The Blood Tree

by Paul Johnston

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  The Quint Dalrymple Mystery Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Quint Dalrymple Mystery Series

  BODY POLITIC

  THE BONE YARD

  WATER OF DEATH

  THE BLOOD TREE

  THE HOUSE OF DUST

  THE BLOOD TREE

  A Quint Dalrymple Mystery

  Paul Johnston

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain in 2000

  by Hodder and Stoughton, A Division of Hodder Headline PLC

  338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH,

  eBook edition first published in 2011 by Severn Select an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2000 by Paul Johnston.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0046-4 (epub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  Double toil and double trouble in the independent city-state of Edinburgh.

  Here, summer’s been known as the Big Heat since global warming got into its stride. Temperatures in 2026 had been the highest yet. We were still undergoing trial by sunstroke in early October, when autumn crept in like an assassin one night and amputated most of the leaves from the city’s trees. They fell to the pavements in their millions and were doused in a heavy dew. The infirmary quickly filled up with people who’d broken their legs. It definitely wasn’t the best of times.

  Our leaders in the Council of City Guardians tried to cope. Citizens were drafted into squads to clear the leaves and to distribute Supply Directorate provisions to the housebound. But, like everything else the guardians have been doing recently, those were only holding operations. The tourist income from the year-round festival has taken a major hit, so the Council doesn’t have the resources to keep Edinburgh’s problems at bay like it used to.

  In the last few months it’s become clear what the root of those problems is: the city’s disaffected youth. In the early years of the Enlightenment, the Council had things easy. People were so sick of anarchy and crime that they were prepared to accept the regime’s tight grip. Not any more. These days, gangs of kids – some of them as young as seven – rampage through the suburbs; they’ve even been known to infiltrate the central tourist zone and terrorise the city’s honoured guests. Most young people don’t buy the Council’s Platonic ideals and rigid regulations. They just want to be free.

  I know how they feel – I’ve never been too keen on authority myself. But things are beginning to get beyond a joke. In late September some kids took on a City Guard unit and sent them back to barracks to think again. The Council, always quick to locate responsibility elsewhere, put the upsurge in civil disobedience down to the influence of democrats from Glasgow – there’s been a big increase in breaches of the land and sea borders. The guardians may be right, but I’d be more inclined to blame the disciplinarian culture that they’ve instilled. Eventually people aren’t going to take it any more.

  That’s not all the Council’s been up against. The birth-rate has dropped like a cannonball in the last couple of years. Ordinary citizens are justifiably concerned about bringing kids into a city that’s no longer safe. Rumours started circulating that people were being bribed to reproduce. I wasn’t convinced. I mean, in this city of rationing and restrictions, there’s nothing much to bribe people with. What kind of offer are you going to make them? Get pregnant and get two eggs a week instead of one?

  All of which was making me pretty jumpy as I stood on the castle walls and looked out over the darkening city. Soon it would be Hallowe’en, not that the Council allowed any celebration of the old feastday. A crow was perched in the branches of a tall tree in the gardens below, its harsh cry suggesting it had eaten something seriously stomach-churning. Away to the west the clouds were massing and there was a crash of thunder that rose in volume as it headed our way. Then, as the sun died, a gash of red split the sky above the hills. The rain came down and I asked myself the big question – what if the Council lost its grip?

  The answers I came up with made me feel worse than the carrion bird. There was an old bluesman called Willie Brown who used to sing about the “Future Blues”. Recently I hadn’t been able to get that lyric out of my mind.

  Chapter One

  “It’s going to be a rough night, Quint.”

  “Some like it rough, Davie.” I turned to the bulky figure by my side. He was pulling a waterproof cape over his grey City Guard uniform. My black donkey jacket was already sodden and my close-clipped hair wasn’t exactly giving my head a lot of protection. I took a last look at the apocalyptic western sky. “Let’s get off the ramparts.”

  “Good idea.” He headed away, his heavy boots ringing on the flagstones. “What are you up to now?”

  “Going to see my old man.”

  “Aw, come on, it’s Tuesday. I thought we could down a few pints.”

  I normally visit my father on Sundays but I’d been tying up a grass-smuggling case last weekend. “Down a few pints? That’s not how senior auxiliaries are meant to spend their evenings.” Davie had been promoted to chief watch commander a couple of months back.

  He glanced back at me, his bearded face set hard. “Up yours, pal. Senior auxiliaries can do what they like when they’re off duty.” He grinned. “And I’m off duty till tomorrow night. So how about that bevy?”

  We walked out on to the esplanade and made a dash for the nearest guard vehicle.

