The Bone Yard

by Paul Johnston

  But it wasn’t much like Schliemann looking upon Agamemnon’s features. No gold mask, not even much attempt to arrange the face in a condition of repose. The poor old guy’s eyes were wide open, his lips and teeth parted, giving him the expression of someone who’s just woken up from a disturbing dream. But there would be no more lie-ins followed by leisurely breakfasts for this sleeper – only the ultimate substantial slumber.

  I loosened the maroon and black striped Council tie and the white shirt under the tweed jacket that they’d dressed him in. His neck had that clammy chill feeling we all acquire eventually. I felt for the fracture, lifting him up. The head lolled loosely to the side. His neck was broken all right, and there was no obvious bruising to suggest that hands had been laid on him. And there was a large contusion on his forehead consistent with a fall. So far everything was in order. What had I thought I would find? A label saying “Assassination carried out by Council order”?

  I shook my head and stepped back from the open coffin. I had a decision to make. It didn’t take long. There was no point in getting this far if I wasn’t going to go through with it.

  I stepped forward again and started to undo the buttons of his shirt. I didn’t want to, but I was going to have to examine the whole body for marks showing if William had been manhandled to the top of the stairs. This was what should have been done in the post-mortem that someone had decided wouldn’t take place.

  I was unzipping the former guardian’s trousers when Haigh tried to come in. I shouted at him so loud that I was lucky William McEwan didn’t come round and ask me what I thought I was doing. I asked myself the same question after I’d struggled to get his trousers off and found nothing; the fact that the laces on his scuffed old brogues were double knotted didn’t help. Then my eyes fell on the shoes. They were lying on their sides on the floor where I’d dropped them. Why the hell would anyone tie double knots on a dead man’s shoes?

  I went to the bottom of the coffin. Even before I pulled his socks off, I could see William McEwan’s feet were badly swollen. The black bruising all over the top of both feet showed that he didn’t just have bad circulation. Some piece of shit had trampled all over the old man’s feet, which probably had nothing more than bedsocks on them at that time of the morning. No doubt it was the bastard who’d left the marks of his boots on the bedroom floor. There was no way William had fallen down the stairs accidentally. Christ, with these bruises he’d hardly even have been able to walk two paces.

  I backed away again and squatted down on the concrete floor. This time the decision I had to make took a lot longer.

  After I put the clothes back on William’s wasted limbs and tried unsuccessfully to close his eyes, I was nearly consumed by rage. Haigh saw how I looked as I stormed down the corridor and veered out of my way. I tossed over his screwdriver without making any effort to miss him and told him to put the lid back on the coffin himself. At that moment I was dead set on driving straight to Moray Place and asking the senior guardian what the fuck was going on. Then I got outside and the Arctic air brought me to my senses. Suddenly suicide didn’t seem like such an attractive option.

  Back in my flat I gulped whisky and tried to work out a plan of action. Whoever killed the ex-guardian had friends in high places, as the lack of post-mortem showed. On the other hand, I had very few friends on the Council. Hamilton might class himself as one if he was feeling charitable, but his own position in the Council was isolated. No, the only sensible way was to keep what I knew to myself and nail whoever was responsible when I had the whole story.

  So I put on my black suit and turned up uninvited to William’s service. Hector beckoned to me to sit beside him but I preferred to stand at the side where I had a good view of all the guardians and senior auxiliaries on parade. I saw Haigh lurking in the background and wondered if he’d told anyone about my visit. If he had, no one seemed to be too bothered. Judging by the lack of eye contact I was receiving, I might as well have stayed at home. The medical guardian was the only one who even batted an eyelid in acknowledgement of my presence, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up – she looked as beautiful and as glacial as ever. Machiavelli was standing next to Hamilton with his nose in the air and his head angled away from the guardian in another tell-tale piece of body language.

