching.
“Armed and dangerous?” I asked.
“Oh aye.” He patted his breast pocket gingerly. “This supermax thing looks like a pen, but apparently it can melt a man’s heart at fifty yards.”
“Did you give it a trial run?”
“Uh-uh,” he said, his eyes locked on the Hebdomadal Council members and his jaw jutting. “But I will do soon. These bastards deserve—”
I raised a hand to stop him. “Save it till we’ve got Katharine back, eh?”
He nodded reluctantly.
There was a loud blast in the distance to the west.
“What was that?” Connington demanded.
“The Martyrs’ Memorial, junior proctor,” said Harriet Haskins from the large vertical display. “A charge at the base has brought the column down over St Giles.”
“I wonder why he chose that?” Davie said.
“Showing this lot what he can do,” I replied. “And making a statement about the replica in the House of Dust.”
I looked back at the screen. Yellow crosses denoting surveillance cameras had been extinguished outside the former Balliol College.
“He’s only a hundred and fifty metres away,” Wood-Lewis said, his voice taut.
Raphael looked round at me and Davie. “It’s time we cleared the Council building.” She turned to Dawkley. “Everyone out except Citizen Dalrymple and the commander. Now!” Her voice was low but it didn’t brook contradiction.
In a few seconds the three of us were on our own.
That was the way I wanted it.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked Raphael while we waited. “Why’s the Mark Two Grendel so important?”
The chief administrator of New Oxford was standing by the screen, watching as the yellow crosses along the line marking the near end of Broad Street went out one by one. She glanced at me and I saw that her eyes were glinting and her cheeks were suffused. I’d never seen her so passionate.
“The Mark Two Grendel is our future, citizen. It has evolved since it was released into the world, it can survive the toxins from the Poison Fields. We must find out how that process occurred so that we can replicate it.” She gave a single laugh. “Of course, the fruits of our labour will only benefit the intellectual élite. The subs are already doomed.”
“See what I mean, Qu
int?” Davie said from the position he’d taken up by a window. “The lunatics in charge of this hell-hole aren’t human.”
Raphael laughed again, a dry, unpleasant sound. “Being human is greatly overrated, commander,” she said, looking back at me. “I’m not afraid of the Grendel, citizen. It isn’t the first time I’ve been his target. But your old colleague from the Edinburgh guard will find the tables turned when he enters this chamber.”
Davie shot a glance at the screen. “He – I mean they – are within twenty-five yards.” He turned away from the window and faced the door. “Stand by for fireworks.”
There was a gap that couldn’t have been more than half a minute, but which seemed to go on for several lifetimes. Then I heard a dull thump and the door burst open. A figure flew backwards and skidded across the varnished floorboards. From the dark suit I saw that it was a bulldog, though there was no sign of a bowler hat. The head had disappeared too, in a welter of crimson. If Trout had stayed on the door to protect his leader, he’d made the wrong career move.
Katharine appeared in the doorway, her expression neutral but her eyes moving from side to side. I watched as she turned her head and spoke quietly to her unseen captor. After a few seconds she moved forward slowly. An arm was clamped round her midriff. Dirty Harry had obscured as much as he could of his oversized body behind her slender frame.
Raphael gave the slaughtered bulldog a brief look then took in her visitors. “There is no need for caution, Number Three,” she said. “We will not be disturbed.”
The Grendel’s head stayed behind Katharine’s for a few more moments. “All right,” he said, straightening up and pushing her aside as far as the umbilical link allowed. He looked up from his matt black device. “I can see that the nearest dogs are over by the Noxad building.” He gave Raphael an unwavering look. “Let’s hope for your sake that they stay there.”
House of Dust Page 37