  “Fair enough,” I said, pulling open the battered door of the pre-Enlightenment Land-Rover. “You drive me down to Trinity and we’ll get them in afterwards.”

  Davie was nodding in resignation. “I might be a hot article in the guard, but as far as you’re concerned I’m still your bloody chauffeur, eh, Quint?” He turned the key and listened to the grinding noise that came from the starter motor.

  “So what are you waiting for, guardsman?” I said. “Drive.”

  He drove.

  The rain squall had let off a bit by the time we turned down Ramsay Lane. A few bedraggled tourists were wandering around in the middle of the road, peering up at the castle through the murk. Davie made no
effort to slow down and reduce the spray from the tyres.

  “Stupid buggers,” he grunted. “They should be in their hotel bars, buying the city’s whisky.”

  “I thought auxiliaries were being told to make a special effort to impress the tourists.” The big foreign companies have given up waiting for the Council to upgrade facilities. They say that other cities in what used to be Scotland, Glasgow in particular, have become more stable and more attractive to tourists.

  Davie braked as we approached the smoke-blackened Gothic façade of the Assembly Hall – it was the home of the ill-fated Scottish Parliament around the millennium, as well as the original Council chamber. “Christ,” he said, “the dead have risen.”

  I looked to the right and felt a frisson of shock. For a moment I thought a trio of skeletons had gathered at the building’s entrance – the ghosts of political corruption past, perhaps. Then I realised they were workers in jackets with luminous lines across them that were glinting under the street-lights. Their faces were covered by protective masks, giving them snouts that made them look like pigs standing to attention.

  “At least they’re wearing all the right gear.” Davie cut his speed right back and hung his head out the window. “Working overtime, lads?” he called.

  “That’s right,” the nearest labourer said, raising his forearm to shield his eyes from our lights. His voice was muffled by the dust-mask. “Problem wi’ the mains electric cable.” He moved back towards a red pick-up with an open cargo space.

  Davie nodded and drove on to the Mound.

  “They’re in luck, aren’t they?” I said. In a classic piece of Council lunacy, the guardians introduced overtime payments for the evening and night shifts last spring in order to keep citizens happy – then banned all overtime a few weeks later to cut costs. Only emergency work is exempted from that ban.

  “They’ll just spend their extra vouchers on booze,” Davie said.

  “And you wouldn’t, my friend?”

  “Auxiliaries are different,” he said piously. “We receive no payment whatsoever for our work.”

  “Apart from free barracks beer and whisky.”

  Davie flashed me a sour smile. “Which you, before you were demoted from auxiliary rank, never used to touch, of course. Anyway, we need something to look forward to at the end of a long day putting the boot into the city’s lowlife. We’ve a lot more of that to do these days.”

  I nodded, watching the crowds as we cut across Princes Street. Some of the tourists were taking refuge from the rain under the maroon and white striped awnings outside the cafés and shops, while others were queuing for the early shows at the sex clubs. The marijuana club on Hanover Street that the Tourism Directorate in its wisdom named The Grass Kilt was doing good business. Tourists are welcome to buy soft drugs in Enlightenment Edinburgh, but the locals aren’t even allowed tobacco products – which makes for a thriving black market and plenty of smuggling.

  There was a blinding flash of lightning and the statue ahead of us in the middle of George Street seemed to come to life. When I was a kid it had been a sleepy-looking prince, but he was torn down during the riots before the last election in 2003. The Council replaced it with a likeness of a female auxiliary with knees half-bent and arms raised in the officially approved stance for unarmed combat. Fortunately she didn’t come through the windscreen to get us.

  We passed through the guard checkpoint in Dundas Street, the auxiliaries on duty straightening rapidly to attention when they saw Davie, and entered the citizen area. The few people braving the rain were dressed in ill-fitting, not very waterproof clothes, their backs bent against the wind and their heads bowed to ensure they didn’t trip over the uneven paving-stones in the poorly lit streets. This was the reality of Enlightenment Edinburgh for its inhabitants – the tourist zone was only where they worked as waiters and cleaners. They’d got so used to the untouchables wearing expensive jewellery and well-cut clothes that even envy had been completely burned away, leaving nothing but empty looks and dead souls.

  Davie drove down towards the junction with Inverleith Row. In pre-Enlightenment times there had been an insurance company’s huge state-of-the-art computer centre on the bank of the Water of Leith. The Council, violently opposed to data processing equipment for security reasons, especially any that ordinary citizens could get their hands on, has turned it into an indoor running track and gymnasium – for auxiliary use only.

  Suddenly the sound of sirens came up behind us and flashing red lights filled the rear windscreen.

  “Shit!” Davie said, swerving towards the kerb to let a pair of guard vehicles past.