  What I was hoping might be interesting was the senior guardian’s address. I reckoned I’d be able to spot if he was harbouring any guilty feelings about the old man’s death, but I’d forgotten what a skilful performer the chief boyscout had become during his time at the top. He ran through William’s achievements at the Science and Energy Directorate, expressed the city and the Council’s gratitude and held his head high as the coffin disappeared into the floor. A statue would have given more away.

  Outside, no one was inclined to hang about. The temperature was doing its usual impression of Tromsø on a bad day and there was no wake afterwards; since the guardians don’t permit themselves alcohol, there wouldn’t have been much point. I had a few words with Hector then led him towards a guard vehicle.

  “Aren’t there better ways for you to spend your time, citizen?”

  I turned to face the senior guardian. I’d been wondering if he’d have the nerve to approach me.

  “It’s important to mark the passing of the old guard,” I said with a thin smile. “Even if the passing is a bit premature.”

  I was hoping to catch even a hint of regret but there was nothing.

  “Citizen, it’s someone who hasn’t passed away yet who you should be after – the murderer. Kindly get back to work.” He strode off without a glance at my father.

  “What did he mean?” Hector asked. “Are you working for the Council again?”

  I nodded slowly.

  Over the crematorium a cloud of smoke rose from the chimney. It was the last breath of William McEwan, floating away into the chill blue sky above the “perfect” city he’d served.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was running down an ice-rimmed street under a bright moon, my legs flailing, trying to catch up with a figure in a long, hooded coat. Then the figure stopped and turned to face me. I slowed to walking pace, my breath rasping in my throat and a stitch fastening my liver to my lowest rib tighter than an industrial sewing machine could. As the figure’s face came into view I felt myself falling into an abyss. It was Roddie Aitken, lips bared and blood trailing down his chin. Then everything went black, darker than the universe before the big bang went off, darker than the soul of the killer I was trying to find. But I could hear voices. Not Roddie’s, not any man’s. They were women’s voices, the voices of the women I’d lost. My mother, Caro, Katharine Kirkwood. They seemed to be getting closer, asking questions plaintively, accusing me of failing them. But I’d also lost the power of speech. Like Roddie, like William McEwan.

  I woke up in a sweat-soaked bed reeking of nettles and seaweed. It took me a couple of minutes to work out that the smell came from the cup of barracks tea on my bedside table.

  “Nice dream?” Davie asked as I staggered through into the main room of my flat. “You looked like you were well into an imaginary sex session.”

  “Sod off, guardsman. It was a nightmare actually.”

  Davie grinned. “That’s the problem with random selection of partners.”

  I shook my head. “No, it was a real nightmare. Christ, this bastard case. We’re going nowhere with it. Just waiting for the butcher to kill again.”

  “You read my mind,” Davie said. “When you’d woken up properly I was going to tell you that none of the tails we’ve got on the two victims’ friends and contacts has come up with anything significant.” He tossed over a sheaf of papers. “Their reports up to yesterday evening.”

  At least the City Guard’s bureaucracy was still doing its job, though personally I’d have given the undercover people an extra hour’s relaxation rather than make them write up the day’s events before they sign off.

  “No more pills found anywhere either,” Davie added,
flipping the pages of his notebook then closing it. “So what are we doing today?”

  I knew what I was going to do, but it was something that I didn’t want to risk involving him in. “Can you keep an eye on all the leads we’re following, Davie? I want you to keep Hamilton off my back as well. I’m switching my mobile off today.”

  “Oh, aye?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “And where exactly are you headed, Quint?”

  “You don’t want to know, guardsman. You do not want to know.”

  I reckoned I had about an hour at the most. I still had an “ask no questions”, one of the cards issued by the Public Order Directorate to undercover operatives, from the murder investigation in 2020. It would get me into the Science and Energy Directorate archive all right, and my disguise would buy me some time from the senior guardian. If he was advised that someone answering my description was in his directorate files, he’d be down faster than the Archangel Gabriel when Lucifer got uppity.

