The Mist gave me a humourless smile.
“What’s wrong with people mourning their chief?” I asked. “You shouldn’t have tried to hold the funeral in secret.”
“What do you think the youth gangs are getting up to as we speak?” the new public order guardian asked sharply. “With a minimal guard presence on the streets, the suburbs will explode.”
Katharine came closer. “They will not,” she said. “The youth gangs are nothing like as dangerous as you think. The guard taunts them and antagonises them. I think you’ll find that there’s less criminal behaviour than usual this morning.”
The Mist looked like she was about to throw Katharine out. Then Administrator Raphael and the Oxford delegation appeared, surrounded by a detail of tall guardsmen. Slick and his sidekick were off to greet them before I could count to one.
Katharine and I moved into what had once been called the chapel and was now known as the Meeting Hall; Haigh had wanted to call it the Last Meeting Hall but even the guardians had baulked at that. It was drab and cheerless, the only decoration a large maroon and white flag on the wall above the bier. Even in death the guardians were watching over you. In this case, even the occupant of the unadorned, recycled coffin was a guardian. Suddenly the reality of Lewis’s passing struck me and I felt my stomach turn sour. I’d watched him die, but the trappings of death brought home how final and ineluctable the process was. At times like this, being an atheist wasn’t the easy option.
The long room was almost full, the only vacant seats to the rear. A movement to the left caught my eye. Bloody hell, my father. I’d told him about Hamilton’s death on the phone but he hadn’t said anything about coming to the funeral. As a former guardian he was entitled to attend.
Hector didn’t attempt to get up from the pew as we joined him. He was wrapped in a heavy, tattered raincoat, a scarf in the black and white Enlightenment tartan round his slack neck.
“Hello, old man,” I said, taking his arm and feeling how thin the flesh was.
“Hello, failure.” He looked beyond me. “Hello, Katharine.” Ever since he’d once confused Katharine with Caro he’d been fastidious about addressing her correctly.
They started conversing, so I got down to checking out the gathering. All the guardians apart from Sophia were on parade, though none of them looked exactly heartbroken. Among them at the front I saw Andrew Duart. The Glasgow headman was dressed in a dark suit that must have come from his city’s finest designer – and Glasgow had become a major fashion centre. Yet again I found myself wondering about his presence in Edinburgh. He seemed to be on good terms with plenty of guardians and senior auxiliaries. Then the crowd parted and I caught sight of a hunched figure in a wheelchair. Billy Geddes, Edinburgh’s financial genius. He’d never had much time for Lewis Hamilton, but that hadn’t stopped him inveigling the old guardian into one of his schemes a couple of years back.
Then a hush spread across the packed room like a squall sweeping over a cornfield. Haigh, wearing a black sash over his ancient suit, led a procession towards the coffin. The senior guardian was immediately behind him, while he was followed by Raphael and her three academics. The Mist brought up the rear, resplendent – at least in her own mind – in a guardian-issue tweed jacket that was at least one size too large. (Interesting symbolism, I thought.) Edinburgh’s de facto president, then a delegation from a foreign state, then the newest guardian: what did that say about the balance of power?
The service turned out to be nothing but preparation and build-up, a funerary version of all mouth and no trousers. Haigh announced the name, rank and date of birth of the deceased, as he did for everyone in the city. Then the senior guardian got up, a look of mild distaste on his youthful features, and told us why we should celebrate the life of Lewis Hamilton. Except he missed out all the laudable parts – his commitment to the Enlightenment Party in the dark days before independence, his doggedness in eradicating the drugs gangs over a decade of extreme violence – and concentrated on his loyalty to the Council. In recent months that had probably been Lewis’s most dubious claim to fame.
I could feel my old man fidgeting throughout the address. Eventually he couldn’t hold himself back any longer.
“Sanctimonious bullshit,” he said in a stage whisper which caused several scandalised senior auxiliaries to look round. “When’s he going to say something about the man himself?”
