FIVE

‘Croissant, coffee and … no banana.’ Davie tried to look apologetic. ‘Bananas are off today. But I got you a nice pear.’

I had slumped on the sofa.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he demanded. ‘Big case, no clues, only you can solve it … the city’s your mussel.’

‘Dreamed about my women,’ I mumbled.

‘You don’t want to do that,’ he said, putting my breakfast on the table.

‘Besides, plenty more citizens in the, well, not in the sea obviously …’

I gave him the Katharine Kirkwood memorial glare. She and Davie used to get on worse than Mary, Queen of Scots and the English cousin who chopped her head off.

‘By “no clues” I take it you mean the Guard sweep squads haven’t picked up anything.’

‘Correct.’

‘What are you looking so happy about?’

‘At least there weren’t any more hearts at the city’s football grounds. We’ve even checked all the schools.’

I sipped my coffee without screwing up my face. I still hadn’t got used to that. ‘I suppose that’s something. Get your Herculean brain round this.’ I told him about the hearts in Glasgow and Inverness.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘Join the club.’

‘No, I mean how does the former Heriot 07 know about the other cities?’ Davie had never forgiven Billy for his egregious scheming and avoided using his name.

‘It seems that Fergus Calder and Jack MacLean are in frequent touch with them.’

‘Does the Council know about that?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s keep it that way for the time being.’

‘Who am I going to tell?’

‘The public order guardian? Speaking of Doris, I think we’d better not tell her about the blonde woman at Tynecastle either. It’ll just complicate things.’

Davie looked at me suspiciously. ‘I’m only seconded to you, Quint. My loyalties are still with the directorate.’

I bit into the pear. It was surprisingly juicy, which made me wonder where it came from. One of Billy’s deals with some foreign state? As far as I knew, the Agriculture Directorate didn’t run to fruit trees. Then again, where did the bananas come from? Had global warming turned Aquitaine into a banana republic?

‘Your loyalties lie with me, my friend, and have done for thirteen years. Think how much I’ve taught you. I remember how keen you were to learn from the master when you first ran up those stairs.’

That shut him up for a few moments.

‘What are we doing today?’ he asked, making a move for my croissant.

‘Leave that alone. How many have you already had?’

He muttered something.

‘What?’

‘Seven.’

‘Right, I’m reporting you to your boss.’

‘Like she’d care.’

‘Well, let’s cheer her up. Answer your own question.’

‘Those scumbag drugs-gang bosses in the dungeons.’

‘Bullseye.’

When we got to the castle, we compared my list of missing people with the Guard’s, the latter being considerably larger. Only one of mine – not the young men – was repeated. Davie got squads sent to the young men’s houses. There wasn’t time for my velvet-glove approach.

A quarter of an hour later we were going down the slippery steps that led to Edinburgh’s only remaining prison. It was packed, though there were only twenty cells. The Guard personnel assigned to the dungeons were volunteers who had substantial experience on the city line or the border – the only places where firearms were issued. Here they had to make do with truncheons, although they also had their standard-issue auxiliary knives.

‘Citizen Dalrymple,’ said the burly guardsman at the bottom of the steps. ‘You’ll have to share a cell, I’m afraid.’

‘Very funny, Rab.’ I knew him of old. He was one of many Guard members who thought I was an insult to the Enlightenment. Which, to be fair, much of the time I was. I turned to Davie. ‘What are the guys we want to see called?’

‘Jackson “Swallow Ma Pish” Greig and “Muckle” Anthony Robertson.’

‘Yellow Jacko and Muckle Tony,’ put in Guardsman Rab.

I smiled. ‘That’ll be a help. We don’t want to antagonize them by getting their names wrong.’

‘Yes, we do,’ said Davie.

‘This way.’ Rab – Raeburn 97 – led us down a long passage with iron doors on either side. ‘We keep them away from each other.’

‘So they don’t plot and scheme?’ I asked.

He laughed. ‘No chance. They hate each other.’

That could be useful.

‘Right,’ said Rab. ‘This is Yellow Jacko’s abode.’ He inserted and turned a key that looked like it dated from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. ‘Visitors, you piece of piss!’ He turned to Davie. ‘Keep a hand on your knife. He’s a serious head-banger.’

