The Blood Tree Read online

“The Council says there isn’t any god, good or otherwise,” I reminded him.

  “This body is evidence of that,” Hamilton said with a shiver. He stood up and took a couple of paces back. “It’s the same killer, isn’t it?”

  “Looks like it,” I said. “Same modus operandi, same body position, the branch is from a copper beech again.” I rocked back on my heels. “I wonder if they’re devotees of Sherlock Holmes. There’s a story called ‘The Copper Beeches’.”

  “They?” the guardian asked, ignoring the literary reference.

  “The gardener reckons there were three of them, which would square with the footprints around Knox 43’s body,” I said, standing up and shaking the pins and needles from my legs.

  The scene-of-crime squad leader climbed over the wall and came up.

  “Another customer,” I said to him. “You’d better get going with the photos and trace searches. I want the body taken away for post-mortem as soon as possible.”

  The auxiliary nodded.

  “What’s the hurry?” Hamilton asked. “The cause of death is pretty obvious.”

  “I want to get some idea of the time of death,” I replied. “The missing kids went for a run with the dead man at seven o’clock, but they were seen outside again around ten. If this guy was killed soon after he finished the run, it would mean that the kidnappers were hanging around for several hours. In that case they would have left traces somewhere.”

  “Quint!” Davie called from beyond the wall. “We’ve located the tree the branch came from.” His face broke into an unlikely smile. “And that’s not all we found. There’s a cigarette butt on the ground by the trunk that looks very like the ones found in the Botanics.”

  We split into pairs and searched the woods. A few isolated footprints were found, but most were concentrated in a small clearing inside the tree line on the castle side and on a track leading to the hole in the wire. All of those were confirmed as matching the prints in the Botanics.

  “What about the prints I found at the tree?” Davie asked when we broke off to compare notes. “They aren’t from workmen’s boots.”

  “No, they aren’t, commander,” the scene-of-crime squad leader said. “They run from the copper beech to the wall and then to the roadside ten yards from the body.” He shook his head. “I can’t identify them without recourse to the files in the castle but I don’t think they’re Supply Directorate issue.”

  “Maybe they’re from Glasgow like the cigarette,” Hamilton said, his jaw jutting. “Bloody democrat dissidents.”

  I ran my fingers over the stubble on my face, trying to fathom what had happened. Did the bogeyman and his friends change footwear? And if so, why? Reluctantly I let the line of thought go. “Anything on the dead man’s background?”

  “Cramond 333 was his barracks number. He was thirty-eight years old,” the guardian said. He held up a file. “I had this sent over. He seems to have been a reliable auxiliary. A bit limited in ambition, perhaps.”

  “Which is presumably why he was a physical training instructor,” I said.

  Hamilton glared at me. “There’s nothing wrong with physical exercise, Dalrymple. Plato saw it as one of the most important—”

  “Let’s leave Plato out of this, Lewis,” I interrupted. “I’m more interested in the location of the body. Why was it left on a public road? There are no blood traces in the undergrowth so the auxiliary may have been killed on the road. Why take the chance of being caught in the open?”

  Davie looked round. “The mist was even thicker earlier on today. And there isn’t exactly a lot of traffic on this road.”

  I shrugged. “There’s probably some farm vehicle activity though. How about guard patrols?”

  The guardian suddenly looked unusually sheepish. “I asked the local commander about that. He told me that he only runs patrols during the night. There isn’t much of a youth gang problem around here.”

  “What about smuggling?” I asked.

  “That’s the point, man,” Hamilton said impatiently. “Cramond Barracks deploys most of its forces on the coastline.”

  I rubbed my hand across my chin. “Maybe the killers knew that,” I said speculatively. “Maybe they had inside knowledge.”

  Davie raised his eyes to the sky, but I was lucky – the guardian didn’t react to that attack on the integrity of the Council’s servants.

  An auxiliary came up to the scene-of-crime squad leader and spoke to him in a low voice. His boss listened then dismissed him.

  “We’ve found some drops of engine oil on the asphalt,” the squad leader reported. “About fifteen yards from where the body was lying.”

  “In what direction?” I asked.

  “South, citizen,” he replied.

  Davie looked at me. “The stolen Labour Directorate pick-up?”

  “Maybe. They could have sat in there before they took the kids. I wonder if it headed towards the city or towards the coast afterwards.”

  Hamilton glanced through a sheaf of barracks reports. “No sightings of the missing vehicle. All red pick-ups on the roads have been checked. If the teenagers were moved in it, they would have been obvious enough.”

  I nodded. “They would. Three of them plus at least three kidnappers. There wouldn’t be room for all of them in the cab. The rest would have been out in the open in the cargo space.”

  The public order guardian clapped his hands together to silence the auxiliaries around us. As if by magic, the rain came down like steel lances. Unfortunately we weren’t wearing steel bonnets.

  “Let’s get indoors,” I said, grabbing the dead auxiliary’s file from Lewis and heading for the gap in the fence. The body had been removed by the ambulance team. All that was left of Cramond 333 was a puddle of blood on the asphalt. It wouldn’t be long before every trace of that was washed away, but that wasn’t what was bothering me most. I couldn’t understand why the body had been left in such an obvious location. It was as if the killer and his associates wanted us to find it sooner rather than later. The question was, who were they? Not only that. What the hell was their agenda?

