Body Politic

by Paul Johnston

  She hadn’t concealed anything. I should have been pleased, but her apparent frankness disturbed me. Maybe three years on the prison island, connected to the mainland by a causeway submerged at high tide, was enough to make anyone talkative. One of the few outbursts of resentment against the Council led to the facility being renovated two years ago. Conditions had been even worse than those in UK prisons before the breakdown of central government.

  “Must have been tough.”

  “I read a lot of books,” Katharine said impassively. “The Council chose them, of course.”

  “And when you were released, they gave you no choice of work?”

  “I would have done anything.” She shivered violently. “It was so fucking cold on that island. I still have it in me.” She curled herself up into a tight ball. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel warm again.”

  “How was Adam affected by what you went through?”

  “It didn’t turn him into a murderer, if that’s what you’re thinking. It just made him give up the idea of becoming an auxiliary.”

  I had to be sure about one thing. My mother’s words about motive were ringing in my head. “How do you feel about what they did to Alex Irvine?”

  I realised as soon as I said it that I’d cocked up badly. She hadn’t mentioned the dissident’s name.

  Katharine’s whole body went rigid. “You bastard.” She stood up and looked down at me like I was something that had crawled out from between the floorboards. “You knew all this already, didn’t you? You’ve been giving yourself a hard-on listening to me cough it all up.”

  Fortunately she’d forgotten about the knife. There was no need for her to answer my question. It was obvious what she felt about the people who’d killed her lover. But that didn’t mean she was capable of murder, and there wasn’t much point in asking her that. I felt my fingers trembling. From self-disgust more than anything else.

  “Get out!” she shouted, striding towards the toilet.

  I wasn’t too shaken to miss the sight of her body, naked from ankle to throat, as her dressing-gown parted. Her pubic hair was a thick brown mass and her breasts firm and hard-nippled.

  “Out!” she repeated, catching the direction of my gaze but too incensed to bother covering herself.

  I left red-faced, like a schoolboy caught spying on matron. As I was halfway down the stairs, the lights went out.

  Davie was talking to a guardswoman in the Land-Rover. He had moved the file so she could sit on the passenger seat. There was no way of telling if he’d read about Katharine. For some reason that disturbed me.

  Chapter Ten

  I was in the Bearskin, strange wailing music from the jazz band rising and falling like someone was playing with the volume control. The bagpiper was on duty this time. While the crowd was cheering, I looked at Billy Geddes and then at the woman he acknowledged: Patsy Cameron from Prostitution Services. She didn’t flinch as she stared back at me. Her eyes were the cold fire of a star that burned up a long time ago.

  The slam of a Land-Rover door in the street below woke me up. Boots that sounded like auxiliary issue number tens came up the stair. I parted the curtains and was greeted by the first grey tinges of an Edinburgh dawn. The fog had lifted.

  I opened the door. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

  Davie’s face and uniform were blackened, his beret shoved back on his head.

  “Fire!” he gasped hoarsely. “Fire in the Independence. Didn’t you hear the sirens?” He grabbed the jug of drinking water and gulped down its contents. “Every fire engine in the city was called out.”

  “In the Independence Hotel?” I thought of Katharine and wondered if she’d been working overnight. “What about casualties?”

  “Amazingly few. Every auxiliary in the central barracks was mobilised.” He grinned ruefully. “Including me. We got the guests out pretty quickly.”

  “What about the staff?”

  He looked puzzled for a moment. “Most of them got out themselves. Oh, you mean the Kirkwood woman.” He gave a shrug. “I didn’t see her.”

  I stood in the middle of the room, my legs tingling in the chill. Had the murderer suddenly turned arsonist?

  “The blaze started somewhere near the kitchens,” Davie said, raising his head from the kitchen sink where he was dousing himself. “I heard the hotel manager telling the fire chief that there have been some problems with the electrics recently. By the time I got there – about half four – it had spread all over the building. It’s still burning at the south end but they’ve got it under control in the other parts. Christ, you should see the place. It looks like the photographs of Sarajevo they showed us in modern history classes.”

