The Blood Tree (6 page)

“Right, let's recap,” I said, stifling a yawn. “As far as we know, the intruders were only interested in this file . . .” I tapped the folder with the bloodstain “. . . and Attachment Number Two has been removed from it.”

The public order guardian moved his head dispiritedly.

“We'll have to get some senior auxiliaries to go through the other files more thoroughly.” I pointed at the heap of folders at the other end of the table. They were the neighbouring ones from the stack which Davie had delivered outside the door earlier. He'd sounded very unimpressed when the guardian wouldn't let him in. No doubt he was now tearing several strips off the poor sods working the night shift in the command centre.

“But so far there's no sign of anything having been taken from them.”

“No.” I looked over at the guardian. His bloodshot eyes stared out between the white of his hair and beard. “Of course, they could have taken papers from completely separate folders. You'll have to get the whole archive checked.”

“I'll think about that tomorrow,” Hamilton said, waving his hand weakly.

“It's already tomorrow, Lewis.” I reined myself in a bit. My ex-boss looked like one of the city's ancient diesel-spewing buses had recently run into him. “Anyway, as I said, one of the attachments is missing. And we don't know what it contained.”

The guardian nodded. He hadn't allowed me to read anything other than the cover sheet of the folder. All it told me was that the contents related to three meetings of the Genetic Engineering Committee in April 2002. It gave the names of the Members of the Scottish Parliament, bureaucrats and scientists present, none of which I recognised.

“What was so interesting about a parliamentary committee nearly twenty-five years ago?” I mused.

“You were still in short trousers then, weren't you?” Hamilton said, without much evidence of playfulness.

“I was eighteen,” I said, giving him a sharp look. “And a fully paid-up member of the Enlightenment.” I shook my head. “That may well have been a mistake.”

“The Enlightenment Party was the forerunner of the Council,” the guardian said. “How could it have been a mistake to join it?”

“Oh, forget it,” I said under my breath. Suddenly I was bombarded by images and memories from that time. I'd just started at the university and for all the social unrest and drugs-gang-inspired chaos, I was full of the joys of life. Not for long. I wondered how many of my friends from that time were still alive, let alone in Edinburgh – plenty had deserted in the early years of the Council, seduced by the allure of supposedly democratic cities like Glasgow.

“We'll continue later. I need to get Council authorisation for you to read that file.” Hamilton raised his shoulders. “Sorry, Dalrymple.”

I shrugged back at him. “Your loss, not mine. I want to check on Hector then hit my bed.”

Hamilton looked at me blankly then concentrated on the checklist he'd written in his notebook. “I'll get the forensics people to examine the folder for traces and compare the blood with the spots you found on the floor.”

“I don't think they'll find much. I couldn't see any fingerprints with my lens. Whoever laid hands on this file was wearing gloves.” I raised my right hand which was still sheathed in its protective glove; the rubber dangled loosely from the stump of the forefinger. “Not heavy labourer's ones but thin ones like these, which were cut by the edge of a sheet of paper. Whence the blood traces and not much else.”

The guardian went on down his list. “The guard will also be checking the removal of the equipment from the Labour Directorate depot and getting statements from all personnel involved.”

“I smell something rotten in that directorate,” I said. “Someone supplied the bogus workmen with a job authorisation that convinced the sentry. Maybe that someone also let them into the depot.”

Hamilton looked at me aggressively like he always did when I accused auxiliaries of corruption. Then he nodded. “You may be right. I'll have the senior auxiliaries from the relevant departments in.”

I stood up unsteadily and stretched my heavy limbs. “Right, Lewis. That only leaves one thing before I get my head down.”

He finished writing another note and raised his eyes slowly. “And what's that, Dalrymple?”

“Genetic engineering's been banned in this city for over twenty years,” I said, meeting his gaze. “It hasn't been going on. So why's this file making you jumpier than a filly before her first outing on the racetrack in Princes Street Gardens?”