  And so it came to pass. I used the blue overalls I had when I was in the Parks Department a few years back, supplementing them with a bag of tools to make me look like a plumber. Pipes are always blocking up or cracking in the Council’s Edinburgh and plumbers bring out the best in even the most granite-jawed sentry. I was also wearing a bright blond wig I’d picked up in one of the ragshops that ordinary citizens rely on when their clothing vouchers run out.

  I strode purposefully up the steps to what used to be the Royal College of Surgeons in Nicolson Street. Trust the Enlightenment to choose a Playfair neo-classical temple for the city’s science and energy base. The original Council members had little time for science. It had been misused so much in the late twentieth century, what with cloning (until the American religious right put a stop to that), the development of new, even more addictive consumer drugs and the nuclear industry’s increasingly unchecked expansion. Such scientific experiments as were allowed took place in the King’s Buildings where the toxicologist worked and at a few other locations, but the headquarters were symbolically situated in a building Plato would have approved of.

  I got into the archive room and diagnosed a supposedly explosive leak. That scared all the file shufflers off. Then I locked myself in and headed for the records covering the years when William McEwan was guardian. In the limited time I had I was unlikely to find some as yet unidentified needle in this particular stack of bureaucratic hay, but I owed it to the old man to have a try. If he’d been keeping any documents to show me at the retirement home, they were long gone by the time I searched his room. I took a deep breath and started pulling open cabinets and maroon-coloured “guardians’ eyes only” files.

  As it turned out, I got even less than the hour I’d estimated. By the time the banging started on the steel-plated security door, I’d found nothing. But as nothings go, it was a very interesting one. What I wanted to know was, why was there a full set of top-security files covering one particular hot subject except for four months of William McEwan’s period of tenure? That particular subject was what used to be the city’s main source of electricity until the Council shut it down – the advanced gas-cooled reactor power station at Torness.

  Whoever was laying into the door was doing a fair imitation of a blues drummer who’s taken too many pills from the bag marked Speed Kills.

  “Who is it?” I shouted, trying to stall them.

  “Davie.”

  I was impressed. “How did you find me?”

  “Are you going to let me in, Quint?”

  I finished putting the files back and opened the door.

  “There’s been a sighting of the bastard in the hood,” he said hoarsely. “A sentry’s been attacked – knocked senseless. He’s regaining consciousness now.”

  “The attacker got away?”

  “What do you think?”

  We came out into the watery sunlight. Clouds had been gathering while I was inside and it didn’t feel as cold as it had. No doubt the weather was laying another ambush.

  “Where are we headed?”

  Davie started the Land-Rover’s engine. “Raeburn Barracks. Apparently the sentry was patrolling the waste land where that school used to be when he saw a guy in a long coat in the bushes. I don’t know any more.”

  “I know the feeling,” I muttered as we roared down the South Bridge. “So how did you find me?”

  “I was in the ops room when the sentry here reported a plumber with an outrageous wig,” he said, turning to grin at me. “Who else could it have been?”

  I looked away, pissed off that he’d clocked my disguise from a mile off. On the bridge a small boy in the maroon sweater all the city’s schoolchildren wear flicked us a well-practised V-sign as we passed. I liked his spirit but I didn’t give much for his chances if he tried that with the auxiliaries in his school. The Council is keen on the three Rs, but it’s an even bigger fan of the three Ds: Discipline, Direction and Drill. I should know. My mother was the first education guardian.

  Raeburn 497 was six feet two and about fifteen stone. That’s how he survived. As it was, he was definitely a candidate for the small number of plastic surgery operations the Medical Directorate carries out each year – the Council has been having a big downer on non-essential use of resources.

  “Shouldn’t he be in the infirmary?” I asked the barracks commander.

  “My medical officer’s had a good look at him. She says his skull’s undamaged.”

  Which was more than I could say for the young auxiliary’s face. It looked like someone had been tapdancing on it with steel-toed boots.

