House of Dust (19 page)

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.

“You took a chance on finding me here,” I said.

“Nice to see you too.” She came up to me and kissed me. “What's wrong with your mobile?”

“Sorry,” I said, holding my face against hers. “I turned it off an hour ago. I'm lying low, trying to keep Slick and the Mist off my back.”

She put her arm through mine. “Do you really think they won't be able to find you if they want to?”

“Course not,” I said ruefully. “Surveillance is the name of the game these days.” I glanced around the street, wondering if there was a camera in the vicinity. You can never be too paranoid.

“What's the matter?” Katharine asked solicitously as we went into the dank stairwell.

“Oh, the Hamilton case. The mutilated boy. That kind of stuff.”

“How is George Faulds?”

I was lost for a moment. “Oh, you mean the man with one arm. I'll tell you later. After I've had a heavy slug of malt and a blast of the blues.”

She laughed. “I'm so glad I decided to come over.”

“I'll make it worth your while, darling.”

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance.

We drank, we shivered in the chill of the gloaming – as it was April, the coal supplies had been reduced – we listened to the old bluesman and we picked at platefuls of hash that I'd made with a lump of bright pink sausage meat. I told Katharine my concerns about Oxford, then she described a normal session at the youth centre: verbal abuse, table tennis and the occasional smile from the city's alienated kids. We even talked about Lewis Hamilton. Katharine didn't seem to harbour any antagonism towards him. Maybe death really does heal all wounds.

“What are you going to do then, Quint?” she said, stifling a yawn.

I moved closer to her on the sofa. “I was thinking about bed. It looks like you're in need of it too.”

She gave me a sidelong glance. “In need of sleep, yes.”

“Aw, come on,” I said. “It's been a long, lonely time.”

She laughed. “That'll be right.”

I put my arm round her graceful neck and pulled her gently towards me. “What do you reckon then, pretty lady?”

Katharine looked at me disapprovingly. “Cut the sweet talk, pal. You're crap at it.”

I sat back, deflated. “Well, thanks.”

“All right,” she said, smiling more encouragingly and getting to her feet. “Give me a minute to wash.”

I touched her rear as she stepped over my legs and got another blast from her eyes for my trouble. These days everything was on Katharine's terms or on no terms. I wasn't over the moon about that, but the hard object in my groin told me to live with it.

There was the sound of running water from the sink in the alcove off my bedroom. Soon the Big Heat would be on us and the water restrictions would kick in. Even in spring, you had to wash your entire anatomy in the sink on the days you weren't on the bathhouse roster. I sincerely hoped Katharine wasn't undertaking that lengthy process. Then the water stopped and the screaming started.

I jumped up and threw myself through the doorway. “What is it?” I shouted.

Katharine was naked above the waist, the small Supply Directorate towel clutched to her chest. She swallowed the last of her screams and nodded mutely towards the head of my bed.

I swung round and felt my stomach cartwheel.

Jesus.

Carefully positioned in the middle of my pillow, the bloody nail pointing at the wall, was a severed finger.

That wasn't all.

Words had been scrawled in red letters above the bedhead, dribbles of what looked very like blood having run down the faded wallpaper. They were words that did nothing to put a brake on my pounding heart.

What they said was “ALL ROADS LEAD TO OXFORD”.

I'd have preferred a less graphic confirmation of my suspicions.

Chapter Nine