Hamilton claimed he didn't know what I was talking about. That didn't surprise me much, so I left him to his scribbling and headed for the esplanade. Under low cloud, the elevated parking area seemed to float in the air above the dim lights of the central zone. I flashed my directorate authorisation at a guard driver and got him to take me to the infirmary. Like I say, I only pull strings when absolutely necessary – and when I'm shagged out.

I stood at the glass partition in the ICU and stared at the old man. He was still hooked up to all sorts of tubes and drips and it was difficult to make out his face. There seemed to be a placid expression on it. The senior nursing auxiliary was optimistic about his chances but couldn't give any firm prognosis. I told her I'd be back later and returned to the Land-Rover. By the time I was dropped off outside my flat in Gilmore Place the first tinges of watery light had appeared in the eastern sky. So much for the night.

The stairwell let out its familiar discharge of sewage gas and infrequently washed bodies. I fumbled my way up in the darkness – the electricity supply to citizen accommodation isn't turned back on until the end of the curfew at six-thirty – and eventually managed to get my key in the lock. Although my living-room was as black as the heart of a drugs gang boss, I was capable of navigating my way to the bedroom on the other side. It wasn't the first time I'd come home after Council-approved bedtime.

I dumped my bag on the hamstrung sofa and heard the springs complain metallically. Then I pushed the bedroom door open, pulled off my donkey jacket and sat down heavily on the bed.

“Ow.” An arm was wrenched from underneath me. “Mind where you put your backside, Quint.”

“Jesus,” I gasped, my heart pounding from the shock of finding my bed occupied. “Thanks for letting me know you were coming, Katharine.”

“Where have you been?” she asked sleepily. “What time is it?”

I found the matches on the rickety bedside table and lit what remained of my last candle; I'd been putting off queuing at the local Supply Directorate store.

“It's so early in the morning that you're better off not knowing,” I said, peering at her in the candle's feeble light. Her light brown hair was tangled and she was having difficulty opening her eyes, but she still looked a million dollars – not that a million dollars is a big deal in the remaining United States these days, what with the volcanic inflation that resulted from religious fundamentalist-inspired civil war.

“Great.” She slumped back on the pillow and pulled the blanket up to her neck.

“You want to complain? I didn't close my eyes once last night.”

“So close them now,” she sighed, turning over.

I finished undressing. The cold started nipping at the extremities of my body before I got under the covers.

“Are you going to tell me where you've been or not?” Katharine murmured. “Not that I'm particularly bothered.” She put her foot on my shin and rubbed it a couple of times. She obviously hadn't forgotten the fight we'd had, but at least she was making some effort to move on from it.

I felt awkward about hitting her with my bad news. I forced myself. “Hector's had a heart attack.”

“What?” Katharine turned to face me in an instant, her eyes wide. “Is he . . . ?”

“It's all right. He survived it, at least so far. He's under intensive care in the infirmary.”

“Oh Quint, I'm so sorry.” Katharine took my hand then leaned forward and pressed her face into my shoulder. “What happened?”

I told her about events in the retirement home and the aftermath in the infirmary. “Sophia made sure he got the best treatment,” I concluded.

Katharine's green eyes flashed for a second then she nodded. She and the medical guardian had a relationship based on mutual loathing, but there was no getting away from Sophia's icy competence.

“God, Quint, how awful,” she said with unusual tenderness. “You must have been at the hospital all night.”

I nestled against her, too exhausted to say anything about the archive break-in.

“Don't worry,” Katharine said a few moments later. “I'm here.”

As I fell into what was more like paralysis than sleep, I found that very comforting.

Unfortunately the paralysis didn't extend to my mind. I drifted in and out of consciousness like a junkie or a post-prandial pre-Enlightenment politician. Images of the old man with his legs rigid and his lips blue faded and were cut with the skeletal figures of workmen in reflective jackets. Then the dark blue cover of a Scottish Parliament folder was suspended before me like a medieval vision of the Holy Writ leading an army into battle. I opened my eyes and took in the sparse furniture and dingy walls of my bedroom in the autumnal morning light. I could hear sounds from the corner of the living-room where the Housing Directorate locates what passes for a kitchen.

