‘And when did this elite team last catch a trafficker?’
He blanched. ‘Well, it acts more as a deterrent than an apprehension unit.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But my man, Knox 31, has his finger on what’s happening.’
‘Knox 31?’
‘You know him?’
‘Once upon a time. Where is he?’
‘The team’s office is on the left as you enter the warehouse from this side. I’ll tell him you’re coming.’ Suddenly the deputy guardian was as compliant as a child being offered sweeties.
‘Don’t,’ I commanded. I love taking that tone with senior auxiliaries. ‘And Joe? You aren’t off the hook, but I’ll hold back on telling Fergus about your illicit sex session for the time being.’ Although auxiliaries were encouraged to engage in sexual liaisons with members of their rank, making whoopee in the workplace was strictly forbidden. What kind of example would that set Evie the tea lady?
‘Quite a lunch, Jimmy Taggart.’
The white-haired auxiliary at the table in the mess room looked up from a spread that included caviar, a large crab and a loaf of whiter-than-snow tourist bread.
There was also a small round of a creamy cheese that I hadn’t seen since a family holiday in France when I was thirteen.
‘Is that you, son?’ he said, getting to his feet with difficulty. He had the kind of belly that normally contains twins.
‘You used to call me “sir”.’
‘True enough,’ he said, wiping his hands and shaking mine. ‘Bell 03, as was. Long time no see.’
He’d been in the Tactical Operations Squad that I’d run before I got myself demoted. So had my lover Caro. Old Jimmy had been there when she died. He had the kindness not to mention that.
‘Call me Quint. You on your own?’
He nodded. ‘My people are checking a shipment of turnips from a farm near Soutra. Get stuck in.’
I did. Rich foods didn’t often feature in my diet.
‘What were you after, sir? I mean, citizen. I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to call you by your first name. You were my commander.’
‘Long time ago, Jimmy.’ I took in the ragged two-inch scar above his right eye. He’d fought hard for the Enlightenment. I wondered if he still had it in him. ‘Adam 159 told me about your drugs squad.’
‘Did he now? That fat shite only knows one thing – how to lick his way to the top.’
I considered telling what the deputy guardian had been up to with the head of personnel, but decided that could wait.
‘Do you find a lot of drugs?’ I asked.
Taggart gave me a weary look. ‘What do you think, sir? I’ve got four auxiliaries and hundreds of deliveries a week.’
I told him what Skinny Ewan had said.
‘The Portobello Pish? They’ve got contacts in the warehouse, there’s no doubt about that. Nailing them isn’t easy, though. There are over five thousand citizen workers here.’
‘How many auxiliaries?’
He grinned. ‘You always had a thing for corruption in the ranks, even when you were in them yourself.’
‘Unfortunately the subsequent years have only made me more sceptical.’
‘We’re all Hume’s children.’
‘True. So have you got anything for me?’
‘There are over five hundred auxiliaries in the Supply Directorate. Take your pick.’ Which was his way of saying he’d like to keep his current sinecure.
Jimmy Taggart packed up the remains of his lunch and stuck them in a surprisingly ancient fridge, given where we were.
‘Couldn’t you get a replacement?’
He laughed. ‘This one actually works. The new ones from some breakaway island in the Philippines last one summer, if you’re lucky.’
I caught his gaze. ‘The beans. Spill them.’
The old guardsman got up and closed the door. ‘Right, sir. Since we’re old comrades and I think it’s about time this directorate got cleaned up, I’ll give you a hand. It’s like this. Every week the fools in command send me a printout of deliveries, some from the city farms, some from the airport and some from the docks at Leith.’
‘Which fools across the road?’
Taggart laughed harshly. ‘Good question. Here, look.’ He went to a filing cabinet, took out a folder and handed it to me.
I opened it and ran my eyes over it. ‘Everything from vegetables to tourist delicacies, hotel wallpaper to traffic lights, souvenirs to fabrics.’
‘Aye, and here’s the best bit. We aren’t meant to check those shipments. We’re to leave them alone.’
