The Blood Tree

by Paul Johnston

  “No, he’s not,” I said, feeling the need to defend my former friend. “Despite the pounding he took, his mind’s as sharp as ever.”

  It was only as we were walking out of the infirmary that a couple of things struck me about Billy’s sudden appearance. The first was that he hadn’t answered my question about what he was doing in the hospital. There hadn’t been any nursing auxiliaries in attendance and he looked no worse than he had the last time I saw him. And the second was that he’d headed down the passageway that led to Sophia’s quarters. Bloody hell. Surely he couldn’t have something to do with the genetic engineering group. Hamilton had told me that the finance guardian was in charge of funding the research. But that didn’t rule out the possibility that Billy’s talents and his contacts outside the city were being used. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d come across Billy’s traces during an investigation.

  Then my mobile buzzed and Davie came gave me some news that blew all thoughts of Billy Geddes away faster than the first north-westerly of winter.

  “So what?” Katharine said as we climbed into the guard vehicle. “Kids go from time to time day in this city whatever the Council might like to pretend.”

  “Not from the Lauriston Facility, they don’t.” I ground the starter motor into action and pulled away. “It’s got an eight-foot fence round it.”

  “There’s something else, isn’t there, Quint?” she said suspiciously. “Something connected with the murder.”

  I screwed my eyes up, trying to make out citizens on bicycles without rear lights in the mist. “You’re right,” I said, nodding. “There’s a witness who saw someone familiar.” I gave her a quick glance. “A tall, fearsome guy wearing a long cloak.”

  The Lauriston Adolescent Care Facility, to give it its full title, isn’t your standard Welfare Directorate cross between a crèche and a prison, despite the fence. It’s a home for the city’s next generation of smartarses. They’re the contemporary equivalent of the nobility who built the sixteenth-century Lauriston Castle – in twenty-first-century Edinburgh we have intellectual aristocrats rather than chinless gits with ridiculous accents. The facility stands in a large expanse of gardens overlooking the Firth of Forth to the far north-west of the central zone. Not that we could see the water. Visibility wasn’t much more than twenty yards and the drizzle was in the process of becoming heavy rain. Perfect weather for a kidnap.

  There was a guard presence in addition to the normal barracks sentry at the gate. We showed ID.

  “Ah, Citizen Dalrymple,” the grizzled guardsman said. “Hume 253 said you were on your way.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s waiting for you at the facility entrance.” The guardsman drew himself up. “The public order guardian is here too.”

  “Great,” I said under my breath as I engaged first gear. “It didn’t take the old vulture long to get stuck in.”

  The driveway curved to the left through woods and cultivated ground. No doubt having stratospheric IQs didn’t get the inmates off potato digging and kale gathering.

  “Why’s there so much security?” Katharine asked. “Not that it’s done much good.”

  “You know how highly the Council rates intelligence. The city’s young geniuses have to be nurtured and protected. We wouldn’t want them squandering their abilities on dissident activity or crime, would we?”

  “But I thought the Council set up an equitable system that took into account the talents and needs of all citizens,” she said, quoting the Enlightenment’s manifesto.

  “It did. But the guardians need some citizens’ talents more than others’.”

  Stationary guard vehicles, including Hamilton’s Jeep, loomed out of the murk. Behind them rose the turreted tower of the castle, which put the nineteenth-century extensions and Council-inspired outhouses to shame. It looked like something out of a Gothic romance – one in which the villain flits in and out of sight like a hungry ghost. I could see pupils in classrooms turning their heads surreptitiously towards Katharine and me.

  “Hello, Quint,” Davie said from beneath the hood of his rain-jacket. He didn’t favour Katharine with a greeting. “The guardian’s in the supervisor’s office. He wants a word before we check out the grounds.”

  I got out and ran to the ornate porch, splashing through pot-holes and soaking my trousers. A guardswoman pointed at a door to the right.

  “Dalrymple,” the guardian said curtly. He looked past me at Katharine. “Citizen Kirkwood.”

