House of Dust (12 page)

Billy Geddes nodded sullenly. His eyes flashed as the headman stalked off to join the Oxford group. “Understood, Slick,” he said under his breath.

I spotted Andrew Duart talking to the Mist and decided to rescue him. Hamilton's deputy made her excuses when I arrived and went to find someone who was more deeply in love with the concept of imprisonment.

“I understand you've made some progress with the case of the arm in the administrator's bath, Quint.” The Glaswegian was also dressed to the nines but, unlike the Edinburgh dignitaries, he could carry haute couture off. In the sunshine his hair and goatee beard had an even darker lustre than before: he'd been at the bottle again.

I nodded and glanced down at his shoes. From above it was impossible to tell the pattern of the soles; not that I seriously imagined he'd been in the tenement in Leith – his feet were much smaller than the prints that had been found. “Some progress, yes,” I said, taking a leaf from Slick's book: no disclosure is good disclosure.

The first secretary of Glasgow smiled. “Don't worry. Administrator Raphael's kept me fully informed.”

“Has she now?” I glanced across at the Oxford party. They were standing close to the obelisk, being addressed by the senior guardian. Raphael was in her high-necked black suit. She looked as regal as ever, but the way her eyes kept flicking in all directions made me curious. “The business with the arm seems to have given the administrator quite a turn,” I said.

Duart raised an eyebrow. “Do you think so? She's a very controlled person, Quint. I don't think she'll let it distract her.”

I watched as Lewis Hamilton joined the group at the foot of the vertical stone needle. He responded to the words Raphael directed at him with an expansive gesture that took in the guard personnel on the walls and towers all around, and on the ridge of the Calton Hill to the rear. It wasn't hard to guess what he was saying: something along the lines of “Don't worry, we've covered every angle.” But what was it that the administrator was nervous about? As I watched, she turned away and raised the device that hung round her neck. Then she spoke into it briefly. I wondered who was on the other end; and what she was talking about.

Davie came up when Duart went into conference with his assistant.

“Anything new, big man?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Still no witnesses coming forward. The Leith Lancers we picked up this morning are keeping their gobs tightly shut.”

“Nothing else from the scene-of-crime squad?”

“Nope. And the victim's still out cold.” He looked round at his colleagues. “I'm bloody glad I'm not in charge of security for this jaunt. There are enough guard units outside to rerun the Battle of Bannockburn.”

“Let's hope the youth gangs don't do too much damage in other parts of the city while they're on parade here.”

He nodded, his expression grim.

“Of course,” I continued, “the mass of uniformed guard personnel might be just the cover our arm-remover needs if I'm right about him or her having guard clothing.”

Davie laughed. “That won't be enough. The Mist has got a hand-picked squad of senior auxiliaries checking everyone's ID every few minutes.”

“She's running the show then, is she?”

“Aye.” Davie's tone showed what he thought of that.

“We're bound to be okay then,” I said. “As long as a real sea mist doesn't roll in from the Forth and get in everyone's eyes.”

There wasn't much chance of that. Visibility in all directions was perfect. I could even see the guard-post on the Lion's Head, the summit of Arthur's Seat. The armoured glass of its narrow windows was glinting in the sunlight.

It certainly was the perfect day for an open-air ceremony.

A few minutes before eleven, guests and local nobs began to gather around a wooden dais that had been placed between the obelisk and the east wall. I pulled out my mobile and tried Katharine again. Still no answer, either from her mobile or from her office in the welfare centre. She was probably making a home visit to the poor woman whose son's wrist had been broken.

I froze as something grabbed my left calf.

“Man,” said a small voice.

“Maisie. Hello.” I bent down and gently disengaged the toddler's arms. “What are you doing here?”

She gave me a shy smile. “Man,” she repeated.

“I've been making sure she can tell the difference,” Sophia said drily.

I looked up and took in the medical guardian. She was wearing the standard tweed jacket and corduroy trousers her rank wears – no dressing up at Slick's behest for her. “Bit young, isn't she?” I said with a smile.

