Unlike the Mist, who looked like she was crying.
‘That didn’t happen when Hume 481 went out, did it?’ I said.
She wiped her eyes. Maybe they were drops of water from the grass.
‘No,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Why was that, do you think?’
‘I couldn’t tell you, citizen,’ she said, turning her liquid eyes on me. ‘Honestly.’
I believed her.
‘Time to move out,’ Davie said.
‘I’ll lead, commander,’ said Adam 392, without hesitating.
I was impressed. Though I’d led more than my fair share of raids when I was in the Guard, I’d never enjoyed it. Or got used to it.
As it turned out, there were no more shots. We followed the guardswoman, backs bent at first, but upright soon enough. The trees by the surge of water were close. In front of them stood the bramble bushes that Hume 481 had plundered. There were only unripe fruit on them now.
We reached the trees and stopped to catch our breath. The Guard squad and Davie soon recovered, but Raeburn 124 and I needed longer. I was embarrassed, but not too much. I survived on citizen rations, not what the Guard got – even though the poor sods on the city line seemed to have been forgotten about. Or maybe the Mist was running a scam with the suppliers – recompense of some sort for her, shit food and drink for her people. I wouldn’t have put it past her.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of retching. Davie moved quickly forward to where Ferguson 569 had gone, about twenty yards to the front.
‘Quint,’ he called. ‘Get up here. The rest of you stay where you are.’
I could tell by the tone of his voice that there was something bad ahead, but curiosity got the better of me and I almost broke into a run. I soon wished I hadn’t.
There was a small clearing in the pines and the smell that hit my nostrils was much worse than the contents of the young guardsman’s stomach.
‘What the—?’
‘Fucking, bastarding, bleeding hell?’ Davie suggested.
‘Something like that.’ I walked forwards and took in the contents of the natural circle. There were two bodies, each of them without a head.
‘That’s … that’s Wilkie 455,’ the guardsman said, on his knees.
I checked the panel on the blood-soaked combat jacket. He was right.
‘I’d say the other is a male citizen,’ Davie said. He’d pulled on latex gloves and was going through the corpse’s pockets. ‘No ID, but the clothes and footwear are Supply Directorate finest.’
I agreed with him. No outsider would be seen alive or dead in the ill-fitting, faded and poorly stitched garb that covered the citizen’s body.
‘No defence wounds on either of them,’ Davie said in full forensic mode now. ‘Or rope abrasions. I’d say they were held down before a jagged blade was taken to their necks.’
I took a look. The wounds were ragged, even more than Hume 481’s had been. If a hacksaw had been used, it wasn’t the one carried by John Lecky. Besides, apart from the missing guardsman, the bodies were at least two days old, judging by the swelling and lack of rigor mortis. They had pine needles on them, but there were fewer on Wilkie 455. There were also marks on their necks and hands that suggested crows had been at them.
‘Plenty of footprints,’ said Davie, ‘but the ground’s been soaked since they were made.’
‘The last ones would be the guardsman’s,’ I said.
‘And his executioner’s.’
I nodded, then became aware that the Mist was standing behind me. This time she was definitely crying, but she wouldn’t speak. In her position I’d have held my tongue as well.
It was a bit of an operation to get the bodies back across the line. Guard squads from neighbouring posts were deployed on the higher ground in case of further attack, then 4×4s got as far up the slope as they could. The bodies were put in bags and carried down to the vehicles by Guard personnel.
Davie and Adam 392 helped, while I oversaw a forensics team at the clearing.
They found nothing obvious, suggesting that the killers – more than one had been involved if the victims were held down – had been careful. That smacked more of auxiliary activity than it did of outsiders’.
‘Why?’ said Raeburn 124, before she was taken off to the castle.
‘I was going to ask you that,’ I said.
She shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut. ‘I wish I knew. I would never have sent Wilkie 455 out if I’d known …’
I watched her walk slowly down the hill between a pair of guardsmen. Guardian Doris appeared in their wake.