  I went to dress. “You’ll need to get me down there.”

  “Why?” Davie followed me into the bedroom. “I thought you were expecting someone to be murdered last night.”

  I sat down and pulled on my boots. “You should have called me, Davie. A major fire on the night we were expecting our friend to strike again doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “Find out where the public order guardian is, will you?”

  Davie picked up my mobile and asked the castle for Hamilton’s location. “He’s at the hotel.”

  “Amazing.” I picked up my jacket and went towards the door. “Don’t tell me he’s had the same thought as me. The case isn’t that weird. Yet.”

  The great mass of the Independence stretches a hundred and fifty yards up Lothian Road at right angles to Princes Street. Before the Enlightenment, when it was called the Caledonian, its façade was brownish red. Since we started using coal again in the city, it’s gone sooty grey. Now it was marked by great smudges of black around windows shattered by the heat. Glass covered the road in a glittering carpet and smoke was billowing from the hotel’s southern end. The guard had erected roadblocks. Beyond them fire engines, dwarfed by the giant building, were spraying thousands of gallons of Edinburgh’s precious water on the flames that flickered round the window-frames.

  “I see what you mean,” I said as Davie pulled up at the barricade below Stevenson Hall. “This is a disaster area.”

  We walked down on the opposite side of the road from the blaze. Bad move. Even there the heat was enough to make the air blister your throat. We had to push our way through a crowd of exhausted firemen and women.

  As we got nearer to Princes Street the temperature began to come down. That end of the hotel was less damaged. A group of auxiliaries had gathered around Hamilton and Yellowlees. They stood on the horse-drawn carriage rank outside the main entrance like a gaggle of schoolkids on an excursion, scribbling notes on their clipboards.

  “Bureaucracy even when Rome burns,” I said.

  Davie smiled. “Especially when Rome burns, we were taught.”

  Hamilton caught sight of me and exchanged glances with the medical guardian. Then he strode over. “What are you doing here, Dalrymple?”

  “What a relief. I was wrong about his mind working like mine,” I said under my breath. “Morning, guardian. What’s the story?”

  “The story,” he said, eyes boring into mine, “is that this has nothing to do with you. Why don’t you go back to ferreting around in the archives? This is a job for professionals.”

  Yellowlees walked up. He looked less hostile.

  “Let’s be civilised about this, gentlemen.” I moved them further away from their subordinates. “I don’t want to have to start flashing my authorisation around, but if that’s the way you want it . . .”

  “What’s your interest here, exactly?” the medical guardian asked.

  “Hasn’t it occurred to either of you that there may be a connection between this fire and the killer we’re looking for?”

  “Come on,” Hamilton scoffed. “This was an accident – a pretty horrendous one, I grant you, but these things happen.”

  “Hold on,” Yellowlees said, putting his hand on his colleague’s arm to shut hi
m up. He suddenly looked seriously worried. “You think the fire might have been started deliberately?”

  “Given what the murderer’s done so far, you have to admit the possibility.”

  “Rubbish.” Hamilton made to turn away. “I’ve got more important things to do than listen to conspiracy theories.”

  “Wait,” Yellowlees said imperiously. “This could be important.” He looked at me. “What do you want from my directorate?”

  “Full casualty lists, current locations of all the injured, plus a list of any injuries which might not be a result of the fire.” I turned to Hamilton. “Are you in on this?”

  He bit his lip, then nodded.

  “Thank you. I need to know how and why the fire started, whether any suspicious activities were witnessed. I also want full lists of all residents and staff, as well as where they are now.”

  “Is that all?” the public order guardian demanded sarcastically.

  “No. I need the barracks numbers of all auxiliaries involved in fighting the fire and in the rescue operation.”

  “There are hundreds of them, man.” Hamilton’s eyes opened wide as the coin dropped. “Why do you want this information? Are you still obsessed by the idea that the killer’s an auxiliary?” He jabbed his finger into my chest. “If you’re wrong, I’ll have your hide.”