‘I’ve read his file.’

‘Have you?’ I said. ‘Thanks for the briefing.’

‘Guard Eyes Only.’

I jabbed my elbow into his midriff, where it encountered firm layers of muscle.

‘Sit down, Citizen Greig,’ I said.

‘Fuck you.’

Davie went over quickly and hit him in the abdomen. The prisoner obviously didn’t work out like he did. When he’d caught his breath, we started again.

‘What’s he in for?’ I asked Davie.

‘Seven counts of murder, one of running a drugs gang, three of crossing the city line, seventeen of grievous bodily harm and one of possession of firearms.’

‘Ya fuckers, where are ma Uzis?’ the skinny, bald figure on the bed said hoarsely.

‘Don’t worry,’ Davie said, ‘the Guard’s making good use of them. Baltic Barracks in Leith has got them. That’s your old territory, isn’t it, shitebag?’

‘Drink ma pish.’

‘No today, thanks,’ I said, obviously having been allocated the role of good interrogator. ‘Citizen Greig, we’d like to ask you some questions.’

‘Drink ma—’

‘Boring,’ Davie said, going over to the covered bucket in the corner. ‘Fancy consuming the contents of this?’

‘Ye cannae dae that!’

‘I think you’ll find he can,’ I said emolliently. ‘How about a few answers? It won’t take long. Or it’ll take all day and you’ll have the taste of your own urine in your mouth.’

‘That’s not all that’s in here,’ Davie said.

‘Splendid. So what do you say, Jacko.’

‘Yous fuckers dinnae get tae call me that.’

‘I’m sorry – Yellow.’

‘Fu—’ The prisoner broke off as Davie stepped towards him. ‘Whit is it ye want?’

‘Have you ever cut someone’s heart out?’

‘Nuh.’

‘He cut a thirteen-year-old boy’s hands off,’ Davie supplied.

I swallowed the wave of bile that rose in my throat. ‘Do you know of anyone else in the gangs who cut out a heart?’

‘Aye. That cunt Muckle Tony.’

Davie nodded. ‘After Pish here sent a young woman to infiltrate Robertson’s gang, the Leith Lancers.’

‘Cut off her airms and legs tae, the bastard,’ Grieg said, shaking his head so his long greasy hair obscured his face.

I glanced at Davie. ‘Are we in the right place?’

‘Possibly not.’

We got up and headed for the door.

‘Hey, whit aboot me? I want a favour for talkin’.’

Davie put the bucket down as Rab opened up. ‘The favour is you aren’t sitting with your own turds for headwear.’

‘That was short and sweet,’ Guardsman Rab said as he led us further down the poorly lit passage.

‘Long enough for me,’ I said. ‘How do you live with the stench down here?’

‘Fuckers like these killed guardsmen and women, citizen. Smelling them rot is a privilege.’

‘Uh-huh.’ I was glad Rab wasn’t on the streets, but he was right. The drugs gangs that had grown in strength after the Council’s relaxing of the regulations were vicious, though less than their earlier counterparts. So far.

He stopped at the last cell on the right and hit the door with his truncheon.

‘Guess what, psycho, you’ve got visitors.’

There was no reply.

Rab looked through the spyhole. ‘Fuck!’ He fumbled with the key and got the door open.

Before us a gargantuan flabby man was slumped to the floor under the window, a strip of material round his neck. He had managed to break the glass and loop the ligature round one of the external bars. The ripped remains of a shirt lay on the floor beside his bare feet. He must have bent his knees and pulled downwards, which suggested determination.

‘That glass is supposed to be unbreakable,’ Rab said, his eyes wide.

Davie touched the hanged man’s neck. ‘No pulse and he’s cold. He did this some hours ago, I’d guess.’

‘When did you last check on him?’ I asked the guardsman.

‘They don’t get breakfast, so it would have been the night warden at midnight. I saw the log when I came in.’

‘All right, Rab. Go and call it in.’

After he’d left, I turned to Davie. ‘Search the body. I’ll take the cell.’

‘What are we looking for?’

‘Anything that might explain why he did this, now of all times.’

