Impolitic Corpses

by Paul Johnston

I noticed how he referred to his boss.

  ‘We’ll need names,’ Davie said. ‘Any trade representatives in Edinburgh at the moment?’

  ‘Yes, there are Norwegians and Finns, I believe.’ The tall man looked distracted. ‘Oh, and some Nova Scotians.’

  We’d have to check them out, but I couldn’t see them being involved in the disappearance of the opposition leader – as his chief of staff said, Andrew Duart and the economy and energy ministers were also involved.

  ‘What about organized crime?’ I asked.

  Hamish Macdonald’s eyebrows almost reached his hairline. Which struck me as a dead giveaway. ‘What … what do you mean?’

  Davie could smell the man’s fear. ‘You understand English, don’t you?’ he yelled, avoiding the government advice to apply the term ‘Scots’ to the language. ‘Has your man been threatened?’ He grinned slackly. ‘Or has he been up to nae good at all?’

  ‘This is outrageous!’ Macdonald pulled himself up to his full height. He looked like a tartan giraffe.

  ‘I think we’ll continue this discussion at ScotPol headquarters,’ Davie said. The City Guard had been based in the castle, but the national force was in a purpose-built edifice opposite the former parliament building.

  ‘I’m calling my lawyer,’ said the tall man.

  ‘That’s your right,’ Davie said, ‘but it doesn’t make a good impression.’

  ‘I don’t give a turd,’ said Macdonald, which made me smile.

  But not for long.

  There was a kerfuffle at the kitchen door and Graham Arthur burst past the ScotPol officer Davie had posted.

  ‘Look what I’ve found!’ The SOCO had a beatific expression that was marred by a worrying smile. ‘This one’s for you, Mr Dalrymple!’ He extended a latex-covered hand.

  I felt my stomach gyrate like the high divers in the municipal swimming pool.

  Lying on Arthur’s palm was a human finger, the width suggesting it came from a male and the blood on the cut beneath the lower joint a dark crust of red.

  ‘It’s a forefinger,’ the SOCO said, confirming my suspicions.

  ‘From a right hand?’

  He nodded at me animatedly. ‘What do you think of that, then?’

  Much was running through my mind, but I kept the barrier of my teeth well and truly shut. That didn’t stop my heart thundering like a runaway train, nor the acid level of my stomach reaching critical.

  Hamish Macdonald, pale-faced, was led away by Davie, who gave me an inquisitive look that I ignored.

  ‘Where was it?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Graham Arthur’s delight was hard to take, but I played it as cool as I could as I followed him upstairs.

  ‘Care to estimate how long ago the finger was removed and with what?’ I said, hoping my voice was steady.

  ‘I don’t do estimates,’ the SOCO said caustically. ‘All I’d say is that the wound was inflicted between eighteen and twenty-four hours ago. As for the weapon – a device with two blades set close together. Possibly secateurs.’ He looked round. ‘Mrs Dalrymple will no doubt have an opinion.’

  ‘You mean Miss McIlvanney.’ Sophia had never taken my name. Women in Edinburgh generally didn’t.

  I put on bootees again outside the master bedroom and went to the four-poster. A drawer under the front part of the bed had been pulled out and its contents laid on a plastic sheet. Socks, mainly; a wank mag – I’d have to revise my take on Angus Macdonald’s sexual activities, although he was married; and, in a plastic evidence bag, what looked like a stainless-steel cigar tube that was wider than the digit.

  The SOCO held it up. ‘See the blood on the rim?’

  I nodded. ‘Strange place to hide it.’ I looked around the room. ‘No ashtrays.’

  ‘And no ash,’ said Arthur. ‘According to the valet, the Lord of the Isles gave up smoking when his heart condition was diagnosed.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’

  ‘Nary a one. The tube’s either been wiped clean or handled by someone wearing gloves.’

  I took another look at the finger, now in an evidence bag. The nail was bitten to the quick and there was what looked like the top of a tattoo above the cut. I’d seen Angus Macdonald’s hands several times.

  ‘Not his lordship’s,’ I said.

  ‘No. I doubt there’s enough of the tattoo to enable us to identify it, but we’ll have a go.’

  I decided to sweet-talk the SOCO – they always knew more than they volunteered.

