The Blood Tree

by Paul Johnston

  “We’re still waiting for the full test results. I don’t expect anything radically different to what we know already.”

  I failed to suppress a laugh.

  “What’s so funny, Quint?”

  “I’m just trying to remember when I last heard a member of the Council use the word ‘radically’ about anything.”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake,” Sophia said, sighing. “What about you? Are you any further on?”

  “A bit.”

  “Well? What have you found out?”

  “You’ll have to wait for the next Council meeting to find that out. Out.”

  Katharine sat down opposite me. “Who was that?”

  “No one you’re interested in.” I picked up my notebook and looked at what I’d scrawled on the top page.

  “It was her, wasn’t it?” Katharine said, keeping her eyes off Davie as he sat down next to her. “The frigid one in the infirmary.”

  I gave her a cautionary look. “She told me that Hector’s condition is improving. That’s all that matters to me at the moment, okay?”

  Her face slackened. “Sorry.”

  “Forget it.” I took out the dead man’s file photo. It wasn’t a recent one. A younger Knox 43 stared out at us, his expression a combination of exhaustion and resentment. “What have you got on the deceased, guardsman?”

  Davie was shaking his head. “Nothing much. He seems to have been seriously lacking in any kind of drive from the day he applied to become an auxiliary. One of the guys who went through the training programme with him told me he reckoned Knox 43 joined because he didn’t fancy life as an ordinary citizen.”

  “He wasn’t the only person who did that,” Katharine said.

  “No, but the selection panels usually spotted that type from several miles’ distance,” I said. “What else, Davie?”

  Before he could answer, my mobile went off again.

  “Dalrymple? Public order guardian.” Hamilton still hadn’t got used to the Council’s ruling that guardians can use their names instead of their titles.

  “Yes, Lewis.”

  “Get yourself over to the Council building. I’ve decided to call an emergency meeting.”

  “What brought this on?” I asked suspiciously. Council meetings take place every day at twelve noon but Hamilton, in his capacity as acting senior guardian, had the power to call additional gatherings.

  “Well, some of my colleagues are disturbed by the murder of an auxiliary . . .” His voice trailed away.

  I wasn’t buying it. “Since when did you care what your colleagues think, Lewis? Have you got something up your guardian-issue shirtsleeve?”

  “Just get over there, man. At the double.”

  “All right.” I glanced at my companions. “But Davie and Katharine will have to attend. They haven’t had time to brief me yet.”

  “Very well,” Hamilton conceded after a pause. “Out.”

  The rain was coming down in sheets when we emerged from Knox Barracks. By the time we got to the Land-Rover our clothes were soaked through.

  “Bloody hell,” Davie said, starting the engine and turning on the lights. “I can hardly see the road.”

  “Didn’t you want me to drive?” I asked.

  “No way,” Davie said, shaking his head.

  “Why not?” I asked innocently. The Council’s ban on private cars meant that I hadn’t had much opportunity to drive over the last twenty years. Davie had experienced my skills in the past, though I was on my own the time a barracks vehicle I was driving ended up in Leith docks. Nothing to do with me – the brakes were faulty.

  Davie pulled away from Knox.

  “Don’t you want me to tell you what I found out about the dead man?” Katharine asked.

  “Aye. You didn’t hear everything I got either,” Davie said, manoeuvring expertly between a tourist bus and a maroon bollard.

  “No point,” I said, shrugging. “You’ll have to repeat it all for the guardians.”

  Katharine glanced at me. “Have you discovered something juicy, Quint?”

  “Wait and see,” I said, trying to draw my thoughts together. Council meetings are tricky – some things you can tell them, others you definitely want to keep to yourself.

  “It’s years since I’ve been to a meeting,” Katharine mused. “The last one was when they offered me a job.”

  “Which you, being a totally loyal citizen, turned down,” Davie said, peering through the curtain of water that was cascading past the ineffective windscreen wipers.