She led her daughter towards a space next to Lewis Hamilton. “You can never be too careful, Quint.”

I was about to give her my views on gender-biased indoctrination, but the public order guardian's frown shut me up.

“Get into line, Dalrymple,” he said in a hoarse whisper. He'd obviously been giving his larynx a hard time – defending his directorate to the senior guardian, I guessed.

What he meant by “into line” was behind him, on the opposite side of the dais from Slick and the Mist. I wasn't complaining.

“Everything ready to roll, Lewis?” I asked in a low voice.

“Don't ask me,” he said, shaking his head. “That bloody deputy of mine has taken over the entire planning and execution of this event.”

“Interesting terminology,” I said, glancing up at the fortified towers of the former Governor's House. I wouldn't have put it past the Mist to have installed a gallows or similar mechanism in the new prison, despite the Council's official opposition to capital punishment. I wondered how long it would be until state-approved murder got a clause in the City Regulations.

Hamilton looked round at me, his cheeks red above the heavy white beard. “Do you realise that I haven't even been invited to make a speech?” He looked like he wanted to spit rather than orate. “I'm the public order guardian and I'm not allowed to have anything to do with my directorate's biggest project in years.”

I almost felt sorry for the old curmudgeon. “Take it easy, Lewis,” I said. “You're well out of it. The incarceration policy stinks.”

Sophia turned and glared at me. “Be quiet, Quint,” she hissed. “There are more effective ways of bringing about change. If you don't want to be here then go away.”

I was about to tell her where to go when I caught sight of Maisie's face. The little girl was holding her mother's hand tightly, the expression under her maroon woollen hat a picture. She had her lips pursed like an angry schoolmistress and she was moving her eyebrows up and down. I couldn't resist smiling at her.

Then the speeches started and my mood swung back to thunderous.

It could have been worse. The senior guardian gave an address that sang the praises of the incarceration policy, of the new-look, distinctly non-user-friendly Corrections Department and its senior officials – I thought for a moment that he might have a hankering for the Mist, but decided that not even Slick could be that desperate – and of the “invaluable expertise provided by New Oxford”. If he'd been hoping to improve his standing with the Oxford administrator, he was on a hiding to nowhere. Although her eyes were still more mobile than those of the sentry on the David Hume memorial turret, she wasn't favouring the senior guardian with any attention. It looked like she had other things on her mind.

Then the Mist got her chance to impress. She hoisted her heavy frame on to the platform and surveyed the crowd like a magician about to produce a rabbit from a guard beret. Then she pointed to her left, towards a raised gangway that had been built between the mass of the main prison building and the exercise yard.

“Send down the first prisoners!” she ordered, the sound system amplifying her voice well beyond the pain threshold.

Everybody watched as a sorry collection of individuals in luminous yellow overalls walked slowly down towards us. At first I thought they were auxiliaries dressed up as inmates, then I recognised some of them. They were all young men, most of them with dark bruising on their faces.

“Christ,” I muttered, looking round at Davie in the row behind. “Those are the Leith Lancers the guard's been questioning.”

He nodded, looking over my shoulder.

I turned back and was confronted by Hamilton's angry features. “Did you authorise the transfer of those citizens to the New Bridewell, Dalrymple?” he demanded.

“Of course not. Did you?”

Hamilton shook his head. “Certainly not. It must have been that—”

I didn't catch what he said when he turned his head in the direction of his deputy, which was a pity – it was obviously choice.

“These prisoners are the first to learn the cost of criminal activity,” the Mist continued, her voice even shriller now. “The New Bridewell will soon be renowned for the discipline it imposes. We owe such discipline to our citizens and” – she broke off and bowed obsequiously to a group of foreign tour company representatives – “and to our honoured paying guests.”

