Heads or Hearts Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Previous Titles by Paul Johnston

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Previous Titles by Paul Johnston

  The Alex Mavros Series

  A DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE

  (also known as CRYING BLUE MURDER)

  THE LAST RED DEATH

  THE GOLDEN SILENCE

  THE SILVER STAIN *

  THE GREEN LADY *

  THE BLACK LIFE *

  THE WHITE SEA *

  The Quint Dalrymple Series

  available from Severn Select eBooks

  BODY POLITIC **

  THE BONE YARD **

  WATER OF DEATH **

  THE BLOOD TREE **

  THE HOUSE OF DUST **

  The Matt Wells Series

  THE DEATH LIST

  THE SOUL COLLECTOR

  MAPS OF HELL

  THE NAMELESS DEAD

  *available from Severn House

  HEADS OR HEARTS

  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 it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable 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 first world edition published 2015

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published 2015 in Great

  Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2015 by Paul Johnston.

  The right of Paul Johnston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Johnston, Paul, 1957- author.

  Heads or hearts.–(A Quint Dalrymple mystery)

  1. Dalrymple, Quintilian (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Murder–Investigation–Fiction. 3. Referendum–

  Scotland–Edinburgh–Fiction. 4. Edinburgh (Scotland)–

  Fiction. 5. Suspense fiction.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8503-6 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-605-3 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-656-4 (e-book)

  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.

  To my sister Claire, with love, admiration and gratitude

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Kudos to Severn House for resurrecting the mouthy and recalcitrant Quint Dalrymple after fourteen years in the void; the company has form on that count, having already successfully revivified Alex Mavros. Particular thanks to Edwin Buckhalter and Kate Lyall Grant for their personal interest and support.

  Yet more of the fizzy stuff to my indomitable champion, Broo Doherty of the DHH Literary Agency. She sees the texts first, poor woman, but always looks on the bright side.

  And, of course, eternal love to Roula, Maggie and Alexander. Where would I be without them? In Kay’s Bar, probably …

  P. Johnston, 2015

  PROLOGUE

  Woke up this morning, got myself a croissant. And a cup of half-decent coffee. And a banana.

  Actually, I’ve been waking up numerous mornings and getting those previously unavailable comestibles from the corner shop. Independent Edinburgh in 2033 has become almost citizen-friendly. That doesn’t make up for the previous three decades of austerity and gritty bread, but it means life for the masses has become more tolerable.

  Which, of course, is the point. The Council of City Guardians is full of wise guys and dolls. Widespread unrest and verbal, even physical abuse of the tourists were completely unacceptable. First they tried locking people up. Then they realized that the way forward was to bring a little happiness into the long-suffering citizens’ lives. It didn’t take much: a smattering of democracy (‘Elect Your Own Ward Representative!’), the opening up of the tourist zone to locals on Sundays, better food and drink. Cinemas even show films that were long banned on the grounds that they would incite civil disobedience – The Wild Bunch, 1900, Alphaville … As for books, almost anything has come into the city’s libraries. Elmore Leonard is popular, probably because his criminals are so convincing – Edinburgh folk have a taste for people who break the law. Then again, the sainted Elmore didn’t approve of prologues.

  Even the blues, previously prohibited as subversive, have been made available, the Council’s thinking no doubt being that twelve-bar wailing and bawling is more to be pitied than bothered about. Their loss. It turned out that blues enthusiasts are all over the place, nursing battered cassettes and the ancient machines to play them. Exchange clubs immediately sprang up and my ears were blown, both by songs I hadn’t heard since I was a student and by musicians I’d never come across. Life is almost worth living again.

  Here’s the but. Nothing good or even mildly bearable lasts. There’s always some genius who thinks he – and males are inevitably the overwhelming majority – can take things to the next even more wonderful level. Actually it was several demented specimens, not all of them from Edinburgh. Suddenly the ‘S’ word was back in fashion. Since the Enlightenment Party won power in the last election thirty years ago and cut the city off from its neighbours, Scotland had become a ghost, a fossilized memory, a cry of anger and frustration carried away on the wind.

  Now it was back in a big way. Initially I was with the old bluesman Taj Mahal – ‘Done Changed My Way of Living’ often enough, thanks. Then sitting on the fence became hazardous as the pointed posts dug in. It was make your mind up time. There was to be a referendum on whether the former capital should take its place in the reconstituted nation. That’s right: citizens who for decades hadn’t been allowed to choose their sexual partners were going to be trusted with voting for their and the city’s future. People in high places were either smoking top-grade tourist dope or there was something distinctly fishy going on.

