‘Wha—’
‘Can … you … hear … me?’ I shouted.
‘Yes!’ he shouted back, then shook his head. ‘Sort of.’ There was blood all over his face and a piece of asphalt was embedded above his left eye. He looked around.
‘Cat!’ He got to his feet and stumbled over to the guardswoman, pushing past the fleeing citizens.
I went after him. By the time I got there, he was kneeling over the motionless body. When he moved back I saw a short shaft of metal protruding from her chest. I was pretty sure it had pierced her heart.
Paramedics were soon on the scene, uniformed personnel swarming around the walking wounded. Douglas Haigh, untouched, was wandering around rubbing his hands – no doubt lamenting the lack of even more customers. A young medical auxiliary had led Davie to an ambulance and was working on his face and the backs of his hands. The public order and medical guardians weren’t long in making their appearances.
‘What was it, Quint?’ Sophia asked.
I could hear pretty well now. ‘Some kind of grenade. I think the crazy bastard was planning to throw it into the packed crematorium and take as many of the former gang families out as he could. Including his girlfriend.’
‘Let me see that hand,’ Sophia said. There were dots of blood all over my fading DM stamp. She pulled on surgical gloves and swabbed the skin, making me wince.
‘There are bits of foreign matter in here,’ she said. ‘You need to come to the infirmary.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Suit yourself,’ she said brusquely. ‘But if they get infected …’
Guardian Doris came up.
‘Sorry about the guardswoman,’ I said. ‘But Davie deserves a medal.’
‘There’ll be time for that later,’ she said, looking at the sparse remains of Madman, now covered with a blanket. ‘Will this spark off a gang war?’
‘Not with the Portobello Pish in ruins. I wouldn’t recommend a clamp-down on the Lancers for the time being.’
She frowned. ‘That hadn’t crossed my mind. Does this get us any further with the … other incidents?’
I blinked, my eyes still gritty. ‘It doesn’t answer any questions definitively, does it? Brown may have had links with the smugglers who supplied the Pish and, yes, the Lancers may have killed him. But it doesn’t have anything obvious to do with the Tyneside organ.’
She understood that reference to the heart at the Hearts ground immediately, but it took Sophia a few seconds longer.
‘Could the whole thing be tied to the football clubs?’ Guardian Doris asked. ‘Their managers aren’t exactly as pure as the driven—’
‘Cliché. No, they’re not. They’re also deadly rivals, especially the ones in charge of Hearts and Hibs. Why don’t you haul them all in for a cup of coffee and a beating? Apart from the missing Alec Ferries, of course.’
She frowned at me, then turned away and walked quickly to her 4×4, apparently energized by my suggestion.
Davie walked slowly towards us, staples on his face and a dressing where the asphalt asteroid had hit his forehead.
‘Bastard,’ he grunted. ‘I never thought he’d be carrying a bomb.’
‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about Catriona.’
He scowled. ‘She was a good Guard. Someone’s going to pay.’
‘Her killer’s in small pieces,’ Sophia said.
Davie turned his head, favouring his right ear. ‘I want to know who the Pish were working for.’
I nodded. ‘Me too. But don’t you think you should lie down for a few hours?’
‘Yes,’ said Sophia. ‘You should. That’s an order.’ She looked at me. ‘You too, Quint. In fact, you’re both coming to the infirmary. I want to run checks on your hearing and get you cleaned up properly.’
‘I’m coming to the Council meeting,’ I said firmly.
She sighed. ‘If I give you the all-clear. And, commander? You’re not driving. Both of you in the back of my vehicle. Now!’
Suddenly weary, we did as we were told.
The feeling of the experts was that both my and Davie’s hearing wasn’t permanently damaged and would return to normal soon. Our wounds were given a proper seeing to and then we were taken to a double-bedded doctors’ room and locked in. Sophia’s a great one for trust, like all her rank.
We gave up trying to converse because it got boring saying ‘What?’ all the time. My sleep was deep and surprisingly undisturbed – until Sophia shook me awake.
‘Come on, Quint,’ she said with a rare smile. ‘The Council’s slavering to see you.’