We looked everywhere, which didn’t take long. There was a concrete bed built into the wall, a latrine bucket – empty – and a pile of books on the floor. It seemed that the Education Directorate had sway even in the dungeons. Apart from the City Regulations, the tomes ranged from Free City – The History of Edinburgh, Why Scotland Failed, The Enlightenment: How Edinburgh Survived the Global Crisis to the collected stories of Robert Louis Stevenson. I took them all to look at later.

‘Nothing in his pockets?’

Davie shook his head.

‘How about his rectum?’

‘He crapped himself. No suicide note or anything else that I can see.’

‘Thanks for checking.’

Davie grimaced. ‘I can’t get into his mouth. Rigor’s set in.’

‘Sophia’s people can check that. I’ll make sure I’m present.’

‘Aye,’ Davie said. ‘What do you think? The only person in the city to have cut out a heart commits suicide the night after the heart was left at Tynecastle. Coincidence?’

‘We don’t believe in coincidences, do we, guardsman?’

‘No, we definitely don’t.’

I got out of the way as a team of Guard personnel arrived with a stretcher.

‘He’s going to the infirmary,’ I said, flashing my authorization. ‘And I’m coming with you.

Then I called Sophia and asked her to tell the pathologists we were on our way.

‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘Murder, not suicide.’ Davie was already trying to locate the warden who’d been on the night shift at the dungeons.

‘Definitely,’ said the tall pathologist. ‘The bruising above his knees was made by hands that pulled him downwards. You can see the distinct marks of fingertips.’

‘How come he didn’t resist? He was a gang boss, after all.’

‘Good question,’ said the short pathologist. ‘We’ll have to wait for the toxicology report. Maybe he was drugged.’

I shook my head. ‘If he was drugged, the murderer wouldn’t have needed to pull him. He’d have been suffocated by his own weight.’

‘Maybe he – or she – wanted to be sure,’ said Sophia.

‘Wanted to make sure Muckle Tony didn’t survive,’ I said.

‘That’s your department, Quint,’ she said.

‘Shame there wasn’t anything up his nose or down his throat.’

The medical guardian looked at me coolly. ‘This was a human being.’

‘A multiple murderer who removed a young woman’s heart, arms and legs.’

‘Oh. Come with me, Quint,’ she said, turning on her heel.

I went after her and we ended up in her office with the door closed.

‘How can an incarcerated drugs-gang leader’s death have anything to do with what was found yesterday?’ she asked, from behind her desk.

‘I don’t know if it has,’ I said, sitting down and putting my boots on the desk.

‘Off!’ she said firmly, as I’d hoped.

‘Trousers?’

‘Grow up, Quint.’

‘Speaking of which, how’s Maisie?’

Sophia was the first guardian in office to have had a child, a sweet but precocious six-year-old whose idea of fun was looking at anatomy books.

‘Her manners are a lot better than yours.’

‘Maybe I could come round and see you both. When this case is over, of course.’

‘These cases can take a long time, Quint.’

‘Not if I can help it.’ I stood up and leaned over to kiss her.

‘Finish the case,’ she said after our tongues had reconnoitred thoroughly.

‘I’m on a promise, right?’

She sighed, but there was a smile on her lips when I left.

Davie picked me up outside the infirmary.

‘Hume 481, the night warden, has disappeared.’

‘One of your lot. Do you know him?’

‘Of course. He’s thirty, has a spotless record, and has done five tours on the city line. After the last one ended a month ago he asked to be put on dungeon duty.’

‘Interesting. What’s his name?’

‘Michael Campbell,’ he replied. ‘I presume we’re going to the castle.’

‘No, we’re going to your barracks.’

‘You’d better not stir things up there.’

‘No, no, I’ll just let the usual complement of dirty auxiliaries get on with ripping off the city.’

The rain came on again, stair rods from heaven.

‘We don’t have dirty auxiliaries in Hume,’ Davie said, his brow furrowed.

‘Let’s see about that.’

Ten minutes later we were at the barracks, the traffic confined to buses and taxis, and citizens on bikes. It was in St Leonards, to the south-east of the centre, in a block that had housed a police station in pre-Enlightenment times. It was an eyesore, but Hume personnel were renowned for sticking together, as if the lack of a decent barracks made their communal spirit stronger.