  ‘So, from your experience, what do you think went on here?’

  Graham Arthur looked at me suspiciously. He knew what I was up to, but eventually couldn’t resist showing off his talents.

  ‘I’ve checked the chimney and looked behind all the walls. As you see, we’ve lifted the carpet and underlay. There’s no secret chamber or exit. Ditto the ceiling.’ He pointed to the smooth expanse of plaster above. ‘No way out. No place to hide.’

  I could have asked questions, but the SOCO was doing fine on his own.

  ‘The bars over the windows, front and rear, have been put in recently – the cement’s almost pristine. You should follow that up.’

  ‘We will,’ I said, with an encouraging smile.

  ‘Also, I’ve examined the door.’ He gave me a knowing look. ‘I take it you’re familiar with John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man?’

  ‘Was that on the reading list for forensics where you studied?’

  ‘Certainly not. The Clyde University is a highly rigorous institution.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ There was world-class vanity in Glasgow, not to mention Edinburgh. ‘So you read the ur-locked-room novel in your spare time.’

  ‘Indeed. Chapter Seventeen’s the one.’

  ‘The famous “Locked Room Lecture”. Any help in this case?’

  Arthur flashed his teeth. ‘Locked rooms usually contain a body. Of course, crime novels are far removed from reality, yours included.’

  ‘Right.’ So much for soft-soaping him.

  The SOCO moved to the entrance. ‘It didn’t help that it was smashed down.’

  ‘Suggesting that …?’

  ‘The key was turned in the lock and bent after the door was broken in.’

  ‘So his lordship may not have been there in the first place.’

  ‘Correct. In which case, at least one but more likely several members of the household must know. I take it you’ve restricted their movements.’

  ‘We did think of that. I’ll be talking to those I haven’t already questioned shortly.’ I cast my memory back to John Dickson Carr’s famous novel, which I’d reread earlier in the year. ‘No body most likely means no murder, no suicide, no weapon, no victim dead earlier or later than presumed, no illusion – except with the key and that’s hardly a good one – no stunning plot twists—’

  ‘But maybe an accident or a misunderstanding,’ said Arthur. In the novel, there were several of both.

  ‘Such as?’

  The SOCO smiled. ‘That’s your job, Mr Dalrymple. But would you like a piece of advice?’

  ‘As long as it’s free.’

  ‘Perhaps an acknowledgement when you write your version of the case.’ His teeth glinted in the high-powered lights that had been set up in the bedroom. ‘If I were you – which thank the Lord I’m not, sir – I’d concentrate on the severed finger. It, rather than the object in the door, is the key.’

  That was the last thing I wanted to hear, but I suspected he was right on the button.

  Downstairs, I called Davie. He’d got nothing useful out of the chief of staff. I asked him to have everyone who’d been in the house in the afternoon taken into custody. I was about to cadge a lift to ScotPol HQ when a black Volvo drew up on the other side of the police line. The kerbside rear window opened.

  ‘Get in, please, Quint.’

  I did as I was bid.

  ‘Evening, municipal leader.’

  The short figure to my right was sitting on a raised seat.

&nbs
p; ‘I’ve told you, call me Lachie.’

  ‘Lachie.’ I raised my eyebrows quizzically.

  ‘What am I doing here?’ MacFarlane nodded. ‘Andrew Duart told me to keep my distance and the demon Hyslop said I wasn’t to contaminate the crime scene.’ He smiled. ‘Naturally, I came straight down.’

  The driver was executing a three-point turn, the twenty-year-old car’s axles complaining. Lachie’s father had owned a similar model before the Enlightenment and he’d sourced this one from Sweden when trade boomed after reunification. In my experience, revolutionaries frequently had a sentimental streak.

  ‘I’m not sure it deserves to be called a crime scene,’ I said. ‘The Lord of the Isles is absent, but there’s no telling why. He might have arranged his own departure. That might be more likely than that he was abducted. In both cases, someone singular or plural in the house knows. We’ll squeeze that out of them.’

  I watched as Lachie took a cigar tube from his jacket pocket. It was smaller than the one Graham Arthur had found, and there was writing on the silver casing. The cigar turned out to be a cigarillo.

