The Bone Yard Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  The Quintilian Dalrymple Mystery Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Quintilian Dalrymple Mystery Series

  BODY POLITIC

  THE BONE YARD

  WATER OF DEATH

  THE BLOOD TREE

  THE HOUSE OF DUST

  THE BONE YARD

  A Quintilian Dalrymple Mystery

  Paul Johnston

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which is was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicably copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This title first published in Great Britain in 1998

  by Hodder and Stoughton, A Division of Hodder Headline PLC

  338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH,

  eBook edition first published in 2011 by Severn Select an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 1998 by Paul Johnston.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0044-0 (epub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by Palimpsest Book Production Limited

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  The dung really started to fly on Hogmanay, 2021. The last day of the last month is supposed to be a time for celebrating the good things that happened in the old year and for anticipating the joys of the new one. In Edinburgh that means getting slaughtered. Not even the Council of City Guardians has managed to put a stop to that part of our heritage. But this time someone took getting slaughtered literally. It didn’t come as a complete surprise. Ever since the new wave of ultra-keen young guardians took over in 2020, there’s been an undercurrent of tension in the “perfect city”. Everything’s been tightened up so much under the new rulers. They call them the “iron boyscouts” in the ordinary citizens’ bars when they reckon there’s no informer around, or when they’re too pissed to care about being sent down the mines for a month. There’s too much supervision of everyone’s activities, too many regulations, too much control. And as the city’s schoolchildren find out in their sex education classes, if you bottle everything up, you’re sure to become a pervert. Or a dissident. Or both.

  I would never turn down a murder investigation. The problem was that this case didn’t start off being one of those. Or rather, it did. But I just didn’t realise.

  Christ, I wish I had. Whatever way you look at it, I could never have guessed I’d end up in the Bone Yard. I’d trade my entire collection of blues tapes – W.C. Handy and Big Bill Broonzy included – to have missed that gig.

  Chapter One

  The weather set its trap with all the cunning and skill of a poacher who invites his extended family round for a New Year’s banquet then realises his cupboard is bare. In the early afternoon the sky was bright, Mediterranean blue without a hint of a cloud. Citizens ventured out with only one sweater instead of the usual three and tourists imagined that unbuttoned raincoats would be adequate protection. There were even a few guardsmen and women around without their standard-issue maroon scarves. They all got a couple of hours of reasonable warmth, then the sun went west and the temperature swapped a minus for a plus reading faster than politicians pocketed envelopes stuffed with banknotes in the years before the UK fell apart. I was standing at my living room window when people in the street below started jerking about as if a mantrap’s serrated jaws had suddenly closed around their legs. It wasn’t exactly warm in my flat, but at least I had a glass of barracks malt to ward off the cold.

  “What have you got on tonight, Davie?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder. “For God’s sake, leave my guitar alone. The neighbours will start complaining.”

  The bulky figure on the sofa raised his middle finger, scratched his beard and continued strumming. “And a happy New Year to you too, Quint. If they put up with you playing the blues, I don’t see why they should be bothered by this.”

  “Possibly because they like the blues, while what you’re playing is just a wee bit passé.”

  “Nothing wrong with ‘Flower of Scotland’.”

  “Nothing apart from the fact that Scotland ceased to exist seventeen years ago.” I took another pull of whisky. “And the fact that your lords and masters outlawed the song.”

  Davie discarded the guitar and picked up his glass. “They also banned the blues, Quint.”

  “Which shows you what a bunch of tossers they are.”

  “That’s enough abuse of the Council, citizen.” Davie didn’t look too bothered as he poured himself more malt. “Unfortunately I’m on duty tonight. I’ve got to supervise patrols in the tourist area.”

  “Which is why you’re getting your drinking in now, is it?” I asked. Not that Davie’s consumption of alcohol would affect his ability to do his job. The Council may have been struggling to provide Edinburgh’s population with decent food, but he was still fit enough to take on anyone in an Olympic wrestling competition. Except there haven’t been any Olympics Games for a long time – too many countries have been reduced to warring city-states.

  I peered down into the street below. It was rapidly sinking into the gloom of twilight. Under the Energy Directorate’s recent electricity rationing plan, the streetlights don’t come on until as late as possible.

  “So, no chance of a romantic Hogmanay with Fiona, then?” I said. Davie had been spending more time than his rank are meant to with a fellow auxiliary. I did a double-take. “Jesus, look at this. There’s a lunatic coming along Gilmore Place.”

  “Not very likely, given the Council’s policy on unproductive citizens. They’re all banged up in homes for life.”

  “Not this one.” I followed the guy along the street. First he pressed himself into a doorway on the other side. He waited, then slowly stuck his head out to take a look. And then he sprinted across to the near side in what could charitably be described as an ungainly fashion, narrowly avoiding being hit by a superannuated Supply Directorate van. “Look at him now.”