  “Can you describe the man who laid into you?” I asked, bending over the swollen purple features.

  A brief shake of the head. “Not really.”

  I had to lean closer to make out the words. He’d lost most of his front teeth.

  “The collar of his coat was pulled up and the hood was hanging down low.”

  Sounded like our man all right.

  “What colour was the coat?”

  “Dark brown. It was long, almost down to his boots.”

  “What colour were they?”

  “Black. High, up to his knee. Badly scuffed.” He shook his head a couple of times. “Not like any I’ve ever seen before.” He tried to laugh and only succeeded in coughing up blood. “Except in the Westerns they show in the Historical Film Society.”

  Cowboy boots? I hadn’t seen a pair of those since the ones I saved up for when I was sixteen fell to bits years later. Another pointer to someone from outside the city. No doubt you can buy all sorts of exotic footwear in democratic Glasgow – if you can fight your way to the shop. It didn’t look like our man would have any problem doing that. But something was bothering me. I didn’t have any recollection of the hooded figure I’d chased from my flat wearing that kind of footwear. I was pretty sure I’d seen an ordinary pair of work boots.

  The sentry’s breathing was heavy and he was obviously in a lot of pain. I turned to his commander, a barrel-chested specimen in the standard iron boyscout mode. Before I could ask exactly where the sighting had occurred, the door to the barracks sick bay opened and Machiavelli walked in. His face immediately turned greyer than the contents of the pies ordinary citizens have to put up with. I couldn’t tell whether that was because of the guardsman’s injuries or my presence.

  “What happened here?” he asked, his eyes opening even wider as he approached the bed. “It’s Raeburn 497, isn’t it? He’s inter-barracks unarmed combat champion.”

  I left the commander to fill him in. So our killer had taken out the city’s best fighter. That made my day.

  “Where were you when you saw him?” I asked the sentry.

  He suddenly looked a lot worse, his head lolling over in my direction. “Fettes . . . near the foundations of Carrington House. He was in the bushes by the gates . . . here, I’ve lost my knife . . .”

  He passed out. Just as well. His commander would drag him over the coals in the barracks boiler room for mislaying his auxiliary-iss
ue weapon. I was overjoyed to learn that the murderer’s collection of sharp blades had grown by one.

  “Commander,” I said, interrupting the conversation he was having with Hamilton’s deputy, “This man’s in a very bad way. For Christ’s sake get him to the infirmary.”

  For a sworn atheist, Raeburn 01 showed surprising alacrity in complying. Maybe he was just programmed to obey anything in the imperative mood.

  Davie and I drove up to the place where the guardsman had been attacked. It was only about a hundred yards from Raeburn Barracks, which shows you the nerve of the guy. But what the hell was he doing here?

  Before the Enlightenment what’s now a lattice of foundation stones with untended grass growing over them had been one of Scotland’s most expensive public schools. Which is one reason why the drugs gangs, who started out in the urban nightmare of Pilton up the road, decided to blow the place up. A lot of the stone had been carted off and used in other less exclusive building projects – though since most of them were tourist facilities, that isn’t exactly accurate. Down by the remains of one of the boarding houses, the city’s number one headbanger had been given a lesson in unarmed combat by the city’s number one murderer.

  We hunted around the area that was cordoned off by City Guard tape. Apart from a few scuffmarks on the bone-hard ground, there was nothing to see. I don’t know what I expected. The killer had been careful enough so far not to leave anything he didn’t want us to have. After a while I squatted down by the unkempt bushes and looked up through the trees at the dull red ball of the sun to the west.

  “You know what I think?” Davie said.

  “Surprise me, guardsman.”

  “He was waiting for someone.”

  “In the bushes, within spitting distance of a barracks? Doesn’t seem too likely. What citizen would willingly come here? It’d be a real risk.” Then I raised my eyes to his. “You’re not suggesting he was meeting an auxiliary, are you?”