Body Politic

by Paul Johnston

  The wardrobe was full of Parisian suits and shirts, as well as Italian shoes. What have you been up to in our fair city, Mr Roussos? I wondered as I lifted up the mattress. Nothing. The chest of drawers was equally devoid of interest, unless you happened to be a connoisseur of G-strings and thongs. I crawled around the edges of the thick carpet – no expense being spared by the Supply Directorate when it comes to the city’s hotels – but I found no gap between the closely positioned tacks. Then I squatted down in the middle of the room and let my mind go blank. I often get inspiration doing that. Andreas Roussos appeared before me in one of his well-cut suits, admiring himself as he knotted one of the garish ties from the wardrobe.

  Got you. I jumped up. It had to be the mirror. I lifted the gilt-framed glass down from the wall. The back was plastered with tape. I ripped it off and discovered four brown envelopes. From three of them came wads of brightly coloured banknotes. They were US dollars and Greek drachmae, all of high denominations, including plenty of fifty thousands. That left one envelope. It was larger and had a stiff insert. Photographs. I pulled them out. And found masturbators’ paradise. Dozens of pictures of naked bodies, male and female, from all angles. I spread them around me on the floor and sat in the middle of an island of black and white flesh.

  There were two unusual things about the photos, both contesting the idea that Roussos was a purveyor of dirty postcards. They all had what looked like serial numbers stencilled on them – AT231, HF76 and the like. And although the major features of every torso appeared in close detail, not a single one of the photos showed a face or head. The people these were intended for were obviously only interested in serious sexual activity, without the distraction of a pretty face.

  “What can you tell us then?” Hamilton’s voice was almost back to normal. Maybe he was relieved he’d escaped another post-mortem.

  The medical guardian finished rinsing his hands at the sink recessed into his office wall and turned to us. His face was sallow and he looked unusually nervous.

  “The man was lucky. His assailant thought he’d held the ligature tight long enough to strangle him. Not only did the Greek survive, but it looks like he’s escaped brain damage too.” Yellowlees shook his head. “His right eye socket’s a hell of a mess though. The butcher dug his fingers in and pulled the eye out with his fingers, would you believe? Then he slashed around to sever the ocular muscles.” He glanced at me. “With a suitably sharp blade. I can’t tell you anything more about it this time.”

  “When will I be able to question him?” I asked.

  “Not till tomorrow at the earliest. He’s heavily sedated.”

  “Was there any penetration of the anus?”

  Yellowlees shook his head.

  I turned to Hamilton. “You’ll remember the ENT Man never showed any interest in eyes.”

  “Doesn’t prove anything. He’s our man. And don’t tell me the fact that there was no sodomy here is significant. He was interrupted by the fire alarm.”

  I let him stay in his own little world.

  Hamilton glanced at his colleague, then at me. He looked like a little boy about to try and talk his parents into letting him stay in their bedroom on a Saturday night so he can improve his education. “Em, how exactly are we going to frame our reports to the Council?”

  I wasn’t going to play this game. “How about telling them what we know?”

  The two guardians stared at me like I was an impossibly naive trainee auxiliary.

  “It may not be quite as simple as that,” Yellowlees said. “This thing is getting out of control, citizen.” He smoothed back his silver hair. “We need to – how shall I put it? – protect our interests.”

  “You mean cover your arses?” I said. Even as much of a drop-out from the system as me knows that there are internal politics under the calm surface of the Council. But I couldn’t see why Yellowlees was worried. Hamilton was another story, but I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over him.

  “Don’t push your luck, Dalrymple,” said my ex-chief. “You haven’t exactly covered yourself in glory either. What pearls of wisdom are you going to give them?”

  I shrugged. “The Greek’s been in residence at the Indie for eleven weeks. According to the business card I found in his wallet, he’s an insurance consultant.”

  “He’s been earning some hefty commissions,” grunted Hamilton.