Davie led me in, nodding at auxiliaries. He’d been based at the castle for years, but he still turned out to support the Hume rugby team. The barracks commander’s office was on the first floor.

‘A pleasure, Citizen Quint,’ Hume 01 said, getting up from behind his desk. ‘I’m a great admirer of your work.’

I glanced at Davie, who must have been aware of that but hadn’t bothered to tell me. Senior auxiliaries who approve of what I do are as rare as bedbugs in a tourist hotel.

I nodded to the heavily built commander. The Hume canteen had a reputation for big servings and there was no shortage of large personnel.

‘Call me Stew,’ he said, touching his badge. His full name was Stewart MacBride.

‘Call me Quint,’ I replied, ‘without the citizen.’ No way was I calling him by his first name. There weren’t many auxiliaries I was on friendly terms with and I didn’t even know this one. Besides, I was about to get up his nose.

‘Michael Campbell. Why’s he bolted?’

The commander immediately took the huff. ‘We don’t know he’s done any such thing. He could have been in an accident, he could have taken ill, he could have—’

‘Used his knowledge of the city line to cross it.’

‘That’s a highly offensive suggestion.’

I shrugged. ‘Call the infirmary and the control centre, Hume 253.’

Davie looked happier being addressed that way. A few minutes later he shook his head. ‘No reports of Mike in the system.’

‘I need to see his file,’ I said to Stew.

That brought about the usual display of reluctance, but he handed it over before I had to flash my authorization. I started turning the pages.

‘Excellent physical fitness … commendations for bravery … no blots on his disciplinary record … heterosexual, not in a longstanding relationship … intelligence level B2 … member of the barracks athletics team, long jump and pole vault. Interesting combination.’ I looked up. ‘Anything you want to add?’

The commander shook his head.

I kept going, stopping when I reached the Family page. Six months ago the Council decided to allow auxiliaries to have monthly contact with their relatives, something that had been banned before to ensure their primary loyalty was to the city.

‘I see he didn’t miss a visit to his parents, even when he was on border duty.’

‘I believe that’s the case.’

‘John and Val Campbell, 15 Wardie Road.’ I looked at Davie. ‘What’s the nearest barracks? Scott?’

He nodded.

‘Get them to send a patrol round right away.’

‘You think he might be there?’ the commander asked. ‘We checked a couple of hours ago. He wasn’t, but they were. Everything was fine.’

‘You didn’t think to leave anyone with them?’

‘No. Frankly, I think the idea of 481 being up to no good is ridiculous.’

‘I’ll convey that to the Council this evening.’

He looked like a barracuda had attached itself to his backside.

‘There’s a patrol round the corner,’ Davie said. ‘They’re on their way.’

We waited, not for long.

‘No one there,’ he said. ‘And the front door was open.’

‘Any damage, blood?’

He asked.

‘No.’

‘Any sign of them having packed clothes?’ Citizens aren’t issued with suitcases because there’s nowhere for them to go. ‘Hangers on the floor by the wardrobe, that kind of thing?’

Again there was a pause after he asked the question.

‘No.’

‘Get them to ask the neighbours if they saw the Campbells leave and call you back.’ The likelihood of citizens helping the Guard wasn’t great, but with the relaxing of regulations you never knew.

I caught the commander’s eye. ‘Are you a hundred per cent sure there isn’t anything you want to tell me about missing Mike? You and I both know that personnel reports don’t tell the whole story.’ I glanced at Davie. ‘How about you?’

He shook his head, but Hume 01 sat stiller than a statue.

‘There is one thing,’ he said eventually. ‘His post commander on the border told me unofficially that 481 crossed the line during his last tour.’

‘When was that?’

‘Three days before he finished – June the twenty-seventh.’

‘Then he had a week off and started his spell in the dungeons.’

‘Correct.’

‘Why wasn’t it noted on his record?’

‘He told the commander that he wanted to pick brambles. You know how early they come nowadays.’

‘Pick brambles?’ I said, astonished. ‘And the leader bought it?’

‘Apparently he came back with a whole rucksack full.’

And what else, I wondered.