  Katharine was as surprised as I was that he’d greeted her.

  “Lewis.” I deliberately used his first name. That shocked the female supervisor at his side, who probably thought he answered to Jehovah. That was the effect I was after. It’s always good to unsettle senior auxiliaries, especially those you’re about to question. I craned forward and read the barracks number on her chest. “Adam 102.”

  Hamilton turned to the supervisor. She was tall and skinny, her severe face making her look older than I reckoned she was. “I wanted Adam 102 to make clear how disturbing the disappearance of these three adolescents is.”

  The auxiliary nodded. “Indeed, guardian. These three – one female and two males – are the outstanding intellects of their age group. It is essential that you find them, citizen.”

  “Pity your security procedures weren’t up to keeping them on campus,” I observed.

  Adam 102 went on the defensive. “Security is the joint responsibility of the facility and the Cramond Barracks guard unit—” She broke off, remembering that the City Guard’s commander-in-chief was standing next to her.

  “Leave the security issue to me, supervisor,” Hamilton said testily. “It’s clearly beyond your capabilities.”

  I intervened. “So what you’re saying, Adam 102, is that if someone – for whatever reason – wanted to deprive the Council of the three best young brains in the city, these were the ones to pick?”

  The auxiliary nodded. “Lesley is already at post-graduate level in applied maths. Michael and Dougal have attained a wide-ranging knowledge of science and medicine. They are all on the Council’s fast-track auxiliary training scheme.”

  Lewis Hamilton caught my eye. “Dalrymple, I suggest your colleague talks to Adam 102 and her staff.” He glanced at Katharine nervously. Now I understood why he’d acknowledged her existence. Amazing. He’d finally understood that handing over people – even auxiliaries – to guard interrogators isn’t the most effective way to gather information.

  “Okay?” I asked Katharine.

  She nodded.

  “Everything you can find out about the kids, their backgrounds and their recent behaviour.”

  “Right. What are you going to do, Quint?”

  The guardian was anxious to reassert his authority. “We’re going to find out how the inmates were spirited through the fence,” he said, giving the supervisor an acid glare. “And why the staff in this facility left them unattended.”

  I had the feeling Adam 102 wasn’t going to be in charge of the budding geniuses who were still in Edinburgh for long.

  The rain had let off when we went outside, but the mist was still down. I sniffed the air. It was dank and redolent of dead leaves.

  Davie pulled down his hood and pointed to the north. “The wire was cut over there. The scene-of-crime team is looking at the area now.” He moved off.

  “Do we know what the missing kids were doing prior to their disappearance?” I asked, striding to catch up with him.

  Hamilton supplied the answer. “Adam 102 told me that they went for the normal morning run with a physical training auxiliary at seven. They were supposed to be working on an unsupervised group project after that. They were seen walking in the grounds around ten o’clock, despite the weather. The alarm was raised when they didn’t turn up for the daily Platonic philosophy lecture at ten-thirty.”

  “Who saw the bogeyman in the cloak?” I asked.

  “A gardener,” Davie replied. “He’s down at the wire.”


  “Why on earth didn’t he report it earlier?” the guardian demanded.

  “He couldn’t,” Davie said. “He was bound and gagged. One of his mates found him at ten-forty, not long after the alarm was raised.”

  “What about the physical training guy?” I asked.

  Davie shook his head slowly. “No sign of him yet. I’ve got search parties out in the area beyond the wire.”

  We reached the fence a couple of minutes later. Three guard vehicles had been parked in front of it. I made out white-overalled figures moving around, examining the ground and the wire.

  The scene-of-crime squad leader came to meet us. “Guardian, commander, citizen,” he said, choosing his word order carefully. It wouldn’t do for an efficient young auxiliary to prioritise the likes of me, special investigator or not. “There are a lot of prints on the ground. Several auxiliary-issue training shoes – presumably the inmates’; we’re checking their shoe sizes – and several other prints.”