  “In cash, too,” I said. “We’ve started checking on who he’s been meeting and what he’s been doing. I’m also looking to see if the serial numbers on any of the banknotes are close to those we found in the sewer outside Baillie’s place.” I didn’t say anything about the photos. It wasn’t just that I was worried about the guardians suffering a collective heart attack at the sight of so much naked flesh. I wanted to do some research of my own first.

  Yellowlees came up to me. “My God, Dalrymple, you’ve got to do something about this lunatic. Who knows who his next victim will be?”

  I’d never seen the medical guardian so emotional.

  He realised we were staring at him. “Sorry. Not enough sleep recently.”

  “Come on.” Hamilton moved towards the door. “We’ll be late.”

  “You haven’t told us what you’re going to report.” I said. “Are you going to ask for another news blackout?”

  He looked at me icily. “I’m going to tell the Council that the city is in grave danger and that we need to declare a state of emergency.”

  “You’re joking.” I groaned, knowing the likelihood of the old jackass being deliberately humorous. “How can we investigate with citizens confined to their homes except for the hours of work? The City Guard marching around carrying firearms is hardly going to make people co-operate, is it?”

  Hamilton had already left the room. As I followed him, I almost collided with the nurse who’d attended the post-mortems, Simpson 134 of the staggering chest. She didn’t even notice me. Her expression softened when she saw Yellowlees, but she still looked like a woman who’s just spent Hallowe’en in a particularly lively cemetery.

  The Council meeting went on for hours. The Greek consulate had been informed about the attack on Andreas Roussos and had insisted that it be kept confidential. That made Hamilton very happy. Edinburgh locals probably wouldn’t have been interested; they were engrossed by the fire and the death toll from it, which rose to eight during the evening. There were over a hundred detained in the infirmary.

  I got off lightly since my prediction about the killer working to a pattern had been right. Hamilton was given a hard time by the speaker because of his failure to advise me about the fire. He was then told to report to the senior guardian later on. I tried not to laugh. That wasn’t the end of his troubles. The Council threw out his demand for a state of emergency because of its potentially catastrophic effect on the city’s finances from cancelled bookings. Holidaymakers like armed auxiliaries in the military tattoo, not on every street corner.

  After the meeting Davie drove me to the infirmary. He looked so worn out that I sent him back to his barracks, telling him I’d walk home.

  I found Katharine in a ward full of casualties from the fire. She was asleep. For a few moments I studied her features in the glow from the bedside lamp. The deep auburn of her hair contrasted starkly with the pallor of her face, which had a softness that I hadn’t been aware of when she was awake. Suddenly she seemed to sense my presence and her eyes opened. They weren’t as hostile as I’d expected.

  “I wanted to see you,” she murmured.

  I smiled. “Good.” I sat down carefully on the bed. “I wanted to see you too.”

  She looked at me then shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.” She lifted her unbandaged arm and motioned to the jug on the bedside table. “Thirsty.”

  I filled a glass and held it to her lips, feeling the warmth of the skin around her mouth.

  “Thank you,” she said. “What happened at the Indie?” She spoke so softly that I had to lean close to hear.

 
; “There was a fire. Don’t you remember?”

  She shook her head violently and winced. “Of course I remember the fire. I mean, what happened on the third floor? I was on duty there.”

  “What?” I slid my arm behind her back and helped her into a sitting position. “Did you see something?”

  “Not enough to help you very much.” She looked into my eyes. “There was another murder, wasn’t there?”

  I shook my head. “Not quite. The bastard tried his best.”

  She shivered and twitched her hands. “No, it wasn’t a—” She broke off and turned away, stifling a sob.

  I put my hand on hers. “Calm down, Katharine. Just tell me what you saw.”

  She took a deep breath and started to speak slowly. “It was a few minutes before the alarm went off. I was at the end of the corridor near the stairs. Down the other end I saw a dark-haired guest in his pyjamas. He went into the linen store.” She shook again briefly. “With a woman.”

  “With a woman?” I had difficulty getting the words out. “What did she look like? Come on, think.”