I stared at him. ‘It doesn’t say that here.’
‘No, but when the system started about five years back, I was told I’d end my life down the mines if I or any of my squad so much as breathed on the listed deliveries.’
For the first time ever I saw fear on Taggart’s face.
‘You were told by who? Presumably not the deputy guardian or he wouldn’t have sent me to you.’
‘Like I say, that shite doesn’t get his hands dirty. Or rather, his bosses don’t trust him.’
‘Come on, Jimmy, who was it?’
He looked away. ‘I can’t say, sir. I’m almost past it. I wouldn’t last six months underground.’
I nodded. ‘How about we do it this way? I say a name and you nod or shake your head.’
There was sweat on his rutted forehead, but he went along with it.
‘Fergus Calder.’
No dice.
‘Billy Geddes.’
Same again.
‘Jack MacLean?’
Zero from three. I was getting desperate. Then I had it. Although he was seconded to the Supply Directorate, Taggart was still a guardsman and all Guard personnel ultimately answered to the Public Order Directorate. Five years ago that was …
‘The late, not even minimally lamented Hamish Buchanan.’
This time my old comrade gave a single nod.
‘Why are you worried about him?’ Buchanan had been one of the most useless guardians in Council history, his incompetence matched only by his arrogance and spitefulness. I’d never heard that he’d been corrupt, but it didn’t exactly come as a surprise.
Taggart took the file from me and put it back in the cabinet.
‘When the current guardian took over, I sent her office a message asking if the order should be revoked. She wrote back that it was to stand.’
That was interesting. Guardian Doris had been deputy guardian for most of Horrible Hamish’s reign. She would have known more than him about the Public Order Directorate’s secrets. Then it struck me that she hadn’t appointed a deputy. Davie told me she hadn’t had time, but I wondered about that. Did she want a finger in every pie her directorate was baking? Ten would hardly be enough. Not even adding her toes would suffice. She was trading directorate efficiency for personally controlling as much as she could.
‘Right, Jimmy,’ I said. ‘Get that file out again.’
He looked at me in horror.
‘That’s right, you, me and your squad are going to check this week’s shipments.’
‘You’re fucking joking.’
For once in my life I wasn’t.
We were in luck. In the second delivery, one of fine wine from Provence, we found a box of straw containing over five pounds of cocaine.
‘Put it back,’ I said, ‘and seal the consignment.’ I turned to Taggart. ‘Who’s the recipient?’
‘The Tourist Services Department,’ he read from the manifest.
It supplied restaurants, bars and so on in the central zone, but narcotics for the tourists were imported by a unit in the Public Order Directorate. What the hell was going on?
‘Let’s see who comes to pick it up,’ I said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Delivery’s to take place by four o’clock this afternoon.’
I sent the squad about other business and waited with Jimmy Taggart behind a heap of potatoes across the aisle. Half an hour later
a Korean truck backed up and two warehousemen loaded the consignment into its cargo space. After it set off towards the east gate, Taggart and I got into the battered Land Rover he had parked nearby – no new 4×4 for him – and went after it.
‘Tourist Services have a depot down in Stockbridge,’ Jimmy said, wrestling with the elderly vehicle’s wheel. ‘Where that school used to be.’
‘The Academy. I remember playing rugby against them. The bastards always won.’
He grinned. ‘You’d have been upset when it was blown up during the drugs wars, then.’
‘I cried for weeks. Hold on, where’s he going?’
The truck hadn’t taken the turn to Waterloo Place and the north, but headed south after a zigzag on the Canongate. It stopped about half a mile down the Pleasance, outside what had once been a church and was now a disused carpet warehouse. The high windows were blocked with boards and the door was chained and padlocked. There was no sign identifying the building’s purpose or affiliation. The driver had the key. A minute after he’d opened up, a new-looking white van arrived and a citizen in standard-issue grey overalls helped the driver to unload the crates.
‘Prima facie case of thieving,’ Taggart said.
‘We need backup,’ I said, hitting buttons on my phone.
