Heads or Hearts

by Paul Johnston

  I stared at him. ‘Are you pulling my—’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Davie got up. ‘Am I taking the whisky or leaving it?’

  I caught his eye. ‘Can I trust you on this? Is it really going to be worth my time?’

  ‘How do I know? It looks like the beginning of a massive case, but these things sometimes fizzle out.’ He picked up the bottle. ‘I have a feeling this one won’t.’

  I grabbed the Talisker.

  ‘All right, I’m in. But I’ll be out the minute it gets boring.’

  Davie laughed grimly. ‘Ever the boy adventurer. What age are you next birthday?’

  I kicked the back of his leg. The prospect of the big 5-0 was scaring the shit out of me.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Davie was at the wheel of a new and shiny white Korean 4×4. The Guard’s fleet of ancient Land Rovers had finally been put out to grass – or rather, handed over to the wards to run, spare parts not included.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘I told you I was on board.’

  ‘Don’t you always say that an unprejudiced mind is essential when encountering evidence and scenes?’

  The windscreen wipers were on full blast but I could still hardly see anything of the road ahead. Fortunately Davie was a skilled driver, something he was inordinately proud of. He swerved smoothly past a couple of drenched citizens on their bikes, then a bus full of workers going home. We passed the revitalized Market District, buildings whose foundations had been laid in the early years of the century finally completed. That was all part of the city economists’ master plan to turn Edinburgh into a tax haven and financial services hub. States in Europe and around the world were getting back on their feet after decades of in-fighting and extreme disorder. We’d been starved of international news, the Information Directorate providing only stories that put independent Edinburgh in a good light. I remembered that offshore banking, low-tax regimes and unregulated markets had been part of the problem that tore the world’s economy apart when the man and woman on the street finally had enough of being urinated on.

  ‘Edinburgh as the Cayman Islands? Jersey? Liechtenstein?’ I said.

  ‘If you say so.’ Davie turned on to Dalry Road.

  ‘Yet another component of the Council’s topsy-turvy world. The Enlightenment banned money, remember?’ I laughed. ‘Though that didn’t stop them taking it from tourists.’

  ‘We had to survive somehow,’ Davie growled. ‘Anyway, the year-round festival wasn’t much of a change from before.’

  ‘I don’t remember there being marijuana clubs, legalized brothels, a racetrack in Princes Street Gardens and gambling venues all over the city.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ Davie shrugged. ‘I know the system isn’t perfect, but it’s getting better.’

  ‘You might be right,’ I conceded. ‘Then again, what’s this big case?’

  ‘Not long now.’

  He clammed up and I looked at the shabby surroundings. We were out of the centre now and, despite the Council’s efforts to improve citizens’ lives, the built environment isn’t pretty. Davie bore right and then took a sharp turn. The rain was lighter now and I made out a large maroon sign:

  Welcome to Tynecastle, Home of Heart of Midlothian Football Club

  Hearts, Glorious Hearts!

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said. ‘Is there a game on?’

  ‘It’s five-thirty on a Tuesday,’ Davie said. ‘Match days are Sundays.’

  ‘Oddly, I knew that.’

  ‘Didn’t think you were a fan.’

  ‘I’m not. I was a Hibee when I was a kid, before match-fixing and doping ruined the sport.’ The Enlightenment banned football soon after it came to power, preferring rugby. That was one of many unpopular decisions.

  ‘You supported Hibernian?’ Davie said in disgust.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re a Jambo. You’re a rugby player.’

  ‘Was. Knee’s knackered, remember? Aye, I was a Jambo, still am. We lived up the road when I was a kid. Screw Hibs. Bunch of left-footers.’

  ‘May I remind you that sectarianism was proscribed by the first Council, guardsman? And religion heavily discouraged. There can’t be more than a few hundred Catholics in the city now.’

  Davie pulled up by the south stand. ‘You’d be surprised. Since freedom of religion was enacted a couple of years ago, organized religions are making quite a comeback.’