  ‘What?’ Edinburgh’s shortest citizen said, after he’d lit it.

  ‘Small cigar for a small—’

  His left hand grabbed my forearm and squeezed hard. ‘Discriminatory talk like that’s illegal now, Quint.’ He laughed and released his grip. ‘Smartarse. I don’t have many vices, but these I can’t give up.’

  I waved the smoke away ineffectually. ‘Are they made from randomly collected horseshit or do you have a city nag?’

  He ignored that. ‘Tell me about the finger.’

  My gut had another go at twisting and shaking.

  ‘Not much to say yet, except that it’s not his lordship’s.’

  Lachie stared at me. ‘Not much to say? What was it doing in Angus Macdonald’s bedroom? Who collects fingers?’

  He was very well informed. Probably one of the ScotPol officers on site was his spy, though he or she hadn’t picked everything up.

  ‘The said digit was severed quite recently. I doubt Macdonald even knew it was there.’

  The municipal leader took that in, his eyes on me. I realized what he was looking at. Shit.

  ‘It was a right index finger, was it not?’ he said. ‘Like the one you lost.’

  I paused to calm myself. Lachie was famous for not missing a trick, which was why he was running Edinburgh.

  ‘The one I lost a long time ago.’

  ‘A coincidence, then.’

  I kept my mouth shut, unconvinced that he meant what he’d said.

  ‘Can I give you a lift?’ he said, still watching me.

  I met his gaze. ‘Depends where you’re going. I should get to ScotPol HQ. We have a lot of questioning to do.’

  Lachie instructed the driver accordingly. ‘I’m glad you were brought in by Duart and Hyslop.’

  ‘Do I have you to thank for that?’

  He blew a smoke ring. ‘Andrew asked me. I told him he’d be insane not to make use of our renowned local expert.’

  I laughed. ‘And Hel went along with it?’

  ‘He didn’t give her a choice. Besides, you make it easy for them. If you screw up, they’re not responsible.’

  I looked out at the slushy pavements on Queen Street. ‘Great.’

  ‘What do you think’s going on? Has Angus lost his mind and gone walkabout, or is it something more sinister?’

  ‘That’s what the questioning’s about. Someone in the house knew he left. The business with the locked door was a distraction.’

  ‘Not a very good one.’

  ‘True. Even the lead SOCO spotted it.’

  ‘Why did the culprit bother?’

  ‘Delay, I suppose. It’s possible he’s been kidnapped – with the assistance of one or more people in the house – and they wanted to make sure they got far enough away before making contact. I suppose I’ll hear if there’s a ransom demand.’

  ‘Hyslop will tell you. She’s under orders from the presiding minister.’

  That didn’t warm my cockles. She’d done what she liked in the past, though usually in cahoots with Duart.

  ‘You aren’t aware of any suspicious deals the Lord of the Isles is doing, are you?’

  He stubbed out the cigarillo in a portable ashtray. ‘You know how it is. The oversight system means central government can’t keep the cities and regions completely out of the loop.’

  Scotland’s pre-reunification states had been run in numerous different ways – Glasgow as a democracy, Stirling a feminist collective, Dundee a bastion of anarcho-syndicalism, Inverness having reverted to the ancient tanist tradition and so on. That was one reason why Edinburgh had voted ‘yes’ in the referendum – we weren’t the only area with a curious form of government. Although there was now central administration, local government was up to local voters. The system had only been in operation for a couple of years and it wasn’t clear how successful it was on a national level. I’d heard that Andrew Duart wanted the Glasgow system to extend across the country, but there were plenty of problems with his home city’s politics.

  ‘You’ve heard something, then?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘You’re aware of the energy contracts that have been endorsed by the national government.’

  ‘The Scandinavian countries, northern Germany, some states in the south of France …’

  ‘Aye.’ The small man’s face was grim. ‘There’s a new one that Angus Macdonald’s been handling personally. He has contacts from before reunification.’

  ‘Where?’ I said, getting a bad feeling.

  ‘Think south, but nowhere near as far as France.’

  I stared at him wide-eyed. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘I’m not. In the last six months, neighbouring states have come together and they want our oil, gas, whisky, fish and so on.’

  ‘The English?’

