SIX

The Scott patrol called Davie as we arrived on the esplanade. I spoke to them.

‘There’s no sign of a rushed departure, citizen,’ said the guardswoman. ‘We’ve checked the clothing in the wardrobe and chest of drawers. All that’s missing is what they’d have been wearing.’

That’s one of the few advantages of the Supply Directorate. All citizens are issued with a standard number of shirts, sweaters, trousers etc., so it was possible to see if anything was missing. Of course, there was the black market but it was more directed towards drugs, cigarettes and jewellery, all still banned though not, of course, to tourists.

‘What about the neighbours?’

‘Nobody saw anything. To be fair, most people are at work. Do you want us to haul some of them in?’

‘What, old ladies and the like?’

‘Em, yes.’

‘Em, no. Get your vehicle picked up and take up positions in the house. You never know, parents and son might just be out for a walk.’ I cut the connection and gave the phone back to Davie.

‘What now?’

‘We need to do some research into Muckle Tony Robertson’s gang. If it’s still active, we need to nail the lot of them and squeeze their nuts.’

‘Rather you than me. The Leith Lancers do what they like, with very sharp instruments.’

‘Could Yellow Jacko have had him killed?’ The Lancers and the Pish had been sworn enemies for years.

‘His people might have got to the night warden – threatened to take a knife to his parents.’

He was right, but it wasn’t a pleasant thought.

We walked up to the command centre. I was hoping Guardian Doris wouldn’t be around – there was a lot I either had to tell her or keep quiet about. There was no sign of her. Davie sat down in front of a terminal and hammered at the keyboard.

‘Shite,’ he said after a few minutes.

‘As in?’

‘As in the fuckers are all either dead or have disappeared, no doubt over the city line.’

‘How many were there?’

‘That we know of? Seven, including two women.’ He called up the relevant mug shots.

‘At least neither of them has long blonde hair.’

‘Could be a wig.’

He was right about that.

‘Let’s have a look at Yellow Jacko’s crew.’

‘The Portobello Pish.’

‘They’ve been around for years.’

‘Aye. They’re still operating on their home territory. Shall we go and rattle their cages?’

‘Maybe later. Let’s have a look at their faces.’

Four men with threatening expressions appeared, then one woman with short red hair, a yellow star tattooed on her forehead and a ring through her left nostril.

‘Mavis “Maybe Not” Forbes,’ Davie said, shaking his head. ‘I nailed her once. She nearly had my eyes out – nails like eagle’s claws.’

‘I think we’d better have another chat with Jacko Greig.’

‘I think not, Citizen Quint.’

I turned and there was the public order guardian, her face greyer than a citizen-issue sausage.

‘He’s in the infirmary. Can you explain that, commander?’

Davie had stood up. ‘Yes, guardian. He came at us and I had to use restraining force.’

‘His small intestine is ruptured.’

‘Ah.’ Davie bowed his head.

‘Ah, indeed. Citizen, come with me.’

I followed her to a meeting room off the command centre.

‘Progress report, please.’

I confirmed that Davie had told the truth about Yellow Jacko – that scumbag deserved everything he got. She already knew about Muckle Tony’s supposed suicide and Hume 481’s disappearance – there was still no sign of him or his parents, she said.

‘There must be more, Quint,’ she said, dropping my rank at last.

‘There is, Doris,’ I said, returning the favour. ‘Are you sure you want to know it?’

She smoothed back her lank hair. ‘Only if it directly concerns this directorate.’

I could see what she was doing. As a recently elevated guardian, she was still establishing her authority over her own patch. Playing high politics with the likes of Jack MacLean was well beyond her.

‘All right. The heart was put on the centre circle at Tynecastle by a young woman with long blonde hair.’

‘How did you—?’ She broke off, raising a hand. ‘I don’t want to know, but I hope you were discreet.’

‘I think so.’

‘We can hardly go through the entire citizen roll compiling a list of young blondes. There must be thousands now.’

‘That was my thought.’

‘And now you’re looking at the gangs.’

‘The Portobello Pish are still strutting around on the northern shore. I have a feeling that there’ll be Leith Lancers in action too.’

‘Do you really think common criminals would carefully cut out a heart?’

‘They might have been operating under instructions.’

‘From whom?’