  ‘I’d noticed. None of which explains why we’re here.’ I looked around. There were no other Guard or official vehicles present – only club vans. ‘On our own.’

  ‘Some of my men are inside dressed as groundsmen. You’ll do as you are – citizen-issue donkey jacket as usual. I’ve got a full-length rain jacket.’ He pulled it on after he got out.

  ‘Is there an umbrella?’ I asked forlornly.

  Davie laughed and led me into the complex. A door was open but the only person around was a guy in a tracksuit who was obviously a guardsman. I can spot their air of authority no matter how much they try to disguise it.

  ‘Come on,’ Davie said, tossing me a maroon-and-white-striped umbrella. ‘What, don’t you want it?’

  ‘Bit late. Haven’t you got one in green and white?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He opened a door, led me down some concrete steps and suddenly we were on the pitch. I remembered a dire Edinburgh derby I’d attended with my old man when I was about ten. Hibs got stuffed.

  The seating in the stands was new and the stadium in surprisingly good nick. It had taken the Council long enough to realize that football was an effective opiate of the people, but they’re making up for it now. There was even a sign for free pies above a stall.

  Two men were standing under umbrellas like mine in the centre circle, garden forks resting against their hips. There was a large plastic box at their feet. I felt a tingle in my spine.

  ‘What’s in the box, Davie?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  We squelched over the sodden grass, though it wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. Surely the Recreation Directorate hadn’t run to an efficient drainage system?

  ‘Step back, guardsmen,’ Davie ordered. He turned to me and watched as I pulled on a pair of the latex gloves I always carry in my back pocket. ‘Never unprepared, Quint, eh?’

  I raised the stump of my right forefinger at him, the rubber hanging down pathetically, then squatted and took hold of the opaque plastic box. A deep breath and I lifted it.

  ‘What the …’

  ‘You know what it is,’ Davie said grimly.

  ‘I do. A human heart, the arteries roughly severed but the parts of the exterior that are visible otherwise intact.’

  ‘Aye. Pleased you signed up now?’

  I looked up at him. ‘I don’t remember signing anything, but I will if you want me to. Right now.’

  TWO

  We were out in the open, as the person or persons who’d left the organ on the centre spot would have been. The rain had probably obscured the view from the buildings around, but someone could have seen what happened.

  ‘We can’t ask questions,’ Davie said after a pair of crime-scene technicians, also disguised as groundsmen, had removed the heart and the turf below. ‘Council orders. They’re worried about publicity.’

  ‘What if someone talks to the media?’ There were quasi-free newspapers and radio stations in the city now.

  ‘They’re being monitored.’

  ‘Of course.’ There would be undercover auxiliaries in every news outlet.

  ‘Who found it?’

  ‘A groundsman, surprise, surprise. He was in before anyone else – the place didn’t open till midday today – and he did the right thing.’

  ‘Called the Guard. How do you know he didn’t tell his boss first?’

  ‘Because he’s terrified. I’ve got him up in the castle. The recreation guardian’s honorary chairman of the club – of all the clubs in the Edinburgh Premier League, of course – which helps.’


  ‘It didn’t occur to anyone to take the heart for examination?’

  Davie grinned. ‘We’re not that useless without you. The medical guardian’s had a look. Taking into account the ambient temperature, she couldn’t be specific about how long it’s been there or when it was removed from its host body. She recommended that it be left in situ for you.’

  ‘Did she?’ Sophia, the medical guardian, and I were on-off lovers, more on than off in the year since my long-term partner Katharine Kirkwood had illicitly left the city. ‘Well, she knows how I work. It’s still full of holes, and I don’t mean the heart, jackass. Who had access to the stadium? Who witnessed the heart being left? Where’s the body it came from? We need to talk to people.’

  ‘The guardian’s worried about drawing attention. As for witnesses, the feeling is that anyone who saw it being put on the centre circle will call it in.’ Davie headed quickly back to the stand before I could point out how unlikely that was. Citizens still didn’t trust the authorities. I looked around as I walked. There were several buildings whose top storeys overlooked the pitch. Were we being observed now?

