The Blood Tree (32 page)

As I followed, I kept my eyes on the king and queen. Suddenly they were looking extremely nervous.

We went up the hill to the top of the graveyard then headed down into the gloom. On this side there were fewer pitchbrands and the streets beyond the boundary fence were ill lit as well.

“Where are we going?” I asked, then tripped over a broken headstone. “Shit!”

Hyslop pulled me to my feet. Her grip was surprisingly powerful. “You were the one who insisted on coming along.” She moved away again quickly.

“Duart was the one who assigned me to you,” I riposted.

“I haven't forgotten,” she said. “Mind the barbed wire here.” She stepped through a gap in the wall. “Don't worry, we're almost there. It's the first road on the left.”

I followed her down the street – at least it was an asphalt surface, though there were plenty of holes. This was obviously not one of Glasgow's more prosperous wards. A pair of stone-faced policemen were standing outside a house half-way down the terrace. As we went in, they nodded respectfully towards the inspector and ignored me.

“How many are there?” Hel asked Haggs when he came down the stairs to meet us.

“Seventeen,” he said, giving me a dismissive glance.

“How many
what
are there?” I asked blankly.

Tam glanced at his boss then answered. “Teenage meat,” he said. “Nine females and—”

“Eight males,” I interrupted. “I can count, sergeant. Or have you developed another gender in Glasgow?”

Haggs stared at me. “Not yet,” he said threateningly, eyes dropping to my groin.

Hyslop nudged him. “Enough. Let's take a look at them.”

So we did. They were split up between the two rooms on the ground floor and their counterparts on the floor above. There were bars on the windows which looked recent and the adolescents in the sparsely furnished sitting- and dining-rooms were very scared. They were dressed in good-quality Glasgow clothes and, apart from their frightened eyes, seemed to be in good health. The fashionable outfits and the teen connection brought Dougal Strachan to my mind.

“That pair of Macbeth wankers was guarding the place,” Tam Haggs said, indicating the kitchen in the rear. The men were lying motionless on the floorboards, automatic pistols beyond their reach. “Don't worry, we didn't use maximum force.”

Hyslop started talking to her subordinate in a low voice. I took the opportunity to go upstairs. Where I got a surprise.

There were three girls and two boys in the front bedroom. I didn't know three of them from Adam or Eve, but I recognised one female and one male – I'd seen their photographs in Welfare Directorate files back home. They were two of the geniuses who'd been abducted from Lauriston Castle. The lad's name was Michael, as far as I remembered; I couldn't be sure of the girl's. I glanced down the stairs. Hyslop and Haggs were still in a huddle.

The two adolescents were sitting together on the bed wearing flash clothes they weren't used to and apprehensive expressions. I went over and gave them an encouraging smile. It didn't have any effect.

“Listen,” I said in a low voice. “I'm from Edinburgh.”

Their eyes sprang wide open.

“I know who you are. You were kidnapped from the facility in Lauriston. You're Michael and you're . . .” I looked at her for help.

“Lesley.” The girl brushed the crinkly red hair back from her ashen face. “Who are you?”

“Dalrymple's the name. You can call me Quint. I work for the Council. After a fashion.”

Michael stared at me. “After a fashion? What does that mean? And what are you doing in Glasgow?”

“Looking for you, among other things. Look, we haven't got much time. Don't tell anyone else that I know who you are.” I glanced round at the other kids in the room. They were more interested in the view from the window than in us. “Who kidnapped you?” I asked, turning back to the kids. “What happened?”

Lesley shivered. “We were out in the grounds.” She gave me a terrified look. “Then they came.”

“Who came?”

The boy had dropped his gaze. “Men in kind of medieval costumes,” he said haltingly.

“Did you see their faces?”

They both shook their heads.

“They were wearing masks,” Michael said. “Horrible masks with scars all over them.”

“How many were there?”

“Three,” Lesley replied. “One big guy with a long cloak and two others – they were smaller – in leather jerkins and sort of breeches.”

I nodded, hearing feet on the stairs. “Have you seen them since?”

Michael shrugged. “They put blindfolds on us not long after we were taken.”

“We were on a boat,” Lesley put in. “Then they brought us here.” She registered the alarm in my face as the footsteps reached the landing. “Where's Dougal? He was with us on the boat but we haven't seen him since.”

I stepped back. “I'll try to find him,” I said, unable to tell them what had happened to their friend. “You'll be all right now. Just do what they tell you.”

The door banged open.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Haggs demanded, gazing fiercely at me.

“What you should be doing,” I said, brushing past him. “Giving these poor kids a kind word.”

That only made him laugh.

I heard a policewoman making arrangements on the phone. The adolescents were going to be put up in a city hostel after their statements had been taken by the Cult Squad. I was trying to work out what the hell was going on. What did the crazed actor and his ghoulish queen want with Edinburgh's next generation of geniuses?

“Right,” Hyslop said when I came down the stairs. “Time to interrogate the man who would be king.” She stepped outside and commandeered a Llama. “Are you coming?”

I nodded. “What about Haggs?”

“He'll be along shortly,” she said. “Since when did you care about his movements?”

The answer was, since I'd found the kidnapped kids. I didn't want him extricating the fact that I knew who they were. I could only hope that they'd keep their mouths shut. They were Edinburgh's brightest but at this moment they also looked like Edinburgh's edgiest.

“Why was Macbeth keeping a house full of lads and lassies?” I asked as Hel drove round the eastern slope of the necropolis to where she'd left her own vehicle.

She glanced at me. “That's what we're about to squeeze out of him.”

“Yeah, but you've got suspicions, haven't you?” I was thinking about Dougal Strachan again – should I tell her his identity?