‘Oh, great,’ I muttered.
‘What on earth?’ she said, visibly shocked.
I told her what we knew as Davie and Adam 392 took a squad up the hill to find the shooter he had taken out.
‘Where do you think the heads are?’ the guardian asked.
‘In the city,’ I replied. ‘Where else? I haven’t heard of a functioning group of headshrinkers, though you never know in Glasgow.’
She gave a sharp look. ‘Why do you say Glasgow?’
I shrugged. ‘It was the Council’s bugbear for decades. And is the source of most smugglers.’
‘Groups like the Dead Men.’
‘Has anything happened in the city?’
‘No. The missing heart hasn’t turned up and there have been no more bodies without the said organ. I’m afraid there’s been no sign of the men who attacked you last night. On the wider front, the governors of Orkney and Shetland are staying on to meet the Lord of the Isles.’
I pointed up the slope. ‘Let’s see what Hume 253’s got.’
Davie and three Guard personnel were carrying a corpse towards us, while Adam 392 was holding a rifle with a telescopic sight. The body was lowered to the ground in front of us. It was a young woman with long blonde hair. My stomach somersaulted. Could she have been the one who left the heart at Tynecastle?
‘Some shot, Davie,’ I said. There was a hole in the shooter’s throat and, as he turned the body on its side, a much larger and messier exit wound to the rear.
‘That’s why I practise at the range every week. Morning, guardian.’
‘Commander. So who is she?’
Davie was going through the dead woman’s pockets with gloved hands. He produced a packet of Glasgow Green cigarettes and a plastic lighter with a logo saying ‘Top City’; a soiled handkerchief – the Supply Directorate didn’t run to those, soiled or otherwise; a silver-plated semi-automatic pistol and two clips of ammunition, and two clips for the rifle, which looked new and highly sophisticated to my less than expert eye.
‘No identification,’ Davie said, ‘not that outsiders carry any.’ He undid the woman’s green-and-yellow camouflage jacket. ‘A bulletproof vest. She was unlucky.’ She was also not well endowed on the mammary front.
‘Look at these boots,’ I said. They were eighteen-hole lace-ups, the dark brown leather in good condition. I checked the soles. They were heavy tread, with a distinctive pattern. I wondered if we might find any prints in Tynecastle and mentioned that to Guardian Doris.
She dropped to a squat. ‘Made in Casablanca,’ she read. ‘Where’s that?’
I raised my eyes to the darkening sky. ‘Haven’t you seen the film?’
She gave me a blank look.
‘It was in Morocco, but it’s probably an independent city-state now.’ Billy Geddes would know that, which reminded me: I needed to have a serious talk with him about gambling in the EPL.
‘All right,’ said the guardian, standing up. ‘Leave her to the forensics team and the pathologists.’
‘Tall and Short are going to be busy,’ I observed, suddenly struck by the absence of Sophia. She’d made a bee-line for every other crime scene. Maybe she was sticking needles into those of her people who had the combination to the safe that had contained the truth drug.
‘She’s very pretty,’ Guardian Doris said.
I looked at the co
rpse’s freckled face. Her eyes were wide open, a pale shade of brown, and her open mouth displayed teeth that were in good condition.
‘She’d have been prettier alive,’ I said, taken aback by the guardian’s words. I couldn’t remember whether she was hetero or homo, but the observation seemed misplaced.
Davie stripped off his gloves. ‘I suppose you’d have preferred her to have gone on shooting at us.’
‘Of course not, but she’d have made a good interview subject.’
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t manage to wing her,’ said Davie, his chest swelling. ‘You know these people don’t talk anyway, Quint.’ He walked away, Adam 392 following him with the rifle.
‘Oops,’ I said.
‘Haven’t you learnt to keep your nose out of operational matters,’ the guardian said. ‘You can’t shoot to wound at that range.’
‘I bow to your superior experience,’ I said, giving her heavies the eye and heading down the slope.