I raised my shoulders.

‘No one in Edinburgh would do something so calculatedly savage.’

I left that highly contentious assertion unanswered, though the hearts in Glasgow and Inverness suggested she might have been right – was there a single individual behind all three extractions? I wasn’t going to tell her about the hearts in the other cities though – not yet. Foreign affairs weren’t her concern and besides, I had plans for that information.

‘There’s something else,’ the guardian said. ‘Alec Ferries, the Heart of Midlothian manager, has disappeared. The recreation guardian just told me. Apparently he hasn’t been seen since last night. He lives alone.’

There was a heavy knock before I could respond and Davie’s head appeared.

‘Excuse me, guardian. A male body’s been found in the Union Canal by the Boroughmuir playing fields.’

‘Heart missing?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘Head.’

The rain had slackened, but the streets were still treacherous. We were there in ten minutes, lights flashing but no siren – the Council doesn’t like to scare the tourists. Davie might have given a few blasts, but Guardian Doris was in the back seat. A couple of Guard vehicles were already on scene, paramedics lifting a sodden corpse on to a tarpaulin. I saw the rubber-covered heads of three divers in the canal. The water level was high and the flow rapid. I heard a quick blast of ‘When the Levee Breaks’, Bonham’s drums thundering and Plant’s harp screaming. What Memphis Minnie would have made of it, only the god or devil of blues knows.

This time I managed to grab a Guard-issue rain-jacket. I went over to the body, casting an eye over the surroundings. The grass was sodden and footprints would be hard to pick out.

‘Male, citizen-issue clothing, no ID,’ said the guardsman in charge. ‘And no—’

‘We can see that,’ I interjected. ‘Who found him?’

‘Her.’ The guardsman pointed at a middle-aged citizen holding an umbrella in one hand and the lead of a small black dog in the other. Pets were another of the Council’s recent innovations. In the height of the drugs wars, cats and dogs had been eaten by the starving citizenry. In the years of austerity that followed, nothing could be spared to feed the few animals that had lain low.

I went over and asked her name.

‘Ann Muir,’ she said, shivering.

‘What did you see, Ann?’

‘That … horror,’ she said, pointing at the body, which was now covered by a transparent plastic sheet. ‘It was stuck against the side over there.’

I made out a broken wooden prop that was projecting into the flow.

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘Anyone alive, you mean?’ She glared at me as if I was responsible.

I nodded.

‘No, but with the rain like it is …’

‘Do you often see people here?’

‘No. It’s usually just me and Bobby.’

The dog was pulling at the lead, showing extreme interest in the corpse.

‘Go with the guardswoman and make your report,’ I said, patting her on the shoulder. ‘Then get out of those wet clothes.’

Her head jerked back as if I was propositioning her. I wondered how she’d coped with the compulsory sex sessions. Not well, I hazarded. Another triumph for the Council.

I went back to the guardsman. ‘Was the body fixed to that piece of wood or had it just been caught by it?’

‘It wasn’t tied on or anything. I’m thinking it floated down and bumped into it.’

‘Which means we’ve no idea where it was dumped.’

‘Looks that way, citizen. The divers are looking for the head, but with this current it could be anywhere.’

‘Let’s get the body to the morgue,’ I said to the paramedics.

‘I agree,’ said Sophia, who had just arrived. ‘There’s not much we can do here except certify death.’

I went over to Davie. ‘Get a squad to comb the playing fields.’

‘That’s already happening. We might be lucky.’

‘Aye,’ I said, looking up at the grey heavens. ‘And bacon rolls might fly.’

In the morgue Tall and Short were busy, removing clothing, scraping beneath fingernails, taking photos and so on.

I led Sophia to a corner.

‘You’ll have heard about a prisoner from the dungeons being brought in?’

‘The live one, you mean. What was he known as? Yellow—’

‘Jacko.’

‘Yes. He’s out of surgery.’

‘And?’

‘He had a heart attack when he was in the recovery room. The chief cardiologist says he’s unlikely to survive.’

‘Fuck.’

‘You needed him?’

‘It would have been good to have another conversation with him.’

‘I’ll let you know if there’s any change. Oh, and regarding the dead one.’

‘Muckle Tony Robertson.’

She nodded. ‘There were significant traces of flunitrazepam.’

