I got out of the Taylorian in one piece but I knew that the chains were tightening around me. I needed to make a breakthrough in the case or I’d be taking up residence in one of New Oxford’s many incarceration facilities.
A visit to the chemist seemed like a good idea.
Davie came on the mobile as I was walking down Beaumont Street. I’d turned it off when I was in the faculty to avoid being disturbed. Heavy rain was pounding on the protection shields above.
“Where the hell are you, Quint?” he demanded. “You didn’t show at breakfast.”
“Couldn’t stomach the idea of you taking advantage of the porridge, big man.”
“Very funny. The test results are beginning to come in.”
“Oh aye?” I said.
“The pathology team’s been through all the samples from Raskolnikov.” His voice was even. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
I stepped aside to allow a procession of gown-clad students to pass. “You mean, no chemical compounds?”
“Correct.”
“Jesus. So his arms were removed without an anaesthetic.” I was thinking what a horrific experience that would have been if the Russian had still been conscious. Why hadn’t the assailant used the compound that had put Dead Dod into a coma? And why was there no blood from the wounds?
“Correct again. They’re not sure if the victim had choked on the Eagle One by the time the knife or whatever it was cut into him.”
“I hope so for his sake. What else?”
“Connington’s people have reviewed all the surveillance records. No sign of anyone suspicious. And something definitely happened to the cameras at the bottom of the High Street and in the Botanic Garden. The team Dawkley sent hasn’t worked out how it was done yet.”
“All right. Where are you, Davie?”
“On my way to Souls,” he replied. “To see if Katharine needs a hand.”
“Don’t wind her up, will you?”
“Me?” he said, laughing. “What are you doing?”
“Tell you later. Out.”
I stopped at the junction to let a Chariot glide by and gazed up at the imposing, three-storey recessed block in front of me, wings extending on either side of it. It looked about as welcoming as a Victorian workhouse, which may well have been what it had been turned into by Raphael and her mates. I crossed the road and walked past the ranks of bicycles that were piled up against the railings. Signs of student life. Maybe the establishment was still a place of learning. According to my guidebook, it used to be called Worcester College. The black display panel proclaimed in pink letters that it was now known as “Worc”; I presumed that wasn’t pronounced “worse”. I passed the sensor posts without any problem and walked through the gateway into a quadrangle that wasn’t a quadrangle. Stepping beyond the loggia, I looked round at the asymmetrical buildings. On my right there was a long, graceful façade, while the end straight ahead had been left open. Over to my right was an uneven but picturesque terrace of medieval cottages. Neat architectural contrasts, but they weren’t why I was here.
I looked at the staircase and room numbers I’d scribbled in my notebook when the file had been on the screen: 18/25. I wandered around the main quad and soon realised I’d have to look elsewhere. I went through a low passage and found myself in a wide expanse of garden, a lake to my right and a well-tended lawn dotted with trees all around. There were several late twentieth-century stone and brick buildings at the far edges of the grass. I ran over – no rain shields here – and located staircase eighteen in one that a screen identified as the Masterman Building.
And then, not for the first time that day, I felt a frisson of shock. The curtains to the first room that I reached on the ground floor were half open. Being an investigator – and also a nosy bastard – I couldn’t resist a peek. Jesus. Wiping the rain from my eyes, I concentrated on the two partially clad individuals, one male and one female, who were closely entwined. I recognised the man with the goatee beard instantly: Andrew Duart, Glasgow’s first secretary. He was getting around a lot in New Oxford. I had to wait till the woman turned, her head leaning back as Duart nuzzled her heavy breasts. This time I wasn’t quite as surprised as I had been yesterday. It was Hel Hyslop, former Glasgow detective and, apparently, former convict.
What was this pair of migrant lovebirds doing three floors beneath Edinburgh’s missing chief toxicologist?