  “Not by any chance workmen’s boots like those you found beneath the Assembly Hall and in the Botanics?” I asked.

  “Some of them are, I think,” the auxiliary replied. “I’ll confirm that as soon as the casts are compared.”

  “What about the wire?” Davie asked.

  “Cut from four feet to ground level, pulled back and fastened to the ground with a couple of two-foot wooden stakes.”

  “Any equipment left behind?” I asked, thinking of the dead man’s injuries and the idea that a mallet or the like might have caused them.

  “No, citizen.” The auxiliary led us past the marked footprints to the fence. The ends of the stakes had been knocked in with a heavy blunt instrument all right. Could it be the one that had smashed in the side of Knox 43’s skull?

  Davie was looking ahead into the mist. “The firth’s less than a mile down there,” he said.

  I raised my left arm. “And City Farm Number 7 where Knox 43 was caught is just over there.”

  Hamilton frowned at me. “You think there’s a connection?”

  I shrugged, turning back to the scene-of-crime squad leader. “Any signs of a struggle? Heels dug in, that sort of thing?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. One of the inmates slipped over here—” he pointed to a shallow furrow. “The ground’s so damp that he or she could easily have done that accidentally.”

  “What are you getting at, Dalrymple?” the guardian asked. “You think they went willingly?”

  “Could be. On the other hand, they might have been so terrified by the guy in the cloak that they did everything he said.” I looked across to a slumped figure in the front of one of the Land-Rovers. “Time to talk to our witness.” I turned to the others. “I’ll do this. You know how most ordinary citizens react to guard uniforms.”

  Lewis and Davie weren’t happy but I wasn’t going to let them argue. I turfed the guard driver out and sat down on the warm seat. The crumpled figure next to me didn’t bother to look up.

  “I’m Dalrymple,” I said. “Call me Quint.”

  He glanced round and took in my citizen-issue clothes. “You one of us?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Aye. What’s your name?”

  The gardener still wasn’t sure about me. “You’re no’ an undercover shite?”

  “Naw, I’m a fully out-in-the-open shite, me.”

  He gave a laugh then choked it off abruptly and sat up straight. Now I could see that his cheeks were marked where a gag had been tied tightly around his head. His eyes were jerking about uncontrollably. I guessed he was around fifty but he could have been less – ordinary citizens age quickly in Enlightenment Edinburgh.

  “What’s your name?” I repeated.

  “Didn’t your friends outside tell you?” he responded, sullen again.

  “I told you, I’m not one of them. I work with them, sure, but that doesn’t mean I share their views about where ordinary citizens belong.”

  “In the mud with the worms and the dead leaves,” he said. Pretty poetic for a gardener, I thought. “Andy Skinner. What do you want to know?”

  “What did you see, Andy?”

  He grunted. “Fuck all. This bastard weather. You know what it’s like being outside all day in this wet without a decent coat. Those fuckers in the guard have their special waterproofs, but what do we get?” He spread his arms in a sodden donkey jacket that matched my own. “These things keep you about as dry as a tart’s mattress.”

  “True enough,” I said. “So what did you see, Andy?”

  “I wasn’t joking, pal,” he insisted. “I saw fuck all. The shites must have crept up on me. Before I knew it I was in the bushes with my mouth stopped up and my hands tied to my ankles.”

  “How about the three inmates? What were they up to?”

  “I didnae see them.” Then, having led me up his garden path, he gave me a weak smile. “But I heard them.” He shook his head. “Bastard know-alls. They were on about how easy it was to con their tutors in some project.”

  That didn’t sound like teenagers who were about to abscond. “You heard them before you were attacked?”

  Andy Skinner nodded. “Aye, for a minute or so. I was over by that herbaceous border.” He pointed to a strip of earth near the fence.

  “Then you were grabbed. How many guys?”

  “Three, I think. Two of them got hold of me. They didn’t exactly attack me though. Just dragged me over to the bushes there.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “No. They got something round my eyes pretty quickly. They stuffed it in my mouth afterwards and tied something thicker round my eyes.”