‘That’ll be right.’ I looked across to the other bed. Davie was fast asleep. ‘Let’s leave the commander. Locked in?’
‘Why not?’
Sophia drove us to the Council chamber herself. I guessed that meant she had something private to impart, but she was silent until we were halfway down the Royal Mile.
‘Come to my place tonight, Quint.’
I only just heard the words. They weren’t unwelcome.
‘Maisie wants to see you.’
I felt like a bucket of sea water had been thrown over me, even though I liked the wee girl a lot. Then I realized she was laughing.
‘The look on your face. Like a child that’s had a sweetie taken from its open mouth.’
‘I’ll give you open mouth,’ I said, moving towards her.
‘No!’ she squealed. ‘I’ll run a tourist down and then where will we be?’
She had a point. I let her alone on condition that she let me stay after Maisie was asleep.
We arrived at the former – and maybe future – Scottish parliament building shaken and fairly stirred. Then I remembered the stern faces waiting for me.
‘Citizen Dalrymple,’ the education guardian said after I’d told them most of what I’d discovered, ‘you seem to be chasing this investigation rather than applying order to it.’
I looked at the desiccated old professor, then at Guardian Doris.
Eventually she rose to the occasion. ‘To be fair, this is a complex set of incidents. There’s any number of tangents. For instance, the city’s premier-league football managers have been brought in for questioning.’
‘Why’s that?’ Jack MacLean asked, glancing at the recreation guardian. The latter looked uncomfortable.
‘Because, finance guardian, the gang known as the Portobello Pish had at least two players who were members.’
‘That hardly seems reason to bring in all the other team bosses,’ the senior guardian said.
I smelled a rodent with large yellow teeth. Both slick Jack, Billy Geddes’s boss, and Fergus Calder, head of the Supply Directorate that had supposedly been providing the Pish with drugs, had evinced support for the other EPL managers. That needed looking into. As did Peter Stewart’s failure to object.
‘They’ll be released when they satisfy my investigators,’ the public order guardian said, eyeing them both with what looked like distrust. Nice one, Doris.
‘What about this head on the New Tolbooth?’ asked the tourism guardian, a middle-aged woman who declined to do anything about her grey hair. I admired her for that, if little else.
‘It’ll be taken down tonight,’ Doris said.
‘We’ll confirm if it’s Grant Brown’s,’ Sophia put in.
‘You realize the historical significance of the head on the spike?’ the education guardian said.
‘No,’ said Calder, ‘but do enlighten us.’ He sat back, cupping his chin in his hands and closing his eyes.
‘Only the heads of criminals were exposed in that way,’ Cowan said. ‘Criminals under the laws in force at the time, of course.’ He looked at me and then the public order guardian. ‘Have you considered that this Grant Brown was punished by people who wish to see the City Regulations upheld? He was, after all, a drug-trafficker, not that you did anything to stop him, Doris.’
That was a smart thought, and he was quickly paid back in kind.
‘You wouldn’t be
familiar with a vigilante group, would you, Brian?’
He smiled, a little too easily, I thought. ‘Me? I run the city’s schools and colleges. What do I know of such things?’
‘Indeed,’ said the senior guardian. ‘Citizen Dalrymple, what do you recommend we do now? Wait for another heart or head to appear?’
I delayed my answer, not least because I was undecided. If in doubt, put the fear of extinction up them.
‘I gather the governors of Orkney and Shetland are arriving tomorrow,’ I said, my eyes on Fergus Calder.
Suddenly he looked like there was a two-eyed snake in his underwear.
‘They are. Why is that of interest to you?’
‘You mean apart from the fact that regulations explicitly state that outsiders are not allowed access to the city?’
Jack MacLean gave a hollow laugh. ‘Don’t be absurd, Quint. The regulations have been amended. With the referendum coming up, we need to see our counterparts regularly.’
‘My copy doesn’t contain any such amendment.’
There was a pause while they all – even Sophia – gave me the evil eye.
‘Citizen,’ the senior guardian said, ‘not all amendments are made available to people of your rank.’