Chapter Seventeen
I slipped past the sensor posts at the entrance to the accommodation block – my control card really had been programmed to allow me access everywhere, it seemed. The building was functional, late twentieth-century drab, a major let-down after the spectacular old buildings in the main quad. The brickwork was discoloured and pocked with unfilled bullet holes. It wasn’t the kind of place Andrew Duart would usually frequent.
I felt my way down an unlit passage, estimating where the door to the room would be. I thought about knocking, but decided against it after a couple of seconds’ thought; surprise is always a useful weapon, especially with people who normally dispense orders. I waved my card at the metal wall panel. There was a dull click and the door swung open. I was in.
So was Glasgow’s first secretary. There was a partition wall separating most of the small study cum sitting room from the sleeping area. Through the gap next to the window I could see a tangle of bare legs and two fused sets of loins. The couple had collapsed on to the bed, the floor around it littered with items of clothing. Hel Hyslop’s hands, fingers apart and bent for purchase, were exerting what looked to me like excruciating pressure on Duart’s buttocks. Relief was at hand.
“Ding ding,” I said, sitting down on the wide ledge beneath the window. “End of round one.”
Andrew Duart’s rapid pumping stopped. He glanced round, his cheeks beaded with sweat. Hel Hyslop’s head appeared over his shoulder. She looked much more in control of herself, her grey eyes fixed on me and her lips set in a tight line.
“Dalrymple!” the first secretary gasped, pulling away and lunging for his trousers.
I averted my eyes but couldn’t miss a flash of the thickly curled hair in Hyslop’s groin. She made no attempt to cover herself.
“What the fucking hell are you doing here?” Duart yelled.
I stared at him until he realised what he’d said.
“Well?” he demanded, his anger fading. “Do you normally walk in on people when they’re . . . when they’re . . .” He seemed to have lost the verbal proficiency that political operators like him are born with.
“When they’re overcome by passion?” Hyslop’s voice had an edge to it. She got off the crumpled bed slowly and pulled on a dressing-gown. Her breasts, fuller than I’d imagined, swung provocatively as she moved.
“Hello, Hel,” I said, giving her a cautious smile. I’d been on the wrong end of her temper more than once in the past. “What happened? Did your friend here get you out on parole?”
“That’s nothing to do with you, Quint,” she said, turning to the washbasin and starting to dash water over her lower torso.
I glanced at Duart. “What’s going on, Andrew?” I glanced around the room. The walls were painted in an unappealing shade of beige. The only decoration was a large overhead photo of central Oxford with the words “NOX Secure Imaging Inc. – Vision is Power” in red over the Radcliffe Camera: one of Crim Fac’s money-spinning sidelines, I guessed. “Surely your friends in the Hebdomadal Council could have found you somewhere better than this.”
“I’m not staying here,” he said with a sneer. “This is the inspector’s . . . em, Hyslop’s room.” He was fully dressed now. Donning his expensive dark suit and glistening black loafers had enabled him to regain most of his authority. Most, but not all: his cheeks were still glowing and his hair was ruffled. “Guests from New Oxford’s trading partners are accommodated at the Rand.”
I’d noticed the Victorian Gothic hotel opposite the Taylorian earlier. “Convenient for the Faculty of Criminology,” I observed.
Andrew Duart stared at me aggressively. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, tightening his florid silk tie.
“I saw the pair of you yesterday,” I said, aware that Hel Hyslop had stepped closer. She was rolling forward on the balls of her bare feet like a large feline that had just spotted its evening meal. “Coming out of the Department of Forensic Chemistry. Which, as you no doubt know, is a branch of the Criminology Faculty.” I stood up to face them. “Any chance you might tell me what you were doing there?”
Hyslop took a pace nearer. “I suppose that fire was your doing, Quint. It didn’t occur to you that people could have been injured?” I wasn’t keen on the way she was flexing her hands. I was pretty sure that she’d learned plenty about unarmed combat in the All-Glasgow Major Crime Squad.
Duart raised a hand to restrain her. “Our movements in this city are no concern of yours, Dalrymple,” he said in an icy voice.