  Katharine pulled her hand away, blinking in pain with the movement of her injured arm. “I only got a glimpse. Then the bell rang and people started coming out of their rooms. I got caught up in them.” She paused. “There was an old man in the middle of the crowd, you know. They almost pushed him down the stairs . . .” She began to sob, then gradually controlled her breathing.

  “The woman, Katharine,” I said, squeezing her hand again. “What did the woman look like?”

  She sat motionless, her eyes fixed on the wall opposite. “She was tall, wearing high heels, quite well built. Her hair was very blonde. I didn’t see her face.” She stopped abruptly, her mouth staying open. “My God, Quint. I don’t think it was a woman. It looked more like a transvestite. There are always some on duty in the hotel.”

  I sat back, my head spinning. Hamilton and Yellowlees reckoned things were getting out of control but they didn’t know the half of it. I needed to get my mojo working. Fast.

  Chapter Eleven

  I WALKED AWAY from the infirmary into the night. The breeze still carried the smell of smoke, though the fire at the hotel had been out for hours. I tried to make sense of what was going on. In the afternoon I had checked Adam Kirkwood’s flat and found it exactly as it had been. Was he the transvestite his sister had seen? I had no evidence, but I had bugger all evidence for anything. That’s why I was reduced to following up marginal leads.

  A car braked and stopped just in front of me on Lauriston Place. It was Billy Geddes’s Toyota.

  “Get in, Quint.”

  “What are you doing around here?” I got in without any show of enthusiasm. “No sex clubs in this part of the city.”

  Billy accelerated away. “Looking for you.” His hands gripped the steering wheel hard.

  “Oh aye.” I was instantly curious. “Need to get something off your chest, maybe?”

  “You don’t make things easy, do you?” He shook his head. “Fucking smartass. As it happens, I have got something to tell you.”

  “Come home for a nightcap. I’ve got some unusually good whisky.”

  “Wonder where you came by that. Spare me your pit. I’ll take you to my place.”

  “Great, Billy.” At least it would be interesting to find out if his years in the Finance Directorate had left him with any understanding of what telling the truth entails.

  I wasn’t much the wiser after my first hour in Heriot Row. Billy had led me up the ornate Georgian staircase to his apartment on the first floor. From the high windows I looked out over the lights in the street below. The voices of a group of auxiliaries jogging on the all-weather track in the gardens beyond floated up in the still night air. Well, it wasn’t that still. From the gaming tents in Charlotte Square came the pounding of music, interspersed by the raucous yells of the winners.

  Although even senior auxiliaries are supposedly issued with the same furniture as us ordinary citizens, their residences in the streets near Council members’ accommodation aren’t checked by Supply Directorate inspectors. I recalled the Latin question my father came up with all the time in the early years of the Enlightenment: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” It didn’t look like anyone was keeping an eye on the next generation of guardians.

  “Look at this.” Billy nudged me and took me over to the polished Regency table that stood in the centre of his large sitting room. “It’s a first edition of Hume’s Treatise.”

  “Bloody hell.” I ran my hands over the stiff pages of the old book carefully. “Where did you get it?”

  Billy raised a finger to his nose. “Contacts, Quint. That’s what it’s all about.” He went over to the drinks cabinet by the Adam fireplace and raised a decanter. “This is from Jura.”

  I was seriously tempted to taste the whisky. Brands like it had disappeared from the city when relations with the unstable states in the north and west were cut after independence. The whisky available to ordinary citizens was a low-quality blend from the few distilleries around Edinburgh. Only the tourist shops stocked the few expensive brands that remained in the bonded warehouses.

  “No, thanks.” I didn’t fancy being bribed. “I suppose you got that from one of your contacts.”

  Billy smiled and shrugged. “That’s the way things work.”

  “Is it fuck.” I poked him in the chest with my left forefinger. “That’s exactly the kind of thieving the Enlightenment was formed to fight. Remember all those corrupt bastards in London?”

  “Grow up, Quint. Things are different now.”