‘Oh, I see. You can do what you like while ordinary citizens are left to believe that their rulers abide by the published regulations.’
‘That’s enough. What is your interest in our guests?’
I’d made my point. ‘Are they arriving at the City Airport?’
MacLean nodded.
‘I suggest you do a careful sweep of the buildings there and station more Guard personnel than usual on the road into the city.’
‘You have evidence that there’s a threat?’ said Calder, aghast.
I shook my head. ‘We have a heart and a head. The owner of the latter had connections with outsiders. That makes me think that outsiders may be the key to this.’ I ran my eyes around the semicircle of faces above me. ‘Because no cases of heart removal or decapitation have been recorded in the perfect city for over ten years, have they? While who knows what they get up to in the wild north and west?’
That got them chattering nervously. I had no reason to suspect the governors of Orkney and Shetland, but the Lord of the Isles, due the day after tomorrow, was another kettle of herring altogether; as was Andrew Duart of Glasgow, arriving on Saturday – Glasgow, where a heart had been found at Celtic Park. There was no harm in rousing the guardians before kick-off.
Then I had another thought, one I didn’t intend to share. After the meeting, I arranged with Sophia that I’d come to her quarters at 10 p.m. That gave me plenty of time to have a chat with Cecilia of Corstorphine, Grant Brown’s grieving other half.
ELEVEN
Cecilia’s surname turned out to be Colquhoun. The file I accessed in the command centre helpfully informed me that the name was pronounced ‘Ca-hoon’. I knew that, but auxiliaries who’d never been out of the city and had no experience of the weirder clan names didn’t. No doubt Brian ‘Know-All’ Cowan had provided a helping hand.
Davie was walking up the cobbles as I was heading down.
‘You all right, big man?’
‘I’ll survive. At least I can hear better.’
So could I. We’d been luckier than the nightly tourist winners of the All the Way Club on Rose Street’s ‘Feel Up Mary Queen of Scots or David Rizzio’ competition.
I told him where I was going.
‘I’ll drive you.’
I took in the state of his face. The stapled wounds had turned into a rainbow of pain. ‘All right, but you stay in the 4×4. The poor girl’s been shocked enough.’
He wasn’t impressed, taking it out on the kerb stones and setts of the Old Town. He’d calmed down by the time we reached Haymarket.
‘This is where it all started,’ he said, taking the road next to the one that leads to Tynecastle.
I was looking at the file on Cecilia’s parents in the evening light. For once the sky wasn’t depositing felines and canines by the truckload on us. ‘Mother, Ailsa, a hairdresser, father, Eric, a … hang on, we might need backup.’
Davie perked up. ‘Oh aye? What is he?’
‘A … bad man. Two years on Cramond Island back in the drugs wars for—’
‘Drugs-gang activity.’
‘Genius. Then seven separate years down the mines for acts of civil disobedience.’ That was the Guard’s phrase for getting up their collective nose. ‘Stealing from a shop, then from a coal depot, bartering illicitly obtained Supply Directorate whisky – two terms for that – bartering stolen water during the Big Heat – another two terms – and, get this – crossing the city line. He was sent home a month ago from his last stint.’
‘Think he might have gone back to his old ways?’
‘There’s no shortage of city-line crossing in this investigation.’
Davie drove past the rust-reddened steel supports of Murrayfield Stadium.
When I was young I saw the Scotland rugby team win rarely and lose frequently there. More recently it’s been used for barracks rugby, but citizens pay little attention to that now football is back.
‘Here we go. Among Eck’s close friends, going all the way back to school, is one Derick Smail.’
‘The Hibs manager.’
‘Correct.’
‘That’s definitely suggestive. But why do you want backup?’
‘Eric Colquhoun is nineteen stone and a certified fight fan, two of the fists in action being his own.’
Davie glanced at the latest photo. ‘Just a fat lump. I can take him easily.’
‘Except you’re staying in the vehicle.’
‘I’ll sneak round the back and rescue you if things get nasty.’
He turned up Clermiston Road and parked about fifty yards from the Colquhoun house. I took my life in my hands and walked to the front door, while Davie disappeared into the drizzle.