‘What’s that?’

‘In the old days it was used as a date-rape drug. It was slipped into drinks and people woke up remembering nothing, having been sexually assaulted or robbed. More to the point, it’s not available in the city and never has been.’

‘So someone brought it over the line.’

Sophia nodded. ‘I don’t think our drugs gangs are up to manufacturing it.’

‘Guardian?’ called the tall pathologist.

I followed Sophia over. The body was naked and the neck was a mass of tattered skin and roughly severed muscle, arteries and veins. At least there was no blood.

‘As you can see, the head was removed with a jagged instrument.’

‘I suggest a wood saw,’ put in the short pathologist, getting an irritated look from his colleague.

That conjured up a horrific image. Chopping someone’s head off with an axe was bad enough, but sawing would have taken time and caused terrible pain. ‘Very different from the blade used to extract the heart,’ I said.

Tall and Short nodded, as did Sophia.

‘What about the rest of the body?’

‘As you can see, the hands have recent abrasions,’ said Short. ‘Other than that, there is no external damage.’

I looked at the corpse. ‘What do you think, around six feet tall?’

‘I’d say so,’ said Tall, this time beating his colleague to it.

‘And I calculate his weight, head attached, at around thirteen stone,’ said Short.

‘He looks well fed enough,’ I observed.

‘Yes, there’s impressive muscle development on the upper arms and thighs.’

I looked at the hands again. ‘I wonder how recent some of these abrasions are. The nails are cracked too. A manual labourer, I’d say.’

‘Yes,’ concurred Tall and Short.

I went over to the nearest table and examined the clothing. The shirt, underpants and trousers were standard citizen-issue, as were the boots, which were scratched and worn. The dead man took a size ten. His pockets were empty, as the guardsman at the scene had said. I felt round the collar of the donkey jacket, my latex-covered fingers running over the rough material. Nothing. Then I tried the sleeves – nothing. All that was left were the bottom seams. Citizens sometimes sewed valuables in there. Not this one.

I nodded at Sophia, stripped off my gloves and gown and went out of the morgue.

Davie was waiting in the corridor, having sent the dead man’s fingerprints to the castle.

‘We have his identity,’ he said, opening his notebook. ‘Grant Brown, 12 Grange Terrace. He worked for the Housing Directorate as a builder. His record’s clean.’

‘Family?’

‘Parents are dead. No record of a long-term relationship. He’s hetero.’

‘We’d better get over to his home.’

My mobile rang as we reached the infirmary’s entrance hall.

‘Citizen Dalrymple, this is the senior guardian. Come to my office immediately.’

I groaned. ‘Can’t it wait till the Council meeting? It’s only a couple of hours from now.’

‘No.’ The connection was cut.

I was tempted to ignore the call, but decided to play along with the guardians – maybe they’d let something drop without realizing. Davie went off to the headless man’s place with an attractive guardswoman, so he was happy.

I got a guardsman to drive me down the Royal Mile. The senior guardian’s office was in the former Scottish parliament, behind the Council chamber.

‘Ah, there you are, Quint,’ Fergus Calder said, suddenly my best friend.

Jack MacLean was lounging in an armchair and didn’t bother to get up. He gave me a languid wave and a smile he thought was welcoming. Then Billy Geddes rolled forward, his eyes cold and his mouth twisted.

‘The three musketeers,’ I said, looking around. ‘Though you seem to have mislaid your peashooters.’

‘And one of our citizens has mislaid his head,’ said the finance guardian. ‘Report, please.’

I glanced at Calder, trying to work out who was really the head honcho. He seemed unperturbed. I told them the little we’d so far discovered about Grant Brown.

‘And as far as you know,’ said the senior guardian, ‘there’s no connection between the heart and head cases.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘That isn’t the sort of inference I draw. Obviously there are differences in the modus operandi, but we’re still looking at missing body parts.’

‘Is there some kind of mind–body question being raised?’ Calder asked. ‘Are the soul, the mind, the seat of the emotions in the head or the heart?’

There could well have been some such subtext, but I wasn’t going to indulge that kind of thinking. For a start, there wasn’t any evidence.

‘No idea, Fergus,’ I said, upping the ante. ‘According to your friend Billy here, all that matters is global trade.’