  “That didn’t get me off working with you though, did it, Hume 253?” Katharine said bitterly.

  “I can drop you at the next corner, Citizen Kirkwood,” he replied.

  I grinned. Their double act would liven up the Council meeting, as well as give me the chance to concentrate on how the guardians reacted to the murder. Some of my biggest cases turned out to have links with the city’s rulers.

  The Council meets in an upturned boat. Given the amount of water that was falling from the heavens, I could hardly make out the home of the former Scottish Parliament, but the architectural metaphor was obvious enough – what we had here was the Edinburgh version of Noah’s Ark, housing the survivors of the pre-Enlightenment political system. I hoped it wasn’t about to be turned upright by another massive crime wave.

  The courtyard was jammed with guardian vehicles. They weren’t in much better nick than the City Guard’s contraptions, and certainly in much worse nick than the taxis provided for the tourists. Davie got as close to the entrance as he could and we made a dash for it. Another cold shower.

  “Go straight into the chamber,” a helpful male auxiliary said. “The guardians are all present.”

  I led the others through the ornate doorway. The Council meeting place was still decked out in its original munificent trappings. The Parliament buildings had been funded by a Westminster government desperate to give the impression that it was handing over the reins of power. Then the riots came. Only this building of the cluster making up the seat of government was left in reasonable shape. The original fittings were beginning to suffer from a serious lack of maintenance.

  Three chairs had been put out in the middle of the wooden floor. As we occupied them, the fifteen guardians looked down on us from their seats in the large chamber. Hamilton was in the centre of a dais in what had originally been the presiding officer’s throne. The computers and sophisticated communications systems that each member of the Parliament had been provided with had been removed long ago. But they weren’t all that was missing. Now I realised at least one reason for Hamilton’s sudden desire for an emergency meeting. The ordinary citizens who, in the drive for openness a few years ago were allowed to act as observers and even provide a daily honorary guardian, were nowhere to be seen. The old bugger was using the provision in the City Regulations which denies citizens access to unscheduled gatherings.

  The public order guardian frowned at me and my companions then got the proceedings under way. “You will be aware of the reason for this emergency meeting, colleagues. Citizen Dalrymple and his fellow investigators—” He broke off and gave Katharine a sceptical look after he’d spoken the last word. “Citizen Dalrymple’s team are investigating the murder of an auxiliary in the Botanic Gardens last night.”

  The guardians’ faces bore the horrified expressions they reserved for violent attacks on the city’s servants. As far as they were concerned, people who lay a finger on auxiliaries should be put up against a wall, as many were during the drugs wars. Things had been a lot quieter on that front; until recently, when the youth gangs started to carry knives and clubs.

  Hamilton glanced around his colleagues. “This was a particularly brutal killing, as the medical guardian will shortly describe.”

  Sophia was sitting with her hands supporting her back, which made her midriff protrude even more than usual. Her face pale, she nodded impassively.

  “We will then hear from Citizen Dalrymple and his team,” t
he public order guardian continued.

  I sat up with a start. What was the guardian playing at? Something was going to happen before Sophia and the rest of us were allowed to speak. I didn’t have to wait long to find out what that something was.

  “First I have to tell you about a piece of evidence that is potentially of great significance.” Hamilton paused to make sure that all eyes were on him. “Scene-of-crime personnel from my directorate scoured the area where the body was found with their usual diligence.”

  Trust Lewis to get in a plug for his people and, by extension, for himself. I looked to my left and caught Katharine’s brief sardonic smile.

  The public order guardian held up a clear plastic bag with a couple of small, light brown objects at the bottom. “These are cigarette butts.” He smiled triumphantly. Smoking had been banned for all Edinburgh inhabitants by the original Council so cigarettes inevitably suggested external involvement in the murder.

  “What is the place of origin?” the tourism guardian asked nervously. He was a skinny specimen well known for his single-minded devotion to the interests of the city’s visitors.