My body was still numb so I lay there like a corpse and thought about the Council's short, sharp treatment of genetic engineering. During the four-year existence of the Scottish Parliament, experiments involving genes and embryos got seriously out of hand. They were encouraged, both above and below board, by the Parliament because of the potentially vast financial benefits. By the year 2000 the research institute responsible for the famous cloned sheep Dolly had been joined by several other such facilities, not all of them interested solely in scientific profits. Rumours soon began to circulate in what was left of the free press that experiments in human cloning were under way – and that large sums of money were flowing in, especially from countries such as the United States where such work was illegal. There was a lot of secrecy surrounding the experiments, mainly because the foreign investors insisted on it, but it was common knowledge amongst people in the know – which included many of the founders of the Enlightenment Party – that cloned human offspring had been produced by 2002. Then the riots got serious, the drugs gangs took control and the United Kingdom and its component parts were torn to shreds. By the time the Council came to power in Edinburgh and declared an independent state, the research centres had been destroyed and people were more interested in where their next meal was coming from than in genetic engineering. Members of the Enlightenment had always disapproved of cloning on ethical grounds, despite their mentor Plato's interest in eugenics, so it was easy for the guardians to ban all such experiments. End of story – until someone took great pains to break into the sealed archive and nick a Genetic Engineering Committee file attachment.

“Coffee?” Katharine was standing at the door with a mug of something that I had a feeling smelled a lot better than it tasted. I occasionally manage to lay my hands on coffee from the tourist hotels, but I have to cut it with citizen-issue ersatz to make it last.

I managed to make an affirmative noise. She handed me the mug and sat down beside me. She was wearing standard-issue white blouse and black trousers but, as usual, she looked much better than the average female citizen, her long legs striking even beneath the poor-quality material. She'd added a pink and black scarf to stick out from the crowd.

I glanced at my watch and saw it was nearly nine. “No work?” I asked after I'd cleared my mouth and throat with a couple of gulps of surprisingly good coffee – Katharine was less stingy with the real thing than I was.

She shook her head. “I've got today off. I thought I'd spend it with you.”

“Ah. I have to go and see the old man.”

“I know,” she said. “I'll come too.” Katharine and Hector were fond of each other, probably because they recognised their shared ability to be self-sufficient and awkward in diamonds as well as spades.

“Okay,” I said, trying to kick-start my legs.

It was only as I raised myself out of bed like a revivified mummy that it struck me: Katharine and I were bound to run into Sophia at the infirmary. Light blue touch-paper and retire.

The sun actually made an effort to break through the leaden clouds as we walked up Lauriston Place, then thought better of it and signed off for the day. Katharine surprised me by slipping her arm under mine and smiling at me encouragingly. Serious illness in my family was doing wonders for flagging relationships.

“He's a tough old soul,” she said. “He's got years in him yet.”

“Wait till we see what state he's in today.” I moved inwards on the pavement as a tourist coach passed. It was only half full. In the past, even in autumn, it would have been crammed with foreigners attracted by the low prices. A boy with his hair in beads raised his fingers to his nose and mouthed abuse at us. I resisted the temptation to flash my mutilated finger at him, but it was a close thing.

We were dodging ambulances in the infirmary courtyard when my mobile rang.

“Yes, Lewis,” I said before the caller spoke.

“Ah, Dalrymple.” The public order guardian went quiet. “How did you know—”

“Investigator's intuition,” I said.

He grunted. “Where are you? I was expecting you at the castle before now.”

“Unlike guardians, ordinary citizens need a minimum of three hours' sleep a night. I'm going to visit Hector. I'll be with you afterwards. Out.”

That made me feel better. There's no better start to the day than hanging up on a guardian.