  Davie joined me at the window and we watched as the man in the street continued his antics. He was around six feet and thin, like all citizens, in his early twenties, as far as I could make out in the murk. He was wearing an orange woolly hat and the standard dark blue overcoat ordinary citizens obtain with clothing vouchers. From the doorway three down from mine, his head appeared slowly, looking towards the Tollcross end of th
e street.

  “He seems to be checking if he’s being followed,” Davie said. Then he burst out laughing. “Bloody hell, what a jackass.”

  Our man belted across the road again, his legs kicking high like a pony that’s just seen the vet get out his biggest syringe. Again, the head poked in and out nervously from a doorway opposite.

  “Check out your lot and see if they’re chasing him.” I kept an eye on the strange guy while Davie flipped open his mobile and called the guard command centre in the castle. If it hadn’t been for the cold and the location – my flat’s on a street where tourists only come if they were born with a jellyfish’s sense of direction – I’d have assumed he was a street performer in the year-round arts festival that’s the mainstay of the city’s income.

  Davie signed off. “No. They didn’t have a clue what I was on about.”

  “Don’t worry. I think we’re about to find out.”

  The young man had crossed the road, legs all over the place again. We watched as he disappeared from view directly beneath my window.

  “You don’t think he’s on his way up here, do you?” Davie asked dubiously.

  “He’s a client all right,” I replied. “Care for a small wager?”

  “Bollocks to that. You know I don’t bet with you any more, Quint.” Davie’s barracks commander had lost patience with the number of bottles of whisky he used to take from the mess to cover his wagers with me. The one we were drinking now was my Hogmanay present.

  I listened for footsteps on the stair. They weren’t long in coming. The knock was quiet, just a couple of tentative taps.

  “No, I’ll get it,” I said, waving Davie back to the sofa. “Your uniform isn’t likely to turn him on.”

  I opened up and let in the guy from the street. At close range he looked much more normal. He pulled off the woollen cap – presumably a gift from a doting mother who could only find orange wool in the city’s stores – and revealed thick brown hair shorter than the regulation one-inch length. His face was thin and his brown eyes seemed to be far too big for the rest of his features. He smiled hopefully.

  “Citizen Dalrymple?” He glanced over my shoulder, but didn’t look particularly concerned by the sight of Davie in his City Guard’s grey tunic with the maroon heart. If anything his smile got broader.

  “The same,” I said. “Call me Quint. And that’s Hume 253.” I didn’t give him Davie’s name. That would have been too much of a shock for an ordinary citizen – auxiliaries are supposed to be faceless servants of the city and if you don’t address them by barracks name and number, you’re nailed for non-compliance.

  “Em, right.” The young man fiddled with his hat then stuffed it into his pocket. “The name’s Aitken, Roddie Aitken.” He gave another smile, as if what he was called was a private joke.

  “Fancy a dram, Roddie?’ I asked, holding up the bottle.

  He stared at it like he’d never seen whisky before. He may well not have seen barracks whisky before. The look on his face suggested either that he had a massive hangover or that he was one of the few Edinburgh citizens who have an aversion to alcohol.

  “Sit down,” I said, pointing to the place on the sofa next to Davie. “Don’t worry, he won’t bite.”

  Davie wasn’t too impressed by that kind of talk in front of a citizen.

  “So, Roddie,” I said, giving him what I thought was an encouraging smile. “Who’s following you?”

  The guy looked like I’d just accused him of being sympathetic to the aims of the democrats in Glasgow. He sat bolt upright and looked over towards the door, as if he were gauging whether he could beat us to it.

  “Don’t panic,” I said. “I saw you in the street.”

  Roddie Aitken relaxed a bit and smiled weakly. “I must have looked like a right . . .”

  “Aye, you did,” Davie said with a grin.

  The young man laughed. He didn’t seem to be intimidated by Davie’s presence; some of my clients would rather forgo their sex sessions than talk in front of an auxiliary. “I heard you help people out,” he said, turning to me. “Is that right, citizen Dalrymple?”

  “Quint,” I said. “Remember?”

  He nodded apologetically.

  “And I do help people out, as you put it.”

  “But you’re not in the guard?”

  “Not any more. I have contacts though.” I nodded at Davie. “Why? Have you got a problem with the guard?”

  Roddie Aitken shrugged. “No, not at all. It’s just that I told them about my problem and they . . . well, they haven’t followed it up.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that story. There aren’t enough auxiliaries in the Public Order Directorate to deal with every citizen’s request for help. One of the reasons I didn’t rejoin the directorate when I was invited a couple of years back was that there’s plenty to do cleaning up their omissions and lapses. The fact that I’m regarded as Mephistopheles without a disguise by the new wave of headbangers in the Council is neither here nor there.

  “What exactly is your problem, citizen?” Davie demanded with typical guardsman’s subtlety.