  I faced him, then glanced at Yellowlees. “And if I’m right?” I asked quietly.

  “I’ve found her,” said Davie, lowering the mobile from his mouth. “She’s in the infirmary.”

  I’d asked him to locate Katharine while I went through the papers that auxiliaries were bringing in continuously. “What happened to her?”

  “They said a piece of burning wood fell on her arm. It’s not serious. She’s been given a sedative.”

  So she had been on the night shift. “Thanks, Davie. Come and give me a hand here.”

  We were in the Public Order Directorate’s mobile operations unit, a broken-down caravan which had been parked outside the hotel entrance. Beyond the guard cordon, crowds of tourists stood watching what was going on, gazing up at the clouds of smoke that were gradually being reduced. I was surprised the Tourism Directorate hadn’t started selling tickets.

  “What are we doing exactly?” Davie asked, peering at the piles of paper I’d made on a fold-down table.

  “Looking for a needle in a very large haystack.”

  “But we’ve got nothing to go on,” he said with a groan. “And not to put too fine a point on it, I’m fucking knackered.”

  I was at the window, straining forward. “Don’t worry. I think my hunch just paid off.”

  We watched as a firewoman staggered out of the hotel and fell to her knees in front of the caravan. She leaned forward on to her hands, the breathing apparatus dangling from her abdomen like exoskeletal entrails. Even under the layer of grime, her face had the pallor of a corpse. Before anyone could reach her, she vomited copiously on the tarmac.

  “What the . . .” Davie yelled as I pushed past him and jumped out.

  “Let me through!” I shouted as auxiliaries crowded round. I reached the firewoman and knelt down beside her. “What is it? Take a deep breath and tell me.” I rubbed the muck from her barracks number, aware for a second of a soft breast. “Come on, Cullen 212, it’s a matter of life and death.”

  She managed to control her breathing. “Death, citizen,” she said with a gasp. “Definitely a matter of death.” She started to laugh, then sobbed. “Man in a linen store on the third floor at this end of the hotel. The fire had nothing to do with what happened to him.”

  “Can you show me?” I took her arm and pulled her up.

  Cullen 212 nodded slowly. “I’ll take you to the corridor, but I’m not going in that cupboard again.” She was staring at me, her face taut with horror.

  “Jesus, Quint,” said Davie as we followed her inside. “Some bloody hunch.”

  A guardswoman passed us in the hall. Her face was blackened and her tunic torn, but I recognised her immediately. It was Mary, Queen of Scots.

  There was a strong smell of smoke in the passage on the third floor but we didn’t need the breathing gear we’d been handed on the way up. Open doors to guests’ rooms revealed the panic caused by the fire – covers thrown back from beds, drawers and wardrobes with clothes hanging from them. A trail of paper led from one room into the corridor, typed pages that some desperate resident had tried to save. Another room had heaps of expensive clothing on the floor, as if the owner had tried to decide what to take with her. What struck me most of all was the eerie silence in this part of the building. The sounds of the firefighting at the other end were muted, almost inaudible, like the creaking from the hullplates of a stricken ship that scarcely got through to the first-class smoking room. Our heavy boots sank into the thick pile of the carpet.

  Cullen 212 stopped abruptly at a corner. “It’s down there, at the far end on the left.” She pointed ahead, her arm shaking.

  “Right.” I felt a dull ache in my stomach. “Let’s go, Davie.”

  The two of us went on, sticking close together. My breathing was rapid and it rasped in my throat. Davie seemed unperturbed though a nerve twitched on his cheek.

  “Okay, let’s take this slowly,” I said as we reached the door. “We’ve both seen worse.”

  “Speak for yourself. The worst I normally see is drunken tourists in Rose Street.”

  “That bad?” I put my fingers on the handle of the storeroom door. It was the only one closed in the whole corridor. I took a deep breath and opened it, then reached for the light switch. Nothing. We both shone our torches in.