  ‘So why I am involved?’ I asked, brushing water from my scalp.

  ‘Come on, Quint. The city’s opening up, tourism’s back to the numbers we had before the Chinese crash, Edinburgh may become the capital of Scotland again. This is the last thing the Council needs.’

  ‘And I’m the first thing?’

  ‘Unlikely though that might seem. So where to?’

  ‘Your place of work, I suppose, since I can’t knock on doors here.’

  ‘Your supposition is my command.’

  Back in the 4×4, I turned to Davie. ‘Is there anything you aren’t telling me?’

  ‘Yes. The medical directorate’s recently started doing heart transplants.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’ The likelihood of the resource-starved infirmary being able to provide such complex surgery to the citizen body was minimal. Besides, Sophia would have told me. Or would she? ‘You are joking?’

  Davie glanced at me. ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘On second thoughts, let’s go and see the medical guardian. It wouldn’t be the first time people in the infirmary were up to no good.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Davie said ruefully, hitting the accelerator hard.

  The infirmary is a Victorian building in what had been the university area in the southern centre of the city. Its towers and vanes give it a Gothic air, especially with the stone walls darkened by the rain. There are some more modern parts, not least a steel chimney pointing skywards like that of a first-generation steamship long run aground. There were crowds of citizens in the waiting areas even though it was early evening. Appointments were made until 9 p.m., meaning that riots by those needing treatment were avoided – and that the doctors and nurses were permanently exhausted. That went for the medical guardian too.

  ‘Hello, Sophia McIlvanney,’ I said as we were ushered into her office. I never miss an opportunity to use auxiliaries’ surnames because I know how much it irritates them; they prefer the titles that make clear their superiority.

  ‘Hello, Quint,’ she replied, brushing back a strand of white-blonde hair. There was a time she’d been known as the Ice Queen, but she’d lost that quality for me. Among other things, sex is a great leveller. ‘You’re here on an affair of the heart.’

  ‘I should be so lucky. But yes, if you want to put it that way.’ I tried to avoid looking at the scar beneath her right eye. She caught me out, of course, and I felt my cheeks redden.

  ‘Come on. I’ve got the pathologists waiting.’

  Soon we were all gowned and masked up, even for the single organ. I was happy enough as the air in the morgue is always pungent.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Sophia said to her subordinates.

  They leaned over the organ, which had been washed of blood either by the person who had cut it out or by the rain, and started speaking. I let the words flow over me – aorta, anterior interventricular branch, pulmonary veins, coronary sinus – waiting to pounce when something struck me. For a time nothing did. Then I heard ‘serrated edge’ and raised a hand.

  ‘So a serrated blade was used to cut the arteries and so on?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the taller of the masked figures. ‘Strange. Any professional would use a straight edge.’

  ‘Though the cuts display a reasonable degree of medical knowledge,’ said his short colleague.

  ‘Reasonable meaning what?’ I asked. ‘City Guard medical orderly level?’ Like all auxiliaries, they’re issued with knives that have serrated blades.

  Davie was looking at the ceiling, while Sophia’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘As far as I know, medical orderlies are not trained to remove hearts,’ she said. ‘Kindly suppress your customary suspicion of auxiliaries, citizen.’

  ‘The person or persons who removed this heart were careful not to cut or otherwise damage the exterior,’ the taller of the pathologists said. ‘That suggests medical knowledge.’

  ‘Did it come from a male or a female?’ I asked, after they’d measured the organ.

  ‘Male,’ they said in unison.

  ‘Fully developed,’ put in Sophia. ‘It’s about twenty-five per cent larger than a female’s.’

  ‘Also, there’s no evidence, at least externally, of aortic or venous disease,’ said the shorter pathologist. ‘So we’re probably dealing with a young, healthy male, though that’s subject to what we find when we open the organ up.’