  ‘The northern part. Nor-England, they call themselves.’

  I remembered the devastation I’d seen on the way to Oxford ten years back. Warring gang bosses, absence of government at any level, chaos, mayhem and slaughter. Glasgow had been Enlightenment Edinburgh’s bogeyman, but England wasn’t far short. My experience in Oxford did nothing but confirm that impression, even though there was a hyper-organized state there.

  ‘So what are you saying, Lachie? The English have got hold of Angus Macdonald? That’s not going to get them any trade deals.’

  ‘You’d think they’d have worked that out themselves. Maybe the Lord of the Isles – who, let’s face it, has an inflated opinion of his worth – has overstated how important he is.’

  ‘Duart won’t authorize a ransom. He’ll probably pay them to keep the old toff.’

  The man who ran Edinburgh smiled. ‘Probably not, but there’s a Nor-English delegation in the city as we speak.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry, they’re civilized enough. Only their bodyguards have weapons and they’ve surrendered them to my people.’

  I sat back in the Volvo, which was now approaching ScotPol’s concrete block. Behind it, the light from the watchtower on top of Arthur’s Seat shone out like a beacon. What kind of people had it lured to the city of my birth?

  ‘Not before time, Quint,’ said Davie, coming out of an interview room. He was in shirtsleeves and there were patches of sweat under his arms. Even though the building was new, it smelled of unwashed bodies, urine and excrement.

  ‘Any news?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Hamish Macdonald’s sticking to his story – he was in the house all afternoon but saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary until his lord and master failed to appear. I’m getting the same from the officers who are questioning the others.’

  ‘Someone’s lying.’ I took out my notebook and looked at the layout I’d sketched of the rooms on each floor.

  ‘Did you ascertain when the bars outside the bedroom windows were put in place?’

  ‘Aye. In September. The Lo
rd of the Isles told Hamish that he wanted to sleep safely.’

  ‘Interesting. Maybe he sleepwalks.’

  Davie raised an eyebrow. ‘I can ask.’

  ‘Later. The windows on the floors above and below don’t have bars. Get Graham Arthur’s people to check them for signs of ropes or other means of egress.’

  ‘You’re thinking he may have been got out without anyone noticing?’

  ‘Anyone except whoever was in on the plan. Have you talked to the valet yet?’

  ‘No. He’s next on my list.’

  ‘I’ll take him. Tell the officer with him that I need to be alone.’

  Davie registered shock. ‘You’ll be breaking ScotPol regulations.’ He grinned. ‘In fact, you’ll be breaking the law.’

  ‘I can live with that if you can.’

  He gave me a saucy wink. ‘I’ll have a go at the deputy chief of staff. I’ve been keeping him on ice. He looks decidedly shifty.’

  ‘By “on ice” I presume you mean you’ve turned the heating off in the room?’

  He guffawed. ‘Don’t tell Hel.’

  ‘I promise. Where’s the valet?’

  He directed me to a door at the end of the corridor. As I walked there, I heard raised voices from the interview rooms on either side; in one there was even a full-blown slap. When it came to the crunch, ScotPol wasn’t so different to the City Guard. That made me smile. I wasn’t really hankering after the bad old days, but it was good to know that regulations could be stretched to within a millimetre – the Council’s imperial measures no longer in force – of breaking point.

  FOUR

  There was a blue-and-white paper file in the slot on the door. I ran my eyes over the few pages it contained and then knocked to alert the officer before opening the door.

  ‘Mr Dalrymple,’ the middle-aged woman said, frowning.

  ‘You’ve heard from the detective leader?’

  She nodded, her expression troubled.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t lay a finger on him.’ I realized what I’d said too late.

  Thanks a lot, subconscious. The stump of my right index finger was already tingling.

  Still, my words had the desired effect. The valet had gone whiter than the Pentland Hills.

  ‘Douglas John Dinwoodie,’ I read, ‘born Oban, January twenty-eighth 1989. Parents bla bla bla. Worked as steward on inter-island ferries – that must have been fun when the pirates were around – entered service with the Lord of the Isles, June 2027, initially as footman. Promoted to valet, 2034.’ I looked up and smiled at him. ‘Enjoy the work?’