  In the flashes reflected from the piles of sheets and pillowcases, the small room took on the appearance of the sacred inner chamber of an ancient temple – one belonging to a civilisation that performed human sacrifice. The naked victim was in a seated position, his legs and arms wide and his head flung back on a stack of linen. There was a lot of blood on the right side of his face and, as I looked more closely, I made out the scored line left by a ligature on his neck.

  I fumbled in my pockets for rubber gloves, pulled them on and examined the man’s face.

  “The right eye’s been removed,” I said. “There’s extensive laceration. Christ, I think the bastard used his fingers.” I lowered the torch and studied the throat, straddling the body. “Strangulation by ligature.” I looked over my shoulder at Davie. He was leaning against the doorframe, his eyes bulging. Then I heard the faintest of croaking sounds and pressed my ear against the man’s bare chest.

  “Jesus, I don’t believe it. He’s still alive. Get on the mobile, Davie.” I felt for a pulse. It was feeble and irregular, but it was definitely there. I piled blankets over the man and stepped back, running the torch around the closet. Apart from a pair of silk pyjamas and the slippers near the victim’s feet, there was nothing.

  I heard a stampede in the corridor. A team of medics barged in and took charge. I ran into Hamilton as I came out.

  “Why wasn’t I informed of this?” he demanded, peering into the storeroom. “Oh my God.”

  “It’s our man all right,” I said. “Same strangulation method, an organ removed. I think he ran out of time.”

  The victim was brought out and laid on a stretcher. Before they strapped him down, I took hold of his left wrist.

  “Take a look at this.”

  The public order guardian bent over, then quickly looked up, his face ashen. “He’s a foreigner.”

  “Exactly.” The mutilated man was wearing a Swiss watch that not even Billy Geddes would risk being seen with. He had also cultivated a long nail on his little finger.

  The public order guardian looked like a condemned man who’d just seen the scaffold come into view. “A tourist,” he mumbled. “This is getting beyond a joke.”

  His understatement might have made me laugh if the implication hadn’t grated – the situation only became critical when foreigners were killed. I could see how his mind was working. In the
years since independence, the security of tourists has become one of the Council’s priorities. There had never been any incident affecting the volume of visitors to Edinburgh. As the guardian responsible for crime prevention, Hamilton was in an ocean of shit.

  “We need to identify him as soon as possible,” he said, still in a partial trance.

  I nodded. “Shouldn’t be difficult. Obviously there’s no ID on him, but the staff will recognise him.” I saw the guardian’s mouth open. “Don’t worry. I know the Council will have to decide on whether to go public on this. I’ll make sure I only talk to auxiliaries at this stage. They’ll keep their mouths shut, won’t they?”

  Hamilton walked off without replying.

  Davie shook his head. “You never give up, do you, Quint?”

  I caught his eye for a second. “No, my friend, I don’t.”

  As it turned out, there was no need to involve anyone else in the identification. After I left Davie in charge of the forensics team in the linen store, I found the intended victim’s passport in the third room I checked down the passage. It was tricky recognising a face with one eye missing and blood over half of it, but the thick, curly black hair and dimpled chin helped.

  “In here, Davie,” I shouted. I took the passport out of the drawer of the dressing table. “Andreas Roussos,” I read. “Born 11.12.80, Athens.” I’d seen Greek tourists with long nails on their little fingers before. You don’t have to be a detective to know why they grow them.

  “How long’s he been in the city?” Davie asked.

  The maroon stamp with the heart motif showed 4.1.2020.

  “He can’t have been an ordinary tourist,” I said. “See if you can find out whether he was a guide. There’ll be a file in reception if the fire didn’t get to it.”

  Davie nodded and left the room. I closed and locked the door after him. Searching rooms is hard enough without interruptions.

  Andreas Roussos had a dressing-gown that a Byzantine emperor would have been proud of – purple and gold with a double-headed eagle motif. There was a diamond-studded bracelet on the bedside table too. It looked like he was a major player in some very lucrative business. I smelled something rotten under the eau-de-cologne.