I was let in by a woman whose spectacular coiffure did little to deflect attention from the wrinkles on her face. I said I was a private investigator – no lie – and that I needed to see Cecilia. She might have believed me, but Eric had my number the second he lumbered into the hall.
‘Fuckin’ Citizen fuckin’ Dalrymple,’ he roared. ‘I ken exactly what kind ae Council-lickin’ shitebag yous are.’
I saw Cecilia stop halfway down the stairs. ‘Eric, surely you don’t want to upset your daughter. She’s had a terrible loss.’
‘No’ as terrible as the yin you’re aboot tae get, pal.’
Then he raised his arms like a cartoon monster and twitched all over, before crashing to the floor. Davie came from the rear of the house and removed the Hyper-Stun’s prongs from the now motionless heavy’s back. He cuffed his hands and ankles, then stood up. What was bothering him was the same thing I was struggling with – neither Ailsa Colquhoun nor her daughter had emitted a sound. Maybe this was par for the course with Eck. Then I wondered how he knew who I was. I’d been in the Edinburgh Guardian often enough over the years, but I had the feeling this was more recent. His daughter might have told him about me. Then again, so might Derick Smail.
‘Come away in,’ said Ailsa, leading us into a tidy sitting room. The furniture was standard issue, but she’d made an effort to smarten it up with brightly coloured rugs and throws. ‘Would ye like some tea?’
I declined. ‘I’m sorry about that, but your man was about to make mincemeat out of me.’
‘Aye, he’s terrible. That’ll be him back to the mines fir another year, Ah suppose.’ She sounded hopeful.
‘It depends on how much he cooperates.’
‘He was never much for cooperation.’
‘I noticed. Listen, I need to speak to you, Cecilia. Alone.’
‘That’s fine,’ her mother said to my surprise. ‘Tak him up to yer room, lass.’
Cecilia smiled and inclined her head at me. I motioned to Davie to stay where he was – if he’d fully recovered his wits, he w
ould charm Ailsa into giving away the family secrets.
‘In here,’ Cecilia said.
Her room was very unlike the sitting room. It was more spartan than the Supply Directorate norm, the walls bare and the bed covered by a thin blanket that must have been woven before the crash of 2003. Everything was spotless, though.
‘Sit down, citizen,’ she said, pointing to the chair by the small table. She sat primly on the bed. Now that her face wasn’t red and wrought by initial stress, I saw that she was an attractive young woman. But her eyes, grey and unwavering, were disconcerting and her manner dispassionate.
‘Have you found out anything about what happened to Grant?’ she said.
I wasn’t going to tell her about his head and where it had turned up – at least, not yet.
‘Cecilia, I want you to be straight with me. Do you know what Grant did in his free time?’
Her head dropped, her chin resting on her alabaster neck.
‘You do,’ I surmised.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ she said, eyes still down but voice steady.
‘Tell me now.’
She hesitated before speaking. ‘He was smuggling. He went to the city line beyond Colinton at night. Cigarettes mainly, I think.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Who did he sell them to?’
She looked up and caught my gaze. ‘The Pish. He played football with Allie Swanson. I didn’t like him.’
I nodded. She didn’t seem to be concealing anything now.
‘I think he sold them at his work too.’
The Housing Directorate foreman needed to be hauled in.
‘And he was into betting as well.’
I disguised my interest. Apart from Edlott, gambling was only for tourists – the regulations were still clear about that. There weren’t many illicit schemes because the Guard nailed citizens who indulged.
‘Who did he bet with and what on?’ I said when she stopped being so forthcoming.
‘All the Hibs players bet on the games, their own as well as the other clubs’.’
That was interesting. Derick Smail must have known about that – and the bosses of the other EPL teams. No doubt that was why Alec Ferries had gone to ground. Fortunately Guardian Doris already had the others in the castle. I sent her a text to make sure they stayed there. Then I remembered Jack MacLean’s concern about the managers being questioned, as well as the senior guardian’s. Council scandal number 247 coming right up …
Heads or Hearts Page 11