  I looked at him. “But you did see something before they blindfolded you, didn’t you, Andy?”

  His jaw was slack. “Aye . . .” He shook his head. “Something is right. Jesus Christ, I almost pissed my pants. This big fella’s coming towards me like he really means business. He’s wearing a fuckin’ great cloak that’s spread out around him like a pair of wings. And he’s got a fuckin’ great mallet in one hand.”

  “Anything in the other hand?”

  The gardener looked at me curiously. “I don’t think so. Why?”

  I ignored his question. “What about his face, Andy? What did he look like?”

  A tremor shook his body and he stared at me, his lower jaw hanging loose. “Christ, he was a right monster. He must have spent his life fighting, his face was that torn up.” He straightened up again. “I’ll tell you something though. His beard didnae look real.”

  His beard and what else, I wondered. “Did you hear him speak?”

  Skinner shook his head. “Uh-uh. He came up after I’d been blindfolded and I heard him breathing.” He shivered again. “Christ, it was weird, like a kind of gasping. Then I was dragged off and dumped in the bushes. They rammed the blindfold into my mouth and left me there. I couldn’t see anything. I was behind a tree trunk and anyway, the mist was as thick as a guardsman.”

  I smiled. I reckoned he’d given me all he had.

  There was a tap on the window. Davie.

  “Quint, come over here,” he said. There was tension in his voice.

  I followed him to the fence.

  “One of the search units has found the physical training auxiliary who was with the kids earlier in the morning.”

  Hamilton appeared at Davie’s shoulder. “What’s going on, commander?” he asked.

  “They’ve found the trainer,” Davie said, his face pale. “Dead.”

  “Bugger,” the guardian said, lapsing from normal standards of auxiliary language.

  “That’s not all,” Davie added. “He’s got a branch over his face like Knox 43.”

  Chapter Nine

  A young guardswoman came out of the mist beyond the wire. “This way, guardian,” she called nervously. I got the feeling this was a big day for her – first violent death and first encounter with Lewis Hamilton. I wasn’t sure which was making her twitch more.

  We followed her past auxiliar
ies who were crouching to examine footprints in the mud, and entered the woods. A maroon and white tape had been run along the ground to indicate more prints and traces. We kept to the left of it and tried to avoid the heavy drops of accumulated rainwater that were falling from the branches. As we got deeper into the trees, the birdsong faded away. The blackbirds and thrushes were keeping well clear of the body we had to confront.

  “It’s . . . I mean he’s over the wall there,” the guardswoman said, gulping hard.

  “All right,” Hamilton said gruffly. “Stand back if it’s too much for you.”

  The female auxiliary swallowed again, caught between the desire to impress her superior and the urgent need to empty her stomach. The latter took priority.

  We straddled the low dyke and approached the search squad members. They were standing in a huddle on the pot-holed asphalt of the Cramond Road but when they spotted us, they dispersed like a flock of frightened sheep.

  “Bloody hell,” Davie said under his breath. “The branch is from the same kind of tree.”

  I kneeled by the corpse after looking quickly at the road surface to check for prints. There was nothing obvious. The dead man was wearing an auxiliary-issue tracksuit and mud-encrusted running shoes. He was lying on his left side, his knees drawn up like Knox 43’s had been in the Botanic Gardens. I pulled on protective gloves and picked up the right hand. The skin was clammy and the joint was still loose. He hadn’t been dead for very long. The fingers were closed around a branch of blood-drenched copper beech that was covering his head and right shoulder. Some of the reddish-brown leaves had fallen away and a mutilated face was visible through the remaining foliage.

  “See if you can find the tree this was taken from, Davie,” I said over my shoulder. “There might be prints on or around it.”

  “Right.” He moved away, to be replaced by the public order guardian.

  Hamilton steeled himself to look at the mass of blood that had hardened around the hole in the forehead. An eyeball was protruding from the shattered bone, staring back at us at a crazy angle.

  “Good God,” the guardian exhaled.