As I got to the 4×4s I overheard Davie arranging a date with Adam 392 on her next leave.
It was early afternoon by the time we got back to the castle. The Mist was taken off for interrogation by Guardian Doris. Davie, looking pleased with himself, led me down to the command centre. There was nothing out of the ordinary to report, which was a relief. We still had a backlog to clear.
‘Where’s that auxiliary from the recreation guardian’s house?’ I opened my notebook. ‘Watt 529. I want to put the squeeze on him.’
‘I’ll get him up here.’ Davie made the call.
‘Next, have we got an ID for the heartless man in the Saly?’
He made another call, this one more protracted.
‘A drawing of his face as it would have been under normal conditions was circulated to all barracks this morning. No word back yet.’
‘Hm. Derick Smail and Fat Eric Colquhoun?’
‘“Have we got enough?”’
‘Exactly. I think we should put tails on them.’
‘I thought we’d been warned off EPL managers.’
I looked at him.
‘Right, I’ll put people I trust on them.’ This time he made several calls.
‘And now, a refuelling break.’
I had one late lunch, while Davie put away three.
My mobile rang as we were on the way to rip the crap out of the recreation guardian’s auxiliary.
‘Quint, it’s Doris. Those boots the dead shooter was wearing. We’ve found several prints at Tynecastle.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘At the rear entrance. There’s a small area that’s sheltered from the elements. She must have gone out there.’
‘How come the prints weren’t found before?’
‘I’m trying to get to the bottom of that. You can be sure someone will soon be cleaning tourist toilets. But it’s good news, isn’t it? We know who put the heart on the centre spot.’
‘So it seems,’ I said, suppressing my doubt about the dead woman’s lack of ‘lungs’. ‘See if forensics can get any blood stains from her clothing. We still don’t know who the donor was.’
‘I’d say the body was buried.’
‘Maybe. But don’t get too confident, Doris. She wasn’t working alone, you can be sure of that. And now there are two more heads that might appear anywhere any time in the city.’
There was a short silence. ‘Quite,’ she said, deflated. ‘Any other news?’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I replied.
‘Oh, I almost forgot. Your presence isn’t required at this evening’s Council meeting.’ She cut the connection.
I thought about that. She could pass on everything I’d told her, but was there a reason I was persona non grata? Was I getting too close to comfort to something under the senior guardian’s purview? Only he could have given Doris the order to exclude me.
‘He’s in there,’ Davie said, his thumb indicating a door down the corridor.
I led him in. Watt 529 was standing in the far corner, rubbing his hands together like Uriah Heep. He wasn’t at all happy to see us.
‘Why did you vacuum the floor in the recreation guardian’s room?’ I asked mildly.
‘I … I didn’t, citizen.’
‘You did.’
Davie stepped forward, his fist raised. ‘If you contradict him one more time, your nose is going to be flatter than a flounder.’
I managed not to laugh. Davie’s threats had become more imaginative. He was getting plenty of practice.
‘I … yes, it was me,’ the auxiliary said, slumping to the floor.
I motioned to Davie to keep his distance and went over.
‘William,’ I said, taking in the name panel.
‘Will,’ he sobbed.
‘Will. All you have to do is tell me what happened. I promise you’ll feel much better.’
The auxiliary let loose a torrent of tears. I gave him all the time he needed.
‘I … I loved Peter,’ he said, his head in his hands. ‘I loved him.’
I glanced at Davie.
‘Wasn’t the guardian hetero?’
‘Yes, he was … but he understood me. He accepted my … devotion.’
I thought about that and the bruises on Peter Stewart’s lower thighs.
‘You tried to save him, didn’t you, Will?’
He looked at me and then smiled sadly. ‘That’s … that’s right. I went in to see … if he needed anything … and I found him …’
Hanging.
‘So you tried to get him down?’
‘Yes … I stood on the chair and I lifted him as much as I could … I tried to unhook the rope … but … but it was too late. There was no … no pulse. So I … I gave up.’ He wept again.