“Oh yes,” she said sibilantly, “I've got suspicions all right.”

In a flash it came to me why Macbeth looked familiar. The guy with the American that I'd met at the banquet, the one who'd been staring at me so intently. He had had the same gaunt features. “They wouldn't happen to have any connection with the Rennie Institute, would they?” I asked, remembering the location of Dougal Strachan's body.

She was nodding slowly. “I would say you're heading in the right direction, Quint. Kelvingrove is definitely in the frame.”

“East is east but west is best,” I said, rubbing my chin. I hadn't had a chance to shave recently and I was beginning to feel like a Haggs replica. Bad news.

The inspector pulled up by her own Llama. “I couldn't agree with you more,” she said, jumping down.

“Only joking,” I said. “The east of Scotland is much gentler than the west. This place is wild, man. Wild and nasty.”

She shook her head at me like she didn't know what I was talking about. That gave me a warm feeling inside.

Macbeth was in the corner office off the squadroom, in the chair Leadbelly had been shackled to. Another chair had been brought in for his lady queen. She was staring at the wall as if it wasn't there, but the king was more agitated. He kept shaking his chains and chewing his lips.

“This is an outrage,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I demand to see my lawyer. You have no right—”

“We have every right to detain you.” Duart had walked in without any of us noticing.

Hyslop and Haggs stiffened but I stayed slumped against the wall. My lack of sleep had caught up with me big-time.

Macbeth jerked round in his chair. “On what charge?” he demanded. “Mister Duart.” He pronounced the title like it was a blasphemy from one of his tame witches.

Glasgow's number one operator twitched his lips. His expression was as inscrutable as ever, but the way his eyelashes quivered made me think he might be excited by what was going on.

“The charge is a matter for the Major Crime Squad,” Duart said, glancing at Hyslop. “And the police are entitled to hold you without recourse to legal representation for six hours.”

That wasn't long. The City Guard in Edinburgh would have serious difficulty operating under a restriction like that – then again, they were used to keeping suspects without charge and on a few crumbs of mouldy bread and a sip of water for as long as they liked.

Macbeth had turned his regal gaze on me. “Who is this individual?” he asked. “He wears no warrant badge. Why is he here?”

Andrew Duart strode over to the shackled figure in the chair and leaned over till his face was only a couple of inches away from Macbeth's. “This individual is Quintilian Dalrymple, Edinburgh's foremost investigator.”

For a moment the king looked surprised, but he quickly regained his composure. “You're evading my question, Mister Duart. Why is he here?”

The first secretary grinned at the prisoner. “He's here to help us nail your arse, Mister Rennie.”

I suddenly felt awake again.

“And after we've nailed your arse,” Duart continued, “we're going to nail your brother's. Don't imagine your links with the institute are unknown to us.”

Now I understood the suspicions Hel Hyslop had alluded to as well. Things were beginning to come together – but I was still more in the dark than an Edinburgh citizen in the suburbs after curfew. Time for a private word with the chief.

I caught up with Duart as he entered the main squadroom, before he rejoined his aides. “Hang on a minute,” I said. “You owe me an explanation or two.”

He raised a hand to stop his gang in their tracks. “About what, Quint?” he asked softly.

“Don't play games, Andy,” I said. My tone discouraged him from objecting to the diminutive. “No one bothered to tell me that Rennie and Macbeth are brothers. Don't you think that would have been a good idea?”

Duart stroked his cheek with perfectly manicured fingers. “Possibly. I did consider it after the boy's body was found near the institute.” He let out a sigh. “But, you see, I'm concerned that I have become obsessed by the activities of Professor Rennie. The same probably goes for Inspector Hyslop and her team. I wanted your objective take on the investigation.”

I gave him the eye. He stood up to it but that didn't make him any more credible to me. “What about Leadbelly?” I demanded.

“Leadbelly?” he asked, his lips twitching. “You mean the prime suspect you're so fond of?”

I nodded. “The suspect who works at the Rennie, who remembers nothing about the murder he supposedly committed and who supposedly tried to kill himself in police custody.”

Duart's expression hardened. “I'm not comfortable with those implications.”

“Aren't you?” I opened my eyes wide at him. “You wouldn't be trying to frame an institute employee by any chance, would you? Or doing away with a fall guy who might spill something more than you expected?” I gave him a tight smile. “Just suggestions from an objective observer, you understand.”

He clicked his fingers for an aide and took a file from him. “This is the report on the attempted suicide.” He handed it to me. “Read it. You'll find that one of Inspector Hyslop's men discovered the prisoner on a routine check only a few minutes after he'd strung himself up. That hardly suggests attempted murder.”

I took the file. “Might have been an officer who wasn't in on the scam.”

Duart shook his head contemptuously. “Concentrate on the real villains, Quint – the madman in there and his power-hungry brother.” The sharp smile he gave me relegated mine to the lower divisions. “That way you might just see Edinburgh's soot-stained buildings again.”

I got his drift.

Chapter Fifteen

I love an all-night interrogation. The way Hyslop and Haggs went after Macbeth and his queen suggested that they did too. We gave the suspects the hard man/soft man, hard woman/hard man, soft woman/hard men routines – every permutation of method and gender in the book. We offered them deals, we threatened them, Haggs even put the boot into one of the cult followers in front of the leaders. Nothing. No boogie. Not a sausage. The pair of them kept up the imperial act, staring at us with measured arrogance and only deigning to answer monosyllabically – which on most occasions meant the word “no”. About the only thing they admitted to was their real names. He was Derek Rennie and she'd been Wendy Windsor in the real world. Given the antics of the former United Kingdom's former royal family, you could see why she'd changed her name as well as her image.