There followed a description of the rigours awaiting the poor sods on the walkway: reveille at five a.m., compulsory cold baths, compulsory social responsibility lessons, eight-hour work details and the like. None of the youth gang members looked keen but they were keeping their mouths shut. I was sure they'd already had a practical lesson in the length, breadth and weight of the billyclubs carried by the warders to their rear.

After what seemed an eternity – during which I counted the seagulls landing on and taking off from the roof of the Waverley Hotel to the west and gave up after a hundred – Raeburn 124 ran out of propaganda and looked encouragingly at Administrator Raphael.

“And finally, I extend Edinburgh's thanks and gratitude to the members of the New Oxford delegation for their guidance in this vital project.” I caught sight of Billy Geddes's face as the Mist said those words. His lips were twisted in a sardonic smile. He knew as well as I did that very few of the Council's subjects were keen on the prison.

“I now call upon the leader of that delegation to address us,” Hamilton's deputy concluded.

The way that Raphael fixed her eyes on the Mist gave me the distinct impression that she was not happy. She stood firm amid her begowned colleagues and almost glowered. I wondered if she'd been taken by surprise. Perhaps she'd said earlier that she wouldn't give a speech, but was now unable to refuse the offer in public. She set her lips in a tight line, shot a last irate glance at Raeburn 124 and started walking.

To my astonishment she headed straight for Lewis Hamilton and grabbed him firmly by the arm.

“Come, guardian,” Raphael said in firm tones, “you and I will both say a few words.”

Hamilton stood up straight, his chest in the guardian-issue dark suit poking out like a soldier on a parade ground. “Delighted, administrator,” he said, removing her hand from his arm with a grimace of what looked like pain. “After you.” He glanced over her shoulder at me, his features triumphant

Raphael nodded and set off towards the platform.

It was then that everything went into slow motion. Suddenly my senses seemed to be operating in a different dimension. I could hear perfectly – hear the raucous screams of the gulls and the dull grind of the buses on the North Bridge. I even picked up the strangled squeal from the set of bagpipes that a negligent guard bandsman let slip. And I could smell the new paint on the walkway above, as well as the dust coating the recently laid aggregate. But all the movements I saw – the wind in Sophia's hair, the Corrections Department flag fluttering on the pole behind the dais, the flick of Raphael's black woollen tail coat – were reduced in speed so they were gradual and agonising as if, without warning, the atmosphere around us had somehow become viscous.

The first thing that happened was that Maisie slipped her hand out of her mother's grasp and tottered after Hamilton, her stubby legs in the bright blue suit struggling against the thick layer of gravel. By this time the guardian was level with Administrator Raphael. He stopped and stood at attention next to her. Then both of them caught sight of the little girl, their eyes directed downwards. And then Maisie stumbled and fell forwards. I could hear the sharp intake of breath from numerous spectators as well as an involuntary gasp from Sophia.

Raphael and Hamilton were way ahead of her. They both leaned over rapidly, arms outstretched to break the toddler's fall. I watched as one end of the multicoloured scarf Sophia had wrapped round her daughter's tiny neck flew up like a playful foal's mane. Then the administrator, her reactions a lot faster than the guardian's, had caught Maisie, the outside of her hands brushing the stones as she received the full weight of the child.

But by that time no one was looking at Raphael and Maisie any longer. At the same moment that the two females came together without disturbing the gravel too much, Lewis Hamilton continued the movement that he'd started when he saw the wee girl trip. With a crash that my heightened senses clearly registered, he hit the ground flat out.

It was only when I pushed through the line of VIPs ahead of me that I began to make any sense of the sounds my ears had picked up before Lewis went down. First there had been a high-pitched whine that seemed to lower in tone as it got louder. It had been followed almost immediately by a solid clap that made me think of a large fish slapping against the gunwale of a boat. The result was that an inch-wide hole suddenly blossomed in the rear left shoulder of the public order guardian's jacket.

Pandemonium was an understatement for what subsequently broke loose in the prison compound's former bone yard.

Chapter Six