‘Davie?’ I said, giving him our location. ‘Get down here, but don’t tell the command centre or anyone else where you’re going.’
Fortunately the driver and his helper took a break after they’d emptied the back of the truck. We were parked beyond them and they paid no attention to the elderly Land Rover. Its lack of directorate markings helped. I asked Taggart about that.
‘No one cares what I do – obviously because I don’t do anything that counts. There was an order to stencil on the Supply Directorate logo a few months back, but I binned it.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I like to pretend I’m still in the Tactical Operations Squad. We really mattered then.’
I nodded, then watched as a Guard 4×4 pulled up outside the former church. Jimmy Taggart got us down there at speed.
Davie had the situation under control, the driver and his helper on the ground with their hands on their heads.
‘What’s this then, Quint?’ he asked, smacking his nightstick against his palm. ‘Thieving bastards?’
‘Got it in one. IDs please, citizens. No rapid movements.’
‘I already took those from them,’ Davie said, pointing to a pair of flick-knives on the pavement by the 4×4.
I looked at the cards that had been taken from the men’s pockets.
‘Means, Gerald,’ I read. ‘Supply Directorate driver. Date of birth 13/5/2004, eyes blue, hair blond, height five feet nine, weight eleven stone three, address 17 Lochend Avenue.’ I broke off and looked at Davie. ‘In between Leith and Portobello. Which do you think he is? A Lancer or a Pish?’
‘Fuck the Pish!’ said Means, earning a kick in the gut.
‘You weren’t invited to speak,’ Davie said, leaning over the writhing man.
‘How about number two. Yule, George—’
‘D’yer pals call you Log?’ Davie asked.
‘Fuck—’ The citizen doubled up, gasping for air.
‘Can I have a go?’ Taggart asked.
‘Sure, next time they screw up,’ said Davie, with a grin.
‘Barman, Kenilworth Casino, Rose Street.’ I remembered that Skinny Ewan, deceased leader of the Pish, had worked in a George Street establisment. Had the two gangs split up the central zone? ‘Date of Birth 26/12/2002, eyes and hair brown, height five-eleven, weight, twelve-one, address 4 East Hermitage Place.’
‘A Lancer, obviously,’ Davie said.
‘Lancers rule!’
Jimmy Taggart gave the shouter the boot.
‘So,’ I said, ‘two Leith Lancers, a load of expensive wine and five pounds plus of coke.’
‘Is that right?’ Davie said.
‘See if you can find it, Jimmy,’ I said.
After he’d gone inside, I told Davie about the old guardsman’s squad and Guardian Doris’s reconfirmation of the order not to search specific shipments.
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Me neither. Then again, this place is a few hundred yards down the road from your barracks. How could it not have been noticed? They unloaded in broad daylight and it isn’t even raining.’
‘Michael Campbell,’ he said.
Hume 481, last seen in the morgue with his heart missing.
‘Time we went to talk to Hume 01,’ I said.
Jimmy Taggart came out, the package of coke under his arm. ‘You’ve got to see this,’ pointing to the old church’s door.
Davie cuffed the prisoners’ wrists and ankles, then followed us in.
A lot more than forty thieves had put together this treasure trove.
FIFTEEN
‘You’d better get back, Jimmy,’ I said.
‘What about the shipment? My squad will have been seen checking it.’
‘I’ll cover for you. If anyone asks, say I flashed my authorization.’
‘Right you are, sir.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘It’s been a pleasure working with you again. And if you need any backup apart from Thunder Boots here, don’t forget me.’
I shook his hand and watched him drive off.
‘One of the old breed,’ Davie said. ‘Or else I’d have used my thunder boots on him.’ He looked at me. ‘What?’
‘I’m trying to make sense of this. Guardian Doris has Taggart avoiding certain shipments specified by the Supply Directorate every week. Those shipments contain drugs’ – I motioned to the cocaine now lying on the floor of the 4×4 – ‘and plenty of other luxury goods, as in the church. Members of the Leith Lancers pick them up.’
