Skeleton Blues 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

  Epilogue

  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

  BODY POLITIC **

  THE BONE YARD **

  WATER OF DEATH **

  THE BLOOD TREE **

  THE HOUSE OF DUST **

  HEADS OR HEARTS *

  SKELETON BLUES *

  The Matt Wells Series

  THE DEATH LIST

  THE SOUL COLLECTOR

  MAPS OF HELL

  THE NAMELESS DEAD

  *available from Severn House

  **available from Severn Select eBooks

  SKELETON BLUES

  A Quint 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 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 2016

  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

  in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2016 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.

  Skeleton blues. – (A Quint Dalrymple mystery)

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

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

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

  5. Suspense fiction.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8578-4 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-687-9 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-743-1 (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 Alan,

  Shake them boney blues, bro

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Edwin Buckhalter, Kate Lyall Grant and their excellent team for getting Quint out of his wicker coffin again.

  To my superb agent Broo Doherty of the DHH Literary Agency, a large measure of guardian issue single malt.

  And boundless gratitude to the family and friends who’ve kept me going.

  Prologue

  Edinburgh, February 2034. Winter died early and went to heaven. Spring, descending, gave it the finger. The sky was blue and cloudless, the wind’s fangs had been pulled and not even a single haar rolled in from the firth. Last summer the city endured the Big Wet, not that the tourists noticed. The central zone is well equipped with awnings and covered pavements, so they could go from marijuana café to casino to sex show without ruining their hairdos. The locals were used to perma-damp, thanks to the Supply Directorate’s absorbent hats, holey hoods and umbrellas that disintegrate in the lightest breeze.

  The Council of City Guardians was pleased. The first vote in thirty-one years would benefit from the balmy weather. Campaigning would be easier and the turnout would be high, announced the Edinburgh Guardian and the local radio stations. Of course the turnout would be high – voting was compulsory unless you were on your death-bed. Citizens laughed and shook their heads. The auxiliaries who ran the city hid their embarrassment behind regulation stone faces. I just listened to the blues, thankfully no longer banned. Lead Belly’s ‘The Bourgeois Blues’ hit the spot in a city that supposedly doesn’t have class distinctions. Then again, so did Big Bill Broonzy’s ‘Just a Dream’ – a dream of democracy …

  I knew from the start that independent Edinburgh would struggle to rejoin the nation it had left. To be fair, there was no Scotland after 2003, just warring regions and gangs of headbangers. What I didn’t know was just how screwed up the city-states and districts that fancied flying the saltire were, Edinburgh included.

  I’d have been better off composing the ‘Skeleton Blues’ on my battered six-string and howling the lyrics in the watches of the night. This here’s a protest song.

  One

  I was in the archives when I got the text message. It read, ‘Major case. Where u?’ My friend Davie never bothers writing his name and the cheap phone I’d been issued with didn’t run to caller ID. I knew it was him, though. He was the City Guard commander in charge of violent crime and he frequently called on me, despite the fact that his boss thought I was a troublemaker. I tried my best.

  ‘Busy on case,’ I replied. ‘Suck off.’ The Council came down hard on swearing, though it claimed not to monitor mobiles. Anyway, it was true. I’d been taken on by the newly constituted Electoral Services Department to help with the voters’ roll. A lot of citizens had illicitly left the city in recent months, doubtless convinced the referendum would change nothing.

  ‘Murder,’ came the reply. ‘Guardian worried.’

  That piqued my interest. For an investigator there’s nothing like a murder and, for me, an anxious guardian was a bonus. I told Davie where I was and gathered up my papers.

  A few minutes later a white 4×4 in City Guard markings pulled up outside what had been the main library when I was young.

  ‘Busy on case,’ he scoffed, as I got in. ‘Someone lost their canary?’ He executed a U-turn on George IV Bridge, scattering citizens on bicycles and getting a dead-eyed stare from a bus driver.

  ‘You’d be surprised how many missing-pets cases I’ve been gettin
g since the Council reversed the ban on them.’

  Davie glanced at me. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Last week I traced a newt to the pond at—’

  ‘Arsehole.’