  As a detective I’ve always
had a nose for herrings – red (or any other colour), kippers (we get those now, once a month) and salmon (don’t be ridiculous). In this case everything came down to heads and hearts. Fish have them. I’m not so sure about the people wielding power in the country where I was born and raised; born, as it happens, in 1984.

  ONE

  There was a pounding on the door.

  ‘It’s open, ya loud lout,’ I shouted.

  Davie appeared, his black hair turned to rat’s tails by the deluge outside, and careered across my small living room.

  ‘This is for you.’ He dropped a package in brown paper on my belly.

  ‘Ooh-yah!’ I extracted the contents. ‘Talisker? Where did you get that?’ Even City Guard barracks weren’t supplied with whisky not made locally.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ The big man sat down hard on my armchair, recently given new covers by the Supply Directorate but still sprung like a Model-T Ford with 200,000 miles on the clock. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Not there, if you don’t mind. My bathroom, resplendent with new fittings and fitments, is at your disposal.’ Until recently, citizens had been forced to use communal bath-houses because of water shortages brought about by the Big Heat, climate change’s version of the Edinburgh summer. Now that the Big Heat had become the Big Wet, flats have been re-plumbed and we can use as much water as we like. Until the two-minute timer kicks in.

  ‘I don’t need any more water, thanks,’ Davie said, shaking his head and leaving spatters all over the wall behind him. ‘Bloody summer.’

  ‘It’s symptomatic of life in the city.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean, Socrates?’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s no way for a senior auxiliary to talk. I know Plato debates are only monthly and non-compulsory now, but still …’ The Council of City Guardians had originally consisted of university professors who followed the Greek philosopher’s thinking – at least, the bits that suited them. None of the original rulers were on the Council any more and flux was the rule, even when it came to the Edinburgh Enlightenment’s most hallowed principles.

  ‘Everything’s turned into its opposite,’ I said. ‘Summer, until a couple of years ago as dry as the Mediterranean in August, is now wetter than the Indian sub-continent in the monsoon season. The Council doesn’t imprison many people these days – it just gives the average criminal a month in the luxury New Bridewell rehabilitation facility, with as much pampering as they can take. Citizens can start their own businesses and vote for their own ward reps – not that the local barracks commanders let the said reps do anything to rock the rowing-boat of state. Citizens can even walk round the tourist zone and marvel at the things they can’t afford.’

  ‘They have vouchers to spend, and not just on food,’ Davie said. He pointed to the ugly beige device on my wall. ‘And they all have telephones like that one.’

  ‘Which aren’t tapped by the Guard, oh no, never.’

  He ignored that. ‘And they get free holidays.’

  ‘To camps down at Portobello, where the sea is completely unpolluted by sewage, honest. And there’s still no TV, smoking or private cars.’

  ‘Are you going to open that bottle?’ Davie demanded.

  I got up and looked out the window. I could hardly see the tenements on the other side of Gilmore Place through the rain.

  ‘All right, what is it you want? You wouldn’t have come here in this downpour just to drink Tali … yes, you would.’

  Davie laughed. He looked younger, thanks to the Council’s reversal of the rules governing male facial hair. Previously male citizens had to have their hair cut to a maximum of half an inch – no metric measurements in the ‘perfect city’ – and weren’t permitted facial hair, while auxiliaries, the Council’s bureaucrats and enforcers, had to wear beards as if each one was an ancient philosopher – though at least the females didn’t have to wear face wigs. Now auxiliaries have to be clean-shaven, while citizens can wear their hair to any length – even those who work with tourists – and do what they like with their facial hair. That has led to a male civil population with either moustaches Wyatt Earp would have been proud of or beards down to their sternums. Not to be left out, women can wear their hair in any style, leading to an eruption of salons across the city – all part of the Finance Directorate’s private business initiative. I’ve managed to resist temptation, keeping my now worryingly grey hair short, though my stubble is only occasionally under control. I opened the whisky and inhaled.

  ‘Peaty and sweet,’ Davie said, picking up a couple of glasses from my dresser.