  “Bollocks. You’re the one who’s different. You used to go on about how people in power had to be above suspicion.”

  Billy drew back his thin lips. “I am above suspicion,” he said quietly. “Let me teach you about the reality of life in Edinburgh.” He gave me a bitter smile. “Unlike you, I’ve actually applied myself to working for the city ever since the Council was set up.”

  That’s the problem with old friends – they know how to get to you. What Billy said was true enough. I’d dropped out, failed to honour the commitment I made to the Enlightenment when I was eighteen. Maybe I didn’t have a right to criticise those who’d remained in harness.

  Billy was standing in front of the carved fireplace. His voice was calm and self-assured, which pissed me off even more.

  “Even if I were to come under suspicion, no one would investigate me very carefully.” He glanced over to me. I’d taken refuge in a Charles Rennie Mackintosh chair that was even more uncomfortable than it looked. “I’m worth more to the city than just about anyone else in it. Without me, Edinburgh would be full of citizens rioting for bread, and the Council knows it.”

  “Come off it, Billy,” I said wearily. “Nobody’s that important. The structure of guardians and auxiliaries is supposed to ensure that individuals can’t become indispensable.”

  He choked on his whisky and almost spilled the contents of his glass over his immaculate grey suit. “Fucking hell, Quint,” he gasped. “You of all people should know what a pile of crap that is. Why did you become an outsider? Because you rate your precious ego higher than anything else.”

  I glared at him. “We’re talking about you, not me. What makes you so important?”

  Billy opened his hands like a magician producing doves from a handkerchief. “I make the deals that keep this city solvent. Like I said, it’s all a question of contacts. Personal contacts. I’ve got them in the countries we trade with, in the companies we buy from, in the embassies we work with, in the foreign police forces we send auxiliaries to train, even in the neighbouring states we technically don’t recognise.” He grinned. “The finance guardian signs the contracts, but I negotiate them. I make the decisions.”

  I believed him. So far. Although Billy had always been a smooth operator, he never bothered boasting about it. I only had to look at the opulent room to be convinced. That’s why he’d brought me here.

  “What exa
ctly was the nature of your relations with Andreas Roussos, Billy?” I asked quietly.

  He looked up from his glass and smiled. “Sharp, Quint, very sharp. Not much gets past you.”

  Flattery from Billy was the last thing I’d set my heart on. “Just about everything this psycho’s done has got past me so far. Answer the question.”

  “I’m going to. That’s why I had the infirmary advise me as soon as you left.” He pulled open a drawer. “Want a cigar? I’ve got some Havanas here . . .”

  “Answer the fucking question.”

  He stopped fumbling with the illegal box. “All right. You would have found witnesses in the hotel who saw me with the Greek, so I thought I’d get in first. There’s nothing much to it. He represents an insurance company which looks after its clients’ welfare while they’re on holiday in the city.” He ran the tips of his fingers across his forehead. “Your murderer – I assume it’s the same guy?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Your murderer picked a good one to attack. We’ll probably lose a lot of customers.”

  I stood up and walked over to him. “Is that it?”

  Billy shrugged. “What more do you want?”

  It was time for the third degree. “I’ll tell you what more I want,” I yelled, holding up the fingers of my left hand and counting them off. “One, why did Roussos have a stash of what I’m sure will turn out to be undeclared foreign currency hidden in his room?” I didn’t mention the photos. I had a feeling Billy knew something about them, but I didn’t want to show my hand. “Two, why did my murderer, as you call him, try to kill this particular foreigner? Three, why have you been chasing after me ever since the first killing? That’ll do for a start.”

  “You mean there’s more?” he asked with a wan smile.

  “Bloody right there is.” I moved right up to him. “What kind of an investment have you got in the Bearskin?”

  It didn’t work. He wasn’t scared of me. Even if I’d thrown him around the room a bit, he’d still have kept quiet. After all, he reckoned he was the Council’s favourite son. At least I’d let him know I was on his trail. Wherever that might lead.