“Dalrymple?” I said. “What happened to Quint? We used to be so close.” I glanced at Hel. “Until I discovered that you’d let a major criminal out after a few months. Been getting around, have you, Hel?” I was wondering if she could have had some involvement in the murders and mutilations.
They both stared at me.
“What’s the point of that question?” Duart asked.
“How long have you been in Oxford, Hel?” I demanded. “Have you been in Edinburgh recently? And where were you between seven and eight o’clock yesterday evening?”
They were looking seriously puzzled now.
“To answer your questions in order, Quint,” Hyslop said. “Two days. No. At a seminar in this building. Satisfied?”
I shrugged. It wasn’t very likely that she’d committed the murders; for a start, she didn’t have size eleven feet, though the wearing of oversize footwear by miscreants isn’t unheard of. What she did have was a history of complicity in numerous killings – except I’d never established if she carried out any of them herself.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be giving us an explanation as to why you burst in here,” Hyslop said.
“Not unless you tell me what you’re doing in Oxford.” I glanced at Duart. “Both of you.”
The first secretary was straightening the creases of his trousers. “I’m here on business, not that it’s any business of yours.”
“Ha,” I said, not laughing. “Signing Glasgow up for more Nox systems? You’d better be careful, Andy. They might take you over.” I might have been imagining it, but for a second I thought he looked unsettled.
Then Hel Hyslop moved towards me menacingly and I decided that I’d said enough.
Now it really was time to visit the chemist.
I went up the stairs, having ascertained from the display screen on the ground floor that 18/25 was on the third. There was no one around and the place smelled of polish and detergent rather than of human bodies. Maybe the list of names on the panel referred to old members who’d donated funds to the college rather than to living residents. But where would that leave Hyslop? Why was she being put up here?
This time I knocked. Not that it got me anywhere. I put my ear to the door and heard nothing. It looked like I was going to have to rely on the control card after all. Then there was a click and the door opened. On the other side of it was a face I recognised. But the condition of the body had changed a lot.
“Ramsay?” I said, using the chief toxicologist’s first name. “Is that you?”
Lister 25 was propping himself up on one of those frames that old people use to get around. It was a long time since I’d seen something like that – the Council’s welfare budget doesn’t run to what the guardians see as fripperies.
“Dalrymple?” he said with a gasp. He screwed his eyes up. “Quint Dalrymple? Is that you?” Tears filled his eyes and began to run down over his jowls. They were looser and even more pachydermic than they had been.
I stepped inside and let the door swing to. “Aye, it’s me,” I said, going up to him and smiling. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.”
The toxicologist manoeuvred himself awkwardly towards a high armchair and let his shrunken body drop into it. Then he dabbed his eyes with a dirty handkerchief and glanced around the room. “Get me out of Death Row?” He gave a bitter laugh. “You’ll have to carry me. Think you can manage that?”
I followed the direction of his eyes, trying to understand what he meant by Death Row. The room was much larger than Hel Hyslop’s, the living area broad and high, with a sofa as well as an armchair. A slatted wooden staircase led up to a platform on which there was a bed. It was a lot more comfortable than your average condemned man’s cell.
Lister 25 laughed again, his head twitching uncontrollably. “This is their idea of retribution, Quint. When I couldn’t work any more they put me in a room where I couldn’t reach the bed except by crawling.” He gave one of his trademark pouts. “Fuck ’em. I’ve been sleeping on the settee.”
I squatted down in front of him. “What’s happened, Ramsay?” I asked in a low voice. “You’ve been working in the Poison Fields, haven’t you?”
He opened his eyes wide. “How did you find me, Quint? What do you know about the PFs?” He started coughing.
I stood up and looked for a glass. I found one by the sink in the far corner of the room. By the time I got back to him, he was in a full paroxysm. I managed to take his hands away from his mouth and get some liquid down. Eventually the tearing sound subsided.