  “What do you reckon they’re up to?” I asked. “A spot of gang-busting?”

  “Let’s find out.” He grabbed the phone from the left of the dashboard and called the command centre in the castle. “Hume 253 here. Location Brandon Street. Where are the two Land-Rovers headed?” He listened for a few seconds. “Right. They should be able to handle that. Let me know if there’s any problem. Out.”

  “What is it?”

  “Some kids broke into a Supply Directorate store in Granton. The guys that passed us are giving back-up to the Scott Barracks patrol that called the incident in. There are only eight of the little shitebags, apparently.”

  “I hope they’re not carrying pick-axe handles with six-inch nails through them like the headbangers you caught in Leith last week.”

  “They’d better not be,” Davie said grimly. “My people will give as good as they get.”

  “I won’t tell the Council.”

  Davie laughed. “You think they don’t know?” He moved off. “Isn’t Katharine expecting you tonight?” he asked as we passed the old rugby stadium in Goldenacre that obscures the breeze-block mass of Scott Barracks.

  I shrugged and tried to look indifferent. “Who knows?”

  Davie glanced at me. “Has she been sticking her claws into you again, Quint?” He’d never been a fan of my on-off lover Katharine Kirkwood.

  “We did have a slight contretemps a couple of days ago,” I said, turning my eyes away from him. I was pretty sure he’d be delighted by that piece of news. “She’s been working nights for the last month.” Although she’d helped out in several of my biggest cases and could have worked full-time with me if she’d wanted, Katharine took a job in the Welfare Directorate six months ago. She had her own ideas about how she wanted to spend her time and recently they didn’t seem to include me. I wasn’t sure how to handle that so I buried myself in work, whisky and the blues. That hadn’t gone down too well with her.

  Davie sensed my mood. He kept quiet until we pulled up outside the former merchant’s villa in Trinity that housed my father’s retirement home. “I’ll wait for you in the vehicle,” he said.

  “No, come up. It’s freezing out here.” I nudged him in the ribs. “Anyway, you know Hector. He’ll want the latest gossip from the Public Order Directorate.”

  “Silly old sod,” Davie said with a smile. “Do you think being terminally curious is a consequence of old age?”

  “Not in the old man’s case,” I replied, shoving the Land-Rover door open. “We Dalrymples are genetically pre-conditioned to be curious.”

  “True enough,” Davie said, joining me on the slippery pavement. “You’re certainly the nosiest guy I’ve ever known.”

  “What are you after?” I asked. “You know I can resist anything except flattery.”

  “And barracks malt.”

  We entered the retirement home.

  Simpson 46, the resident nursing auxiliary – a thin-faced woman of indeterminate but substantial vintage – was half-way across the hall. She turned and gave me a disapproving look. “I presume you’re visiting your father, Citizen Dalrymple.” Her voice was reedy and hesitant, as if she was still working on suppressing one of the local accents that the Council proscribed years ago. “Kindly don’t stay long. He’s been short of energy recently.”

  I stepped up to her. “Is there anythin
g wrong?”

  She shook her head dismissively. “Your father is over eighty, citizen. Spells of listlessness are to be expected.”

  I headed up the stairs at speed. There were a lot of adjectives that could be attached to my old man but listless wasn’t one of them. By the time I reached the third floor, the breath was catching in my throat. I pushed open the door to my father’s room without knocking.

  There was a shape wrapped in a blanket sitting motionless in the chair by the window.

  “Hector?” My father had insisted that I address him by his first name for as long as I could remember. “Are you okay, Hector?”

  A cough came from the shrouded figure. “Is that you, failure? I thought I saw you come out of that Land-Rover.” The voice may have been wheezy but the tone was firm enough. “Where the hell did you get to on Sunday?”

  I smiled. “Did you miss me, old man? How touching.”

  My father coughed again, this time more deeply. “No, I didn’t miss you, Quintilian.” He was the only person who called me by my full name, thank God. “I was hard at work translating a particularly scabrous piece by Catullus.” He sniffed. “You could have left a message.”

  It was unlike him to feel sorry for himself. I went closer and looked down at him. The skin on his face was wan and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked.

  “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “That idiotic woman says I need to get out of the house more. She thinks I’m—”

  “Listless. So I heard. Too many dirty Latin poems, that’s your trouble.” Since he resigned from the Council in 2013, the old man had returned to his first love, the classics. He spent most of his time buried in old tomes.

  “Don’t be flippant, laddie. There are plenty of parallels between late Republican Rome and this city in 2026.” He gave a long sigh. “More’s the pity.” He looked past me. “Is that you, Davie?”

  “It is,” the big man said. “How are you doing, Hector?”