I nudged him to shut him up. Not that I had a problem with his line of questioning. Lewis could be a bone-headed, stubborn old bugger when he was in the mood. Hector had fallen out with him so badly that he’d resigned from the Council years back, and I’d been on the rough side of Hamilton’s tongue often enough myself. But at least, to the end, he’d possessed a grudging faith in humanity – which is more than can be said for a lot of guardians.
Slick ran out of words soon afterwards. After an awkward pause, a guard piper stepped forward and played a pibroch. The notes of his instrument were piercing in the enclosed space but no one had the nerve to head for the exit. I looked to the right and watched Administrator Raphael as she stood motionless, her face rigid and her eyes staring straight ahead. What was it about the woman? I wouldn’t class myself as anything approaching an expert on her gender, but even I sensed that she was unusual in the extreme. Although she was stern and unemotional like your average Edinburgh guardian (Sophia excepted, occasionally) there was more to her than that: hidden depths, repressed feelings, some inner conflict that she was only just managing to contain. Then she leaned forward slightly, the upper half of her body at an angle to the lower for a few seconds and I had a flash of déjà vu.
Suddenly I was back in the exercise yard at the New Bridewell, the seagulls crying in the clear blue sky as the inauguration got under way. Little Maisie was dashing forwards, tripping; Hamilton and Raphael were lunging to reach her. Hamilton and Raphael. Her reactions had been quicker than his, she’d dived to the gravel ahead of him. Bloody hell. Lewis had been left behind, closer to perpendicular – exactly between the administrator and the shooting position on the top of the Skin Zone. Bloody hell. I saw it now. The shot had been meant for her. That went a long way towards explaining her unease about the bullet and its provenance, as well as her nervousness before the ceremony.
“Quint?” Katharine’s elbow was in my ribs. “What is it?” she whispered. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
I turned my eyes towards the coffin and watched as it disappeared from sight behind the black curtain in the front wall. Lewis was making the last journey, his journey to the fire. Soon he would be nothing but ashes, a scattering of dust over the fields of a city farm.
“A ghost?” I said hoarsely as the funeral party began to break up. I shook my head. “I don’t believe in them.” I looked into Katharine’s bright green eyes. “What we’ve got to be frightened of is one hundred per cent human.”
After the committal we stood around in groups outside, heads bowed and conversation muted as is the way at funerals. Everyone was keen to be away, but the crush of guard personnel heading back to their posts was blocking the gate.
“Davie will get you back to the home, old man,” I said, holding Hector’s arm.
“Aye, well,” he said, nodding slowly, “it won’t be long before I go same way as poor Lewis.”
I glanced at Katharine.
She stepped closer and took my father’s other arm. “What are you saying, Hector?” she said with a smile. “You’ve got plenty more years with your books to come.”
He looked at her with rheumy eyes then moved them over the crowd of guardians and senior auxiliaries. “To be honest with you, lass, I hope I haven’t. These idiots have buggered the city up irreparably.”
I’d never known the old man to be wrong about affairs of state.
“Interesting,” Davie said, poring over the detailed central zone map we’d spread over the table in the small room near the command centre. Katharine had gone back to her work. “I think you might have som
ething, Quint. Are you sure about the positioning of their bodies?”
I held up the sketches I’d drawn of Lewis Hamilton and Raphael. “That’s the way they were,” I said. “I’ve got a clear picture in my mind of how they moved.”
Davie stood up and ran a hand through his heavy beard. “So what exactly are you saying?”
I took a gulp of cold and gritty mess-hall coffee. “I’m saying that the shooter was aiming at Administrator Raphael.”
“All right,” he said testily. “I gathered that. But why? You reckon the bullet comes from Oxford—”
“The bullet definitely comes from Oxford, my friend. All the members of the delegation were shifty as hell when I told them about the NOX mark.”
Davie was nodding. “Fair enough. So we think the shooter’s from New Oxford too, do we?”