Jack MacLean frowned. ‘You have a problem with that?’

‘I like a banana first thing in the morning as much as the next citizen, but not if it leads to murder and mutilation.’

‘Supply Directorate bananas are sourced from cooperatives in Guatemala.’

‘Great. How about the coffee?’

‘We’re getting off the point here, Quint,’ Calder said with a nervous smile. ‘I understand a guardsman has gone missing.’

I nodded, but didn’t speak. It’s always interesting to see how guardians cope with auxiliary misbehaviour.

‘Probably had enough and took his parents over to Fife,’ said the finance guardian.

Since the warring gangs over the Forth had been brought under control by an organization of landowners and fiery young farmers, citizens – and auxiliaries – had been tempted over. None has ever been heard from again.

‘Of course, a senior auxiliary has disappeared too.’ It looked like I had the jump on them. ‘Alec Ferries, the Hearts manager.’

‘Why haven’t we heard about that?’ the senior guardian said, his fists balling.

‘I’m sure the recreation and/or public order guardian are on the point of letting you know.’

He pressed buttons on his mobile and shouted at the person on the other end, demanding to know why he hadn’t been informed. I got the impression the recipient of his words was the recreation guardian rather than Guardian Doris.

‘Feel better now?’ I said when he’d finished. Handbrake turns in the conversation often catch guardians off their guard. ‘What do you know about flunitrazepam?’

There was a silence that was eventually broken by Billy.

‘Date-rape drug, yes? Can’t remember what it used to be called.’

‘Rohypnol.’

‘That’s it.’ I grinned at him. ‘I don’t suppose you ever used it.’

‘Fuck off, Quint.’

‘What’s its relevance?’ said Calder.

‘It was found in the system of Muckle Tony Robertson, the leader of the Leith Lancers, who supposedly hanged himself last night but didn’t.’

‘What do you mean?’ MacLean demanded, suddenly more alert.

‘My thinking is that he was drugged into unconsciousness, then strung up and downward pressure exerted so he suffocated. Whoever did it wanted to make very sure he died.’

‘The guardsman?’

‘It may have been Hume 481,’ I said, smiling loosely. ‘Or perhaps he was got at and forced to admit the killer or killers. Either way, he’d have good reason to run.’

The senior guardian held up his right hand. ‘I’m confused. What has a dead drugs-gang leader got to do with the heart and the head?’

I raised my shoulders. ‘Search me. But Hume 481 also crossed the city line some weeks ago. He may have been in touch with outsiders.’ I looked at Billy. ‘And, as I was told last night, certain outsiders have got problems with hearts on centre-circles as well.’

‘My SPADE was told to brief you,’ said MacLean. ‘I hope you haven’t told anyone else.’

I shook my head. ‘I was considering breaking the news to the guardians at this evening’s meeting.’

Jack MacLean laughed. ‘We thought you might, which is why you’re here and won’t be attending the meeting.’

Interesting, but I didn’t react.

‘What do you think about the hearts appearing in Glasgow and Inverness?’ Calder asked.

‘As I’m not allowed to talk to anyone in those cities, what can I think? It lets you off the hook, of course – you can say the heart was left by an outsider.’

‘We’re not going public about it,’ MacLean said firmly. ‘That’s been agreed with our counterparts in the other cities.’

‘Anyway, you’re on less steady ground with the decapitation. Or have heads rolled elsewhere too?’

‘No,’ Billy said. ‘That looks like an Edinburgh special.’

‘So far,’ said the senior guardian.

‘Any more calls to Guardian Doris recommending discretion?’ I asked. I wasn’t sure that she’d have told me.

‘No.’ This time MacLean was first with the negative.

‘Has the head been found?’ Fergus Calder asked.

‘Not that I’ve heard.’

‘Shit!’ said Jack MacLean. ‘This is just what we need with the referendum on the horizon.’

Out of the mouths of babes and guardians. The thought had been floating around my brain all afternoon, but now I had it. When I was a kid, my old man used to listen to the news every morning and evening. I didn’t pay much attention, but I remember a Scottish politician back in pre-devolution days – there was something fishy about his name – saying that, like William Wallace, Scots could talk about freedom with ‘head and heart’.

I didn’t know what to make of that, apart from keep it to myself.