  After more talking to the microphone that hung above the table, the men looked at Sophia and she nodded.

  ‘Cutting across aorta and aortic valve cusps,’ the tall pathologist said.

  I let the words roll over me again. This time nothing made me intervene.

  ‘Subject to tissue and other tests, this heart belonged to a young man in good physical condition,’ said the shorter doctor.

  ‘Are there any tests that will show how long since it was removed?’ I asked.

  ‘To within a period of hours, yes,’ Sophia said.

  The tall pathologist raised a hand. ‘My working hypothesis would be that it was removed within the last twenty-four hours, taking into account the freshness.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been frozen?’

  He looked at me as if surprised by the question and then shook his head. ‘The texture of the tissue suggests not.’

  ‘Anything else we should know?’ I said.

  There wasn’t. The donor had been young and healthy, which somehow made what had happened to him even more of a disgrace.

  ‘Can you give me a lift to the Council meeting, commander?’

  ‘Of course, guardian,’ Davie said.

  ‘Citizen Dalrymple’s presence is required there as well,’ Sophia continued.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I mumbled.

  We went out into the infirmary yard, the rain having miraculously let up.

  ‘What are you complaining about?’ Davie said, under his breath. ‘You’ll find out more about what’s going on.’

  I laughed. ‘That isn’t the way it works, my friend. I’m usually the one whose lemon gets squeezed.’

  Sophia gave me a curious look. Her knowledge of the blues was minimal and sexual innuendo wasn’t her strong point.

  We drove down to what had been the Scottish Parliament for four years spanning the millennium – before public anger at the greed and fecklessness of politicians brought the system down. Edinburgh was lucky. Most parliaments in Europe, including Westminster, were blown up or burned down. Organized crime had been taken over by its disorganized but extremely violent sibling and drugs wars erupted across Europe and the USA. Edinburgh got the Enlightenment and then the Council of City Guardians. There was little crime but even less joy.

  ‘What do you think, Sophia?’ I said as we approached the weather-stained relic of democracy near the ruins of Holyrood Palace. The monarchy had been a major target of the mob. Prince Charles should never have married that Colombian
drugs heiress. ‘Is Edinburgh going to be part of Scotland again?’

  ‘That’s up to the citizens,’ she said, keeping her eyes off mine.

  ‘Right. No tampering with the ballot boxes by the Council next year.’

  ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say, Quint.’ Now I got the full benefit of her Medusa-stare. ‘I could have the commander here lock you up.’

  I laughed. ‘Then what would your colleagues do about the heart at Heart of Midlothian?’

  ‘Don’t imagine you’re indispensable, citizen.’ She opened her door and got out. She might have been winding me up, but I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘What age are you?’ Davie demanded.

  ‘Too old to rock and roll, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Arsehole. Show guardians some fucking respect.’

  ‘That, big man, is a two-way street.’

  I left him behind and went into the building. It could do with some serious maintenance, but the Council claims it’s directing all the resources it can to citizen facilities. But what about the Market District? No expense was being spared there. Still, Davie was right. My life would be much easier if I kowtowed to our lords and mistresses. Then again, someone had to stand guard over the guardians.

  A guardswomen in full dress uniform opened the door to the main chamber for me. The fifteen guardians were in their seats in the semicircle, looking down at me.

  ‘Citizen Dalrymple,’ said the senior guardian, a gung-ho sociologist in his early forties, who was in charge of the Supply Directorate as well as being this year’s numero uno. ‘Welcome back.’

  ‘Thanks, Fergus,’ I said, taking in the disapproving faces above. ‘Call me Quint.’

  That was unlikely to happen, at least in Council. In theory everyone in the city can now be addressed by their first name, but you took your life in your hands if you called guardians what their parents had. The city’s leaders still call each other by their titles, at least when there are citizens around.

  Fergus Calder’s smile took a hit, but he persevered. ‘You have some thoughts to share?’

  I shook my head. ‘I was the last to know about this case, so I’ll speak last. Tell me everything you know.’