“Hold on a minute,” I said, raising a hand. “You’re jumping to conclusions.” I gave him a rueful smile. “Your former boss was a dab hand at that too.”
“Let’s leave Hamilton out of this,” Davie growled. He wouldn’t grieve openly for his former chief – senior auxiliaries don’t make a show of emotion, even to their friends – but he was feeling the loss all right.
“Okay,” I continued. “We haven’t got much to go on as regards the identity of the shooter. Obviously he could be from Oxford, though what we know about that city’s expertise with the theory and practice of punishment suggests that not many pot shots are taken at its leaders.”
“Which could explain why the attempt on Raphael took place in Edinburgh.”
I nodded. “It could do. But the assassin could just as easily come from outside Oxford.” I caught his eye. “The shooter could even come from our own fair city.”
Davie raised an eyebrow. “You’re guessing, Quint.”
“Well spotted, guardsman.” I smiled ironically. “I was just demonstrating that we haven’t much of a clue about the identity of the assassin. Or why the arm was taken from the Leith Lancer.” I looked at him again. “Of course, the fact that the arm was put in the administrator’s bath is another solid link with Oxford.”
Davie was glaring at me in frustration. “So, apart from your nice theory that the shot was meant for Raphael, what have we got to go on?”
“The motivation,” I said. “Why was the arm put in her bath? Why was a youth gang member chosen for mutilation? Why wasn’t he killed to ensure his silence? And most significant of all, why is a university administrator being targeted for assassination?”
A grin spread across Davie’s face. “No doubt you’ve got the answers to all those questions, Quint.”
“You know I haven’t, big man. But I’m working on them.”
“That’s all right then,” he said, heading for the door. “I’m going to check the latest patrol reports. Let me know when you’re ready to make an arrest.”
A few minutes later I was running into the command centre after him, my mobile in my hand.
“Davie!” I shouted.
The heads of all the guard personnel at the screens and desks turned in my direction.
“What now?” he demanded, getting up from a surveillance monitor.
“Dead Dod,” I gasped. “The Leith Lancer in the infirmary. He’s come round.”
He was with me in a couple of seconds. We headed for the door – and ran into the Mist, literally.
“What’s going on, commander?” she asked, pushing me away and straightening her new jacket.
Davie glanced at me then told her what I’d just told him.
She thought for a bit, ignoring my urgent gestures, then nodded. “Proceed.” Before Davie could do so, she poked a finger in his arm. “And commander? I’m relying on you to keep me fully informed of developments in the hunt for my predecessor’s killer.”
Davie looked like he’d swallowed the chalice as well as its poisoned contents.
The sun, weaker now, was still managing to poke through the cloud cover and I felt traces of warmth on my face as we ran down the cobbles to the esplanade. Davie turfed the female guard driver out of the first Land-Rover he came to and we careered round the parking lot towards the narrow beginning of the Royal Mile. This time there were no tourists blocking the road. Given the speed Davie had already attained, that was just as well.
As we passed the museum at the end of Chambers Street we were hit by the scream of high-powered jet engines. A panic-stricken pigeon – so decrepit that not even Edinburgh citizens desperate to increase their meat intake would bother trapping it – missed our windscreen by a few inches.
“There it goes,” Davie said, angling his head upwards. “The afternoon helijet flight to Oxford.” Suddenly he was a schoolboy plane spotter.
“Maybe our assassin’s on board,” I muttered. “Poxy machines. You’d think the smartarse engineers could have worked out how to silence them.”
“Ah well, it’s tricky with turbines, you see. They . . .” Davie’s words trailed away as he noticed my glare.
“Spare us the lecture, guardsman,” I said. “I’m trying to preserve my hearing for the statement from Dead Dod. Maybe he’ll be able to identify his assailant.”
Except there wasn’t anything. No statement identifying the arm wrestler, no description, no nothing. The mutilated Leith Lancer didn’t even know his own name.
“A very bad case of amnesia.”