  ‘Charming.’ I grabbed my seat as he took a hard left on to the Royal Mile, the Guard personnel manning the checkpoint having swiftly raised the barrier. ‘So what’s this murder?’

  ‘Wait and see,’ he said, with a grin.

  ‘Let me guess. Auxiliary?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ordinary citizen?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What, then? Something in the zoo? A peccary?’

  ‘A what? No, much worse.’

  ‘Than a peccary?’

  ‘Piss off, Quint.’ Davie pulled up on the esplanade outside the castle and we walked between the statues of Wallace and Bruce that stand guard at the gate.

  ‘Are you really not going to tell me?’

  ‘Can’t. The guardian wants to brief you personally.’

  ‘Don’t tell me he’s signed off on my involvement.’

  ‘He didn’t have a choice.’

  My stomach somersaulted. ‘It’s never a tourist.’

  ‘Got it in four.’

  He kept his mouth shut till we reached the Governor’s House, which had been the public order guardian’s quarters for decades.

  ‘Weeks till the referendum and one of the city’s precious paying visitors is killed?’

  ‘Try not to look so happy.’

  I did what I could.

  The public order guardian was in his fifties, but he looked twenty years younger. Then again, he was only appointed eight months ago and the cares of office hadn’t got to him yet. Or maybe they just had.

  ‘Ah, Dalrymple.’

  ‘Call me, Quint.’ Pause. ‘Jim.’

  He gave me a cold stare. ‘James, if you must.’ In theory even guardians could be addressed by their first names these days, but they didn’t like it.

  ‘So, you’ve got a dead tourist on your hands, James.’

  The guardian glared at Davie.

  ‘I had to attract his attention somehow,’ my friend said defensively.

  ‘Very well. You understand this is confidential, Dalrymple.’

  ‘It’s not the first time I’ve handled a tourist murder.’ I cast my mind back. ‘Though it’s been fourteen years. Usually they’re citizens and auxiliaries.’

  James Michie, tall and well built though nothing like as solid as Davie, handed me a paper file marked ‘Guardian Eyes Only’.

  ‘You’re not to take that out of this office.’ He sat down and ran a hand over his curly brown hair. ‘And spare me your customary suspicions that the city’s servants are responsible.’

  ‘You’ve heard how much I love auxiliaries?’ Since he was appointed, there hadn’t been a murder in the city – at least one that was deemed worthy of my attention. ‘Do you know how many guardians and their subordinates I’ve found with dirty hands over the years?’

  ‘Do you keep a count?’ Michie asked acidly.

  ‘I don’t have the time.’

  Davie applied his boot to my right calf.

  ‘Never mind about that,’ I said, opening the file. I took in the salient details and handed it back.

  The guardian looked surprised. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I prefer to view the body and the scene with as few preconceptions as possible.’

  ‘I see. What else do you need?’

  ‘The commander here.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And an authorization enabling me to—’

  ‘Question anyone in the city, including guardians. I know.’ He gave me a plastic-covered card.

  ‘The service here is much improved,’ I observed.

  ‘I believe you still have a mobile phone,’ Michie said. ‘Although you should have returned it with your last authorization.’

  ‘Slipped my mind,’ I said, looking out the window. I could see across the water to Fife. ‘I take it you’ll want me to attend the Council meeting this evening.’

  ‘You take it correctly.’

  We then took our leave.

  ‘You don’t have to be such a smartarse,’ Davie said, as we walked down to the esplanade. ‘Oh, I forgot. You do.’

  ‘You expect me to kowtow to a prick like Jimmy Michie?’

  ‘He’s not a prick. He’s good at his job.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You take the piss out of guardians on principle, Quint.’

  ‘Wrong. In this case I was taking the mickey.’

  ‘Ha fucking ha. Someone’s been murdered.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. I’m trying to keep my mind off it till I see what happened.’