Davie looked over his shoulder to the pair of gang members in the back seat.
‘Are you sure we should be having this conversation in front of them?’
‘You reckon they don’t know who they’re working for?’
Davie grimaced. ‘Steady, Quint.’
‘Let’s ask them.’ I turned round. ‘Who’s in charge of the treasure trove?’
Silence.
‘Davie, have you got those knives? There’s a certain poetic justice about cutting their throats with their own weapons.’
‘Whit kindae justice?’ said George. ‘Gerry, whit’s he sayin’?’
‘Whit’s justice in this shitehole?’ said Gerry, ignoring him.
‘Cut off their noses,’ I ordered.
‘Now you’re talking,’ Davie said, opening one of the blades. ‘Vertically or—’
‘Naw!’ squealed George.
‘Dinnae tell them anythin’, Jaw!’
‘Unconscious, please.’
Davie obliged with a booming left hook.
‘Right then, Jaw,’ I said. ‘Horizontally, I think.’
Davie made a move and the Lancer moved back as far as he could.
‘Stop! I’ll tell ye everythin’.’
‘Been in the Lancers long?’ Davie asked. ‘Only, you’re not very well endowed testicle-wise.’
‘Whit?’
‘He means you’re not the average Lancer nutter,’ I said.
‘Naw, Ahm just a driver.’
‘Uh-huh. Who tells you what to do?’
‘Ah cannae …’
Davie slashed at him with the blade, drawing blood from the tip of his nose.
The shriek could have been heard at the airport.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Davie. ‘He’s pissed himself for a minor flesh wound.’
‘Who tells you what to do?’ I repeated.
‘Ah … oh, Christ … he’s a fitba manager …’
I glanced at Davie. This was getting interesting.
‘Is that right?’ I said. ‘A fine, upstanding body of men.’ I paused. ‘Which one?’
‘Derick … Derick Smail.’
Davie laughed. ‘The Hibee whose team is – or was – home to Pish members. I love i
t.’
I scowled at him. ‘What’s the betting Alec Ferries has got his own heap of treasure somewhere else?’
Davie shrugged.
‘Whit happens now?’ said Jaw.
‘We’re off to the castle.’
This time he only managed a squeak.
I hadn’t forgotten Hume 01 – he had to know about the contents of the church – but I wanted to turn the spotlight on the Hibs manager first. Then there was the guardian. While her predecessor had been a waste of space, I didn’t think she was – nor had she given the slightest impression of being corrupt. A frank conversation was required.
The rain started again as we turned on to the Royal Mile. Fortunately the 4×4 was equipped with an umbrella. Davie and I made it to the command centre reasonably dry, while Jaw and Gerry got very soggy. At least the former’s trousers looked less of a disgrace. They were handed over to Guard personnel with orders to separate them.
‘And now?’ Davie asked.
‘Go and stuff your face. I’ve got something to do. Meet me at Smail’s cell in half an hour.’
He gave me a quizzical look, then let the needs of his stomach prevail.
I looked into the command centre but the guardian wasn’t there, so I headed to her office. Her gatekeeper ushered me straight in.
‘Quint,’ Guardian Doris said from behind a pile of folders. ‘Where have you been?’
I didn’t sit down – I wouldn’t have been able to see her because of the paper barricade.
‘Knox 31,’ I said.
‘Fine old soldier,’ she said, looking up.
She’d been his barracks commander. I’d forgotten that.
‘What about him?’
‘You confirmed an order Hamish Buchanan issued to Jimmy Taggart.’
Her eyes stayed on me. ‘Did I?’
‘He’s at the Supply Directorate.’
‘Oh, I remember. Something about checking certain deliveries.’
I was watching her carefully. I couldn’t see any sign of dissembling.
‘Actually, it was about not checking certain deliveries.’
‘Really? That I don’t recall.’ She stood up. ‘Tell me about it.’
So I did, including the treasure trove on the Pleasance and ending with the package of coke, which I put on top of the pile of files.
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