Davie and I, standing at the glass partition of the intensive care unit, turned at the sound of the medical guardian’s voice.
“Sophia,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be flat out?”
She handed the youth gang member’s file to a nursing auxiliary and shook her head at me carefully. “I’m all right, Quint. Just a bit of damage to my face.” She smiled unconvincingly. “What does that matter?”
Davie had stepped away and struck up a conversation with the attractive young nurse.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked in a low voice.
She nodded, touching the dressing over her upper face gingerly. “I’ll survive. I told Maisie I’d walked into a door.” She looked away, towards the figure with the bandage-covered upper torso in the ICU. “Your victim’s still very vague, Quint. The psychiatrist has only had time to run initial tests.”
“Could the amnesia fade? Could it be post-traumatic?”
Sophia gave me a thoughtful look. “It could, on both counts. On the other hand . . .” She put her hand in the pocket of her white lab coat and took out a folded sheet of paper. “The toxicologists are still unclear about the exact nature of the chemical compound in the patient’s blood. But—” She broke off.
“But what?” I said impatiently.
“If you have a scientific background it goes against the grain to pass on unverified test results, Quint,” she said fastidiously.
I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “For Christ’s sake, Sophia, you aren’t giving the keynote speech at an international conference. Just tell me what they’ve found.”
She nodded. “Very well. In layman’s terms, the indications are that the drug given to the victim was a complex compound. It induced deep coma, but also prevented infection and blood-clotting. It probably also caused the memory loss we are now registering.”
I stared at her and tried to make sense of what she’d said. “You mean the drug was both beneficial and harmful?”
Sophia was looking puzzled. “Yes, so it seems. It’s almost as if the attacker didn’t want his victim to suffer, either physically or mentally.”
“So we’re on the trail of someone who removes a limb – pretty clear evidence of abnormal behaviour, if you ask me – but doesn’t want the kid to have a bad time. This has got to be a first.” Something else struck me. “Am I right in thinking that this compound is highly unusual?”
Sophia nodded. “That’s why toxicology’s having such difficulty analysing it.”
“So the likelihood is that it was produced in a very advanced laboratory?”
“Very,” she confirmed. “I’d say it’s
the product of a major research project. I’ve never heard of a single substance causing all the effects we’ve logged.”
“We’ve nothing like that in Edinburgh, have we?”
Sophia laughed. “Much though I respect the chief toxicologist—” She broke off. “No news on him, I suppose?”
I shook my head. “He hasn’t exactly been top priority recently.”
“Much though I respect Lister 25,” she continued, “the Science and Energy Directorate has never had the funds to do much research.”
That wasn’t entirely true. The case that led me to Glasgow a couple of years back had involved a major and very secret research project, but I let Sophia’s statement go. My mind had gone in a different direction altogether.
“I suppose a successful university-state would be capable of undertaking research like this?”
That made Sophia’s mouth gape.
I spent the rest of the day wrestling with my suspicions. Part of me – the impulsive, suicidal side of my character – wanted to confront Raphael and the senior guardian with what I was thinking. The other more sensible side counselled caution, and eventually that prevailed, not least because I failed to come up with anything more conclusive before the Council meeting. It wasn’t the first time that I’d spun the guardians a line and I was conscious that my authorisation was in the balance. Fortunately Sophia agreed to play down the toxicologists’ initial findings, which gave me a bit more time.
I intended to spend some of that listening to the blues. I needed to unblock my thought processes and I had a hankering for an infusion of rhythm and melancholia. I’d already decided which cassette I was going to slot into my aged machine: the misanthropic Furry Lewis fitted the bill and my mood perfectly. Davie ran me down to Tollcross then headed off with a faint smile on his face. He’d arranged to meet the nursing auxiliary he’d been chatting up in the infirmary. He always was a quick worker.
As I approached number thirteen, I heard my name being broadcast from the end of Gilmore Place. It was Katharine. I waited for her to catch me up.
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