  We got into the 4×4 and he set off at his usual breakneck speed. The tourist zone didn’t look any different from usual, but as soon as we passed the checkpoint on Dundas Street the referendum took centre stage. There were Council posters encouraging people to vote ‘yes’, and banners and posters from the various parties involved, almost all of them demanding that people vote to join the newly reconstituted Scotland that was supported by almost all the currently independent states – Glasgow, Aberdeen, most of the highlands and islands, Perth, Fife and so on. Our own Council wanted a ‘yes’ vote to share in the wealth of democratic Glasgow – a world leader in both digital technology and fashion – and in the oil and gas that had been found off the north-west coast. The guardians’ aim was to stay in power with minimal changes to what they thought was a benevolent dictatorship, at the same time as benefiting from the union. It wasn’t clear how a future Scotland would work, but some kind of federalization was on the board.

  Davie took two right turns and stopped in a cul-de-sac.

  ‘Eyre Terrace,’ I said. ‘How did a tourist end up here?’

  ‘I thought you were keeping an open mind.’

  ‘Just thinking aloud, guardsman.’

  ‘Commander.’

  ‘Jackass.’

  There were two more Guard 4×4s in the street.

  ‘Subtle,’ I said.

  ‘I told the buggers to keep a low profile.’ Davie stormed over to a guardswoman who was leaning against the nearest vehicle.

  ‘Second floor,’ I said, when he came back.

  ‘I know, dung for brains.’

  ‘What was her excuse?’

  ‘Didn’t you recognize the 4×4? The medical guardian’s here.’

  I might have known that Sophia, my supposedly secret lover, wouldn’t have been able to keep away.

  We found the scene-of-crime team packing up when we got to the second-floor flat.

  ‘Afternoon, citizen,’ said the man in charge. I’d run into him often at sites of violent death. ‘We’re finished. The medical guardian’s people will take the body to the infirmary.’

  ‘You still won’t call me Quint, will you, Andy?’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Raeburn 297 to you, citizen. You were demoted.’

  Some Guard personnel have never got over that, even though I left the Guard in 2015 on my request and demotions have been forgiven – one of the Council’s many attempts to make the ‘perfect’ city more user-friendly.

  ‘Anything you have a burning desire to tell me?’ I asked, knowing what the reply would be.

  ‘My report will be in before the Council meeting.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ I wanted to see things for myself, but scene-of-crimes people can speed the process up – though they can also mislead, intentionally or otherwise.

  ‘The body’s in the bedroom,’ Raeburn 297 said. ‘Quint.’

  I laughed, then looked around the living room. It was a standard two-bedroom citizen’s place, though the curtains – some kind of red plush – were unusual and definitely not from the Supply Directorate. The sofa and armchair were newer and more comfortable than mine, though that wasn’t difficult.

  ‘The named resident is one Clarinda Towart,’ Davie said.

  ‘Did she find the bod
y?’

  ‘No, she hasn’t been seen today, either here or at her work. I’ve distributed her photo and description to all barracks.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ He handed me his file. The unusually named Clarinda was blonde, thirty-four and very attractive. ‘She’s in the Prostitution Services Department.’

  ‘Aye. Normally to be found in the Waverley Hotel.’ That was the city’s most expensive tourist establishment.

  ‘What was she doing bringing a client home?’

  ‘If that’s what happened. Good question.’

  ‘Thanks, sidekick. We’ll follow it up after we view the body. Who reported it, then?’

  ‘Anonymous phone call to the command centre at 11.58 a.m. Male voice, muffled.’

  I heard footsteps in the other room.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ said Sophia McIlvanney.

  ‘Medical guardian,’ Davie said respectfully.

  ‘Are you coming in or not?’ she said, eyeing us impatiently. ‘I do have other duties.’

  I resisted the temptation to call her ‘darling’. Just.

  ‘Good afternoon to you, too.’ I’d last seen her two nights ago. She had been tender then, but that wasn’t her default mode when she was working.

  We followed her into the bedroom. There was a strong smell of excrement. An oriental man with light brown skin was lying face up on the floor. He was naked, his arms and legs open wide. It was hard to judge his age as he was completely bald.

  ‘Cause of death was strangulation,’ Sophia said, pointing to the deep red furrow on his throat. ‘Ligature, thin strip of leather half an inch wide – the technicians have it. Time of death between two and four last night, I’m estimating. The post-mortem may narrow that down.’

  I kneeled down beside the dead man. ‘No watch.’