  ‘And all the way from the Isle of Skye.’ I added a dribble of water from the jug I always have on the coffee table – although Talisker didn’t, citizen-issue whisky needs heavy diluting.

  We imbibed and luxuriated in silence.

  ‘Which begs the question,’ I said eventually.

  ‘How did it get here?’

  ‘Very good, guardsman.’ Although Davie was a senior commander, I’d never got out of calling him by the rank he had when we first worked together in 2020.

  ‘Patronizing tosser. If you must know, it comes from a crate donated to the Guard by the Lord of the Isles.’

  ‘For your admirable services in keeping him safe while he was in the city.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Apart from the fact that he’s a scumbag aristocrat who ran away when the crofters revolted back in the early 2000s and has only come back because oil’s been found in the waters off the Hebrides?’

  Davie scowled. ‘I just do what I’m told. Unlike the great Quintilian Dalrymple, who plays at being the protector of ordinary citizens while screwing up official investigations.’

  I grinned. ‘Love you too, big man.’ It was true that I use what clout I retain to twist auxiliaries’ arms and find missing citizens, put right cases of mistaken identity, get innocent citizens off – there were no courts in the City of Eden, so Guard personnel often did what they liked – and catch the odd ward rep who’d tapped into his inner Mafioso.

  Davie took another sip. ‘I know you do some good, Quint, but it’s nothing compared with what you could do if you worked with us.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s what this is,’ I said, pointing at the bottle. ‘A bribe. Really, guardsman, I thought you were above that kind of behaviour.’

  ‘Screw you. The public order guardian told me to get you back on board. Council orders.’

  ‘Does she know about the Talisker?’

  ‘Er, not exactly.’

  ‘What if I tell her?’

  ‘Give it a rest, will you? I’m serious.’ Suddenly my old friend looked troubled, which was not in his character.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Davie looked down. ‘I can’t tell you unless you sign up.’

  ‘So it’s like that, is it, Hume 253?’ I used the barracks number that was formerly the only way auxiliaries were addressed. Now they have their names on badges. Until recently I’d never known that Davie’s surname was Oliphant.

  ‘Yes, it is, citizen. Are you in or out?’

  ‘Out.’ Although I’d been the Council’s chief investigator in numerous major cases over the years, I always went back to my own clients. Working for citizens was generally more fulfilling – and substantially less life-threatening.

  ‘You’re just guilty,’ Davie said, meeting my eyes. ‘Who helped set up the City Guard? Who wrote the Public Order in Practice manual that’s still used in auxiliary training? Eh, Bell 03?’

  I sat back in my man-eating sofa. There was no getting away from my earlier life. I’d joined the Enlightenment when I was a student, fought for it through the drugs wars and been one of the Guard’s chief ideologues. Then, a couple of decades back, I lost my faith in the system and dropped out.

  ‘Low blows, Davie.’

  ‘Don’t care. We need you.’ He fixed me with a fearsome glare. ‘I need you.’

  I turned my eyes to the cascade of water on the window
. ‘That’s very touching. But you can’t expect me to drop everything at some whim of the Council. I’ve got cases, people who depend on me.’

  ‘This is no whim of the Council, Quint. Trust me, you’re going to be stuck with this one way or the other. Why not get in at the start?’

  ‘That big, eh?’

  ‘Potentially.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘No chance. The guardian will have my balls for haggis.’

  ‘How can you be afraid of a woman called Doris?’

  ‘I’m not afraid of her, but she’s my boss.’

  ‘The recently appointed Doris Barclay. I remember her when she was Knox Barracks commander. She was wound tight, but no more than most of her kind.’

  ‘She remembers you too. Not hugely favourably, it has to be said.’

  ‘Great. But why no written order?’

  Davie shook his head. ‘Nothing’s being written about this, not even Guard reports.’

  I had to admit it was enticing. The Council’s Edinburgh is the ultimate bureaucratic state, with information stored about everything – formerly in hand-written archives and more recently, in some directorates, in computers bought on the cheap from the warring states that formed after China tried one economic coup too many and disappeared in the biggest financial crisis in history. If the guardians themselves were avoiding written records, a meteorite of excrement was heading for the wind turbine – they’ve been put up on the Pentlands in recent months in a belated attempt to go green.

  ‘How about a clue?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take me to the crime scene?’

  ‘There isn’t one. Well, there is, but it isn’t clear what the crime is.’