  “Don’t worry,” Hamilton replied, “your precious tourists aren’t implicated.” He gave his colleague a look that made clear his dislike of the year-round festival and the people it attracted.

  I was wondering what he meant. I got it just before he explained. Shit. Now I knew why the extra meeting had been called. This case was beginning to get out of hand.

  “My people found a match to the tobacco and filters very quickly in their files,” the public order guardian said, gazing straight at me. “These cigarettes came from the source of most of Edinburgh’s present troubles.” He paused to increase the tension. “These cigarettes were made in Glasgow.”

  Chapter Seven

  There was a brief lull, then the Council chamber turned into pandemonium. Eventually Hamilton restored order by pulling out his City Guard whistle and blowing a long, uninterrupted blast. Not bad given the age of his lungs – and of his whistle.

  “That will do, colleagues,” he declared. “We need to consider all aspects of the case calmly and analytically.” He looked round the guardians and brought them into line with the power of his gaze. They were all considerably younger than he was and I’m pretty sure he compared them unfavourably with the members of the original Council – the first guardians had a lot more to worry about than a couple of Glaswegian coffin nails.

  Those of us involved in the case were called upon to report. Sophia ran through what she’d already told me, passing round photos of the dead man which made some of her colleagues blanch. The time of death was still estimated at between twelve and one a.m. Knox 43 had no other injuries or illnesses, though his general physical condition prior to death was described as “average to poor”. He apparently had some signs of malnutrition – he hadn’t been visiting the Knox mess hall as often as regulations prescribe.

  “Citizen Dalrymple?” Hamilton said, nodding at me to proceed.

  “Citizen Kirkwood and Hume 253 will bring you up to date with their lines of enquiry first,” I said, playing for time. I wanted to hear what the others had discovered so I could get my own story straight.

  “Thanks a lot,” Katharine said under her breath. “Guardians.” She pronounced the word like it was a witch’s curse. “I can advise that Knox 43 – whose name, by the way, was Donald McBain . . .” She broke off and looked round at the Council members’ faces. Although guardians’ names had been made public, auxiliaries were still supposed to be known only by barracks numbers – something about them being anonymous servants of the city.

  “Get on with it,” Hamilton barked.

  Katharine smiled. She’d made her point. “Right. Knox 43 was a bit of a loner. The Close Colleagues List in his file has only two names on it. I’ve spoken to the two auxiliaries concerned and neither of them was actually very close to him at all.” She looked at her notes. “Knox 73 played chess with him once a week but never talked to him about anything in depth – he identified the body. And Knox 100 said she’d tried to get him to open up about himself after a sex session and failed completely. She couldn’t understand why Knox 43 had put her on his list.”

  The welfare guardian, an earnest-looking young man with glasses who’d only recently been appointed to the Council, leaned forward. “You mentioned sex sessions, citizen,” he said in a reedy voice. “I gather the dead auxiliary was hetero?”

  “Correct,” Katharine replied.

  “And did he fulfil his sexual obligations?” The welfare guardian’s voice had a prurient tone which I didn’t like much.

  Neither did Katharine. “If by that you mean, did he attend the weekly session as required, the answer is yes.” She gave him a steely look that made it clear she thought auxiliaries shouldn’t have their sex lives controlled, especially now that ordinary citizens have been let off sex sessions. “If you mean, did he show much enthusiasm for copulation with a different partner every week, the answer’s no. Surprise, surprise.”

  The welfare guardian looked at her curiously. I wondered if he knew that Katharine worked in his directorate – and that she was once in the Prostitution Services Department.

  “That’ll do, citizen,” Hamilton said. “We don’t need criticism of Council policy from the likes of you.” If Katharine was bothered by that turn of phrase, she didn’t show it. “Kindly sum up your findings.”

  She shrugged. “From what I can gather, Knox 43 was a profoundly withdrawn and unhappy man, particularly over the last year. But I’ve found nothing to explain why he ended up dead in the Botanics.”