“My lungs,” the toxicologist said, shaking his head. “They’re done for. I’ll not make it back to Edinburgh.” He looked at me sadly. “Or hear another Robert Johnson song.” The old bugger was still addicted to the blues – I found that reassuring. He made a throaty noise and I thought he was going to start choking again. Then I realised he was laughing. “‘Hellhound On My Trail’ would seem appropriate.” He swallowed and stared at me. “How did you find me?”
I told him about the reference to him in Raskolnikov’s file, editing out the part about the nocturnal visitor and the message on my mirror. I also mentioned the murders in Oxford. He hadn’t heard about either of them.
“So the criminals in charge of this festering utopia brought you here to do their dirty work,” Lister 25 said, shaking his head in disgust. “I’m surprised you agreed, Quint. Or did they hold a gun to your head?”
“Uh-uh. The killings here are linked to things that happened in Edinburgh. A Leith Lancer had his arm amputated.” I looked at him. “And Lewis Hamilton was shot, probably by mistake. I reckon the bullet was meant for Administrator Raphael.”
The old chemist was peering at me, his eyes watery but focused. “The public order guardian was shot? Is he dead?”
I nodded. “Heart failure.”
“Bloody hell.” Lister 25 shook his head slowly. “Poor bastard. I didn’t like him much, but . . .” His words trailed away. Then his body stiffened and he gripped the arms of his chair. “It’s a pity Raphael didn’t get it. That woman’s deranged.”
“Have you met her?” I asked, glancing up at the Nox Imaging Systems photo of Oxford that was on the wall above the armchair, the Radcliffe Camera’s high-tech dome its centrepiece. I wondered if everything we were saying was being overheard and relayed to the chief administrator.
The toxicologist nodded, clearing his throat with difficulty. “After her people hustled me on to the helijet in the middle of the night a couple of weeks back, she made a personal appearance on the nostrum they gave me.” He nodded at me. “Smart devices, those. Have you got one?”
I took mine out of my pocket, then let it slip back.
“Aye, well,” Lister 25 continued, “she made it very clear to me that the work I was instructed by the senior guardian to do on certain soil samples had suddenly become even more crucial: absolutely essential to the security of New Oxford, as she put it.” He gave a dry laugh. “Have you noticed how the top brass here sound exactly like the guardians?”
“Oh yeah,” I replied, noting Slick
’s involvement for future reference. “Something to do with people who wield power unchecked.”
“Aye,” the old chemist grunted. “They begin to speak like machines. Anyway, she was there waiting for me when the helijet arrived. She was as welcoming as a cold fish can be. Not that she apologised for spiriting me away from Edinburgh. She even took me down to the research station herself. There was another top-ranker with us, a character by the name of Dawkins . . . no . . . what was it?”
“Dawkley?”
“Aye, that’s it. Fancied himself as a scientist. Sounded more like a bureaucrat to me.”
I had my notebook out. “Where was this research station, Ramsay?” I asked.
Lister 25 drew the back of his hand across his brow. “Research station? It was more like an army camp. Checkpoints everywhere, electronic surveillance, heavies much worse than any guardsman back home.” He let out a cracked laugh. “Or guardswoman. The place is known as Sutt. It’s a village about ten miles south of the city. I found out from one of the lab assistants that it used to be called Sutton Courtenay. Apparently some Prime Minister lived there back at the beginning of the last century.” He broke off and drank from the glass I’d given him, then laughed again – it was more like a croak. “I’ll tell you something funny, Quint. I went for a walk one day – before the contaminated samples got to me – and wandered round what was left of the church. The drugs gangs had blown the buildings to pieces but the cemetery was still in pretty good shape. Guess whose gravestone I found.”
I looked across at him and shrugged. “John Mayall’s?”
“Ha!” The noise that erupted must have traumatised what was left of his lungs. He gulped water. “John Mayall. Very good, lad. He could play the blues. Not that it was the real thing. No, this grave was much more appropriate to this twisted state.”
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