I waited and then whispered, ‘He committed suicide, didn’t he, Will?’
‘He … he was so ashamed … he wouldn’t tell me … but I know it had something to do with the directorate …’
‘And you cleaned up – why?’
‘I … I wanted the place to be the way he would have liked it.’
‘You didn’t consider telling me what had happened when I arrived?’
The auxiliary tried to speak without success. I suspected he was still in shock.
‘Now, did you see any documents about the Edinburgh Premier League?’
‘Stupid football. Yes, lots, of course. It was the big thing.’
I caught his eye. ‘Anything that you should have reported?’ Auxiliaries are expected to be loyal to their guardians, but also to advise the Council of any misconduct.
He buried his face in his hands.
‘There was … there was gambling. Contacts to syndicates in other cities.’
That was an away win.
‘Such as?’
‘Glasgow, Inverness, Oban, Stornoway. Oh, and Orkney and Shetland. I can’t remember the names of the capitals.’
Neither could I, but no matter.
‘Who took the computer from his residence?’
‘I don’t know. Honestly. It was gone when I went in.’
‘Do you know where the guardian … Peter … might have hidden any documents or diskettes?’
He shook his head. ‘I looked in all the places I know. There’s nothing.’
‘Do you know who else was involved in the gambling?’
‘No, citizen. Peter … Peter didn’t trust me with that.’ He sobbed again.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll send in some tea. Well done, Will. You’ve been a great help.’
Davie turned to me when we were outside.
‘You believe that snivelling disgrace to his rank?’
I looked at him. ‘Yes, I do. So it was suicide and Peter Stewart was dirty – so dirty that he couldn’t live with himself. But someone else was pulling the strings and I know exactly who to ask about that.’
‘Billy demoted-piece-of-shit Geddes.’
‘Right in one. See if you can locate him.’
A couple of calls later, he turned back to me
. ‘He’s with the senior and finance guardians at a dinner for the Orkney and Shetland governors and the Lord of the Isles.’
‘I couldn’t eat another thing, but I know you can always find a space.’
He grinned.
‘Let’s go and gatecrash. Where are they?’
‘At the Walter Scott Rooms.’
I set off down the corridor. ‘Saddle up, Ivanhoe. It’s time you got your lance out.’
‘If I’m the knight, are you my second?’
‘If you’re the knight, I’m King Richard.’
He laughed. ‘Right you are, Dick.’
NINETEEN
The Walter Scott Rooms – no Sir for the old novelist in Enlightenment Edinburgh – were in a neo-classical former bank at the east end of George Street. I remembered going there occasionally with my parents. The large glass-domed lobby where the tellers used to work had been turned into a trendy bar and restaurant before the last election. The building survived the drugs wars and is now used by the Council to impress its most honoured guests. When there weren’t any of those around – which was usually the case until recently – the wealthiest tourists were encouraged to empty their wallets in the ornate building.
I held my authorization up as we approached the guards at the door, though they were more impressed by Davie’s glower. I glanced at the bar on the left, but it was closed. The dulcet tones of the Recreation Directorate’s string quartet came from the restaurant ahead. There were enough flowers and ferns to make you think you’d wandered into a magic garden. But there was a snake in the grass.
‘What are you doing here?’ said the deputy guardian of the Supply Directorate, getting up from a table in front of the circular bar. Other senior auxiliaries gave me hostile looks.
‘Uncle Joe,’ I said, giving him a big grin. ‘How are your personnel problems?’
That made his complexion more florid. I took his arm and led him back towards the entrance hall.
‘I’ve got a couple of questions for you,’ I said, nodding to Davie. He took up position half an inch behind Adam 159.
The auxiliary gulped but didn’t dare make a fuss.
‘What do you know about a former church on the Pleasance?’
Uncle Joe held my gaze with difficulty. ‘Nothing, citizen,’ he said, apparently surprised by the question.
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