  Davie got to his feet. “I’ve come across some irregularities that might help, guardians,” he said.

  That made me sit up straighter. I turned to a blank page in my notebook.

  Davie went on. “Knox 43’s reports from the time of his auxiliary training to last autumn were never better than satisfactory. But this year they’ve shown a marked decline from that less than impressive level. He picked up several minor non-compliance charges for turning up late for appraisals, refusing to attend physical exercise classes and the like.” He looked up to make sure everyone was paying attention. “But there’s more. In the last month he was reported three times for unauthorised absence from barracks.”

  The guardians exchanged confused glances. As far as they were concerned, it wasn’t in auxiliaries’ natures to break regulations – certainly not to go missing from base.

  “Any idea where he went during those absences?” I asked.

  Davie nodded. “I checked the guard command centre log. There’s no cross-reference to the first date he disappeared, but I’ve turned up references to the second and third.” He paused, foolishly expecting a pat on the back.

  “And?” Hamilton demanded. “Come on, commander, get a move on.”

  “Yes, guardian.” Davie’s cheeks above his beard reddened. “On 7 October he was apprehended in a field on City Farm Number 7. And on 11 October a guard vehicle picked him up in Davidson’s Mains.”

  “City Farm Number 7?” Hamilton asked. “That’s in Barnton, isn’t it?”

  Davie nodded. “Yes, guardian. It used to be the Bruntsfield Links golf-course.”

  “The second time he was caught, he could have been on his way back from the farm,” I put in. I was trying to visualise the farm’s location. It was in the city’s north-western corner, about a mile from the fortified line and not much more than half a mile from the Firth of Forth.

  “Exactly,” Davie said. “I’ve spoken to the farm manager. He didn’t know anything about Knox 43 or what he might have been doing out there. It’s all arable land and they’ve been busy with the ploughing and sowing. There hasn’t been any surveying or maintenance work done there for a couple of years so the dead man had no professional reason to be on site. He’s checking with his staff but he’s not optimistic any of them will have a clue either.”

  “What about the farm workers?” The labour guardian
had finally summoned up the nerve to involve himself in the discussion of his former staff member. His bald head was glistening with sweat and his bulky body was slumped over his desk.

  “You won’t get anything out of them except a pair of fingers,” I said. Citizens are drafted on to the farms for a month at a time and they don’t like it. They’d rather choke than open up to an investigator. “You didn’t know Knox 43 personally, did you?”

  The labour guardian shook his head and looked downwards. The dead man had been in the directorate for years and its chief hadn’t even noticed him. I wasn’t sure whether that said more about Knox 43’s invisibility or the guardian’s management skills.

  Sophia raised her hand. “Aren’t we in danger of making too much of this?” she asked. “Perhaps the dead man was just going for walks. Perhaps he just needed to get away from the barracks.” She might have been right but I wasn’t convinced.

  “Anything else, commander?” Hamilton asked Davie.

  “No, guardian,” he replied, sitting down. He looked unimpressed that his discovery of Knox 43’s absences was being sidelined.

  My turn. I filled the guardians in about the scene of the crime and the few traces we’d found there. I also told them about the witness and her report of the supposed bogeyman. That didn’t go down well.

  “What’s the child care supervisor talking about?” the welfare guardian demanded. “She’s been reading too many fairy-tales to the inmates.” Auxiliaries are trained to be rationalists, their imaginations kept strictly under control.

  I raised my shoulders in a shrug. “She saw someone, that’s the main point.”

  Katharine’s directorate chief let out a high-pitched laugh. “So is the whole of the City Guard looking for a tall, ghostly figure in a cloak wearing a monster mask?”

  Out of the mouths of babes and guardians. Of course. The bastard was in a mask. That explained the unnatural pallor and the stitching. I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of knowing he’d beaten me to that.