  “Yes, you’d better give us a clue, Roddie,” I said, gesturing to Davie to lay off him. “Don’t be shy. Hume 253 often works with me.”

  Aitken thought about it for a few moments, then got stuck into his story. It often happens like that. Clients spend the first few minutes with their noses twitching like dogs carrying out extensive research on an unfamiliar leg, then they suddenly start rubbing themselves up against it like the trousers are on heat.

  “I told the guard about the hooded man yesterday morning. They said they’d get back to me today, but they haven’t. The thing is, I’m not sure what it’s all about. Jimmie reckons that the guy was trying to have a real go at me, but I didn’t see the knife . . .”

  Davie’s eyes were rolling and mine probably weren’t too stable either. “Hold on a second, you’ve lost us,” I said. “We’ve got a hooded man, a knife, a Jimmie, the guard and you. Make some connections, will you?”

  Roddie Aitken laughed and his face took on an even more boyish look. It was hard to tell how old he was. Maybe that’s why he was dubious about the whisky. “I knew it would sound crazy,” he said.

  Davie got up and went over to the window.

  Suddenly the young man’s face looked older. His eyes were wide open, fixed on the figure in uniform. “Is he there?” he asked in a taut voice. “Can you see a big guy in a long coat with a hood?”

  Davie stared down at the street, lit now by the dull glow of streetlamps on low power. Then he turned back to us, shaking his head slowly. “No hooded men, no one dressed up as Santa Claus who’s got the date wrong, no one chasing people down the road with a knife. How many beers have you had today, laddie?”

  Roddie looked offended. “None.” His face reddened. “I don’t like drinking that much.”

  “Let’s start from the beginning,” I said, giving Davie a look that he ignored. “Someone in a coat with a hood has been following you, right?”

  He nodded, glancing at Davie with an injured expression. I felt a bit sorry for him.

  “So how often have you seen him? When did all this start?”

  Roddie sat up and pulled his orange hat out. “Look, I think I’m wasting your time. I didn’t really want to come. It was Jimmie who—”

  “Hang on,” I said. “You can’t just walk out. I’ve got my tongue hanging out like a kid whose girlfriend’s decided she won’t undo her blouse after all.”

  He grinned shyly, then sat back again. “Fair enough, citizen . . . I mean Quint.”

  “Right. Fill me in then.”

  “The first time I saw the guy was on Christmas Eve. I work in the Supply Directorate – the Deliveries Department. Food mainly, sometimes some booze, cigarettes for the nightclubs, that sort of thing.”

  I was interested. It’s unusual for someone as young as Roddie Aitken to get a job as a delivery man. The older members of that departm
ent hog the driving duty because it gives them the chance to pilfer – if they have the nerve to risk a spell on the city farms or down the mines.

  “It was in the Grassmarket, across the road from the Three Graces. I couldn’t see a face or anything. It must have been about half seven in the evening and they hadn’t turned all the lights on. Anyway, I was in a hurry – they’d suddenly realised they were short of whisky.”

  “How did you know he was interested in you?” Davie asked.

  Roddie Aitken raised a finger to his lips and shook his head slowly. “I didn’t really. It was just . . . he was staring at me, really hard. You know, giving me the eye.”

  “Nothing else happened?” I asked.

  “No. I went into the club and made my delivery. When I came out, he wasn’t there any more.”

  Davie leaned towards him. “You say ‘he’. How do you know it was a man?”

  Roddie’s forehead wrinkled as he thought about that. It looked to me like he did more thinking than the average citizen. I wondered why he wasn’t an auxiliary.

  “Can’t say for sure. He was big – not huge, but big enough to be a pretty unusual woman.” He smiled at the idea. “The hood part of his coat had a kind of high neck as well; that’s why I couldn’t see much of his face.”

  “Not much to go on so far,” Davie said.

  “I know. Then I saw him again three days ago, last Saturday night about half nine. This time it was on Nicolson Street, near my flat. I looked round a couple of times and he was still there, about twenty yards behind me.” He shrugged. “Then I turned into Drummond Street where I live and he didn’t show.”

  I wasn’t too excited so far. Christ, the guy himself didn’t seem to be very bothered. But something about his expression, a tightening of the skin around his eyes, suggested the punchline was worth waiting for.

  “Then he showed up again the night before last.” Roddie turned to me, his eyes wider. “I’d been working late. One of my mates in the department was sick – pissed, I should think – so I was delivering vegetables to the shops. I got back to Drummond Street just before curfew at ten. The sky was dead clear and there was a frost. That must have been why the footsteps sounded so loud. This time I didn’t see him till I was about fifty yards from my door.” He stopped to catch his breath, looking at both of us. “Then he started running. I turned round and saw the figure in the long coat and hood. He had something in his hand. I . . . I couldn’t see what he could possibly want with me so I didn’t run, just walked a bit more quickly.”