  Back in the former Lauriston Castle, Hamilton commandeered the supervisor’s office and hung his dripping jacket over her chair.

  “Lunch!” he shouted. “Beer and sandwiches in here now!”

  “Good idea,” Davie said under his breath.

  I shook my head at him and settled down to scan Cramond 333’s file. It didn’t take me long to find what I wanted. “Well, well.”

  Katharine appeared at my side, a pile of folders under her arm. “What’s so exciting?”

  I filled her in about the dead man. I had reached the page outlining his life before the Enlightenment. There hadn’t been much of it as he was only sixteen at the time of the last election. But there was still something that caught my eye.

  “Listen to this. Both his parents came from—”

  “Glasgow?” Davie interjected.

  I glared at him. “How did you know that, guardsman?”

  He grinned. “It was obvious, citizen. There’s been a Glaswegian connection running through this case from the beginning like a tapeworm.”

  An elderly male servitor was laying out food and drink on the supervisor’s conference table.

  “That’s enough of the zoological imagery, Hume 253,” Hamilton ordered. He was looking queasy. I didn’t realise that creepy-crawlies had the same effect on him as cadavers. “What are you suggesting, Dalrymple? That Cramond 333 was a secret admirer of those anarchists on the Clyde? That he spent over twenty years evading security checks and working for his parents’ friends?” The scowl on his face became more pronounced as the tirade continued. “That he passed on information about Edinburgh’s brightest adolescents and was then brutally murdered for his trouble?”

  I leaned forward and picked up a sandwich. “Very good, Lewis,” I said, giving him an icy smile Sophia would have been proud of. “I’m glad our minds are working along the same lines.”

  “
It’s pure supposition,” the guardian said dismissively. “You’re always far too quick to assume that auxiliaries are corrupt.”

  I bit into what was wholestone rather than wholemeal. “Shit.” I felt around in my mouth and removed the offending object. Fortunately my teeth seemed to be intact. “The local barracks baker has obviously been supplementing the flour with grit.” I smiled ironically at the guardian. “Nothing corrupt about that, of course.”

  It wasn’t a relaxing meal-break.

  Davie drove Katharine and me back up to the city centre. We took the files on the missing kids with us, a breach of procedure that the facility supervisor had objected to. Hamilton overruled her when I pointed out to him that an emergency Council meeting was in the offing – and that he’d be in the firing line if I wasn’t allowed to prepare for it in my own way.

  We ground along the Queensferry Road in the fog, passing defeated-looking citizens weighed down by bags of coal and potatoes.

  “Find anything hot on the kids?” I asked Katharine.

  She looked at her notes. “Depends what you mean by hot, Quint. They’ve certainly been glowing very brightly on the academic front.” She turned to me. “I can’t see what that could have to do with their abduction though. They’re smart all right but they’re not rocket scientists or prize-winning chemists – people who might have some value on the open market. Not yet, at least.”

  “Mm.” I opened Michael MacGregor’s file. “Born Edinburgh, 15/2/10. Parents Sheena and Finlay, born Edinburgh, auxiliaries in Simpson and Nasmyth Barracks respectively, both died in the flu epidemic of 2012.” I shrugged. “Nothing too suspicious there.”

  Katharine nodded. “The same goes for the others. Both born in Edinburgh, both to parents who were auxiliaries.”

  I closed the maroon folder and glanced out of the window. A small boy was urinating into the gutter behind a Supply Directorate delivery van. He was taking more than his tiny dick into his hands by breaking the sanitation rules so openly. “What did you get from their friends?”

  “They’re fast-track auxiliary trainees, remember? They’re not supposed to have friends.” The tone of Katharine’s voice showed what she thought of that requirement. “But their classmates seemed to like them – or rather, revere them. Apparently the three of them stuck together a lot.”

  “And their teachers?”

  “Some of them – the males, mainly – had severe difficulty opening up to a DM like me. I managed to gain the women’s confidence—”

  “Congratulations,” Davie muttered, swerving as a tourist bus on the way to the airport pulled into our lane.

  “Up yours, guardsman,” Katharine said.

  “Give it a rest, will you?” I said. “What did the female teachers tell you?”

  “Basically, the same as is in the kids’ files. They were all star pupils, they were all major intellects and they were all very conscientious.”

  I glanced at her. “You presumably caught the odour of decaying rodent?”

  She laughed. “Of course. So I wheedled and poked a bit—”

  “Aye, you’re good at that,” Davie said.

  “Shut it, big man,” I said. “You can always go and play with yourself in the command centre if this case is boring you.”

  He grinned at me and floored the accelerator.

  “God almighty,” Katharine said, shaking her head. “As I was saying, I got beneath the surface and – lo and behold – the trio turned out to have an intriguing side after all.”

  We slowed at the checkpoint by Buckingham Terrace and flashed ID, Davie giving a smart-looking guardswoman an over-the-top salute. She was probably one of his legion of admirers.

  “What was suspicious then?” I demanded as Katharine held out on us.

  “Well, believe it or not, all three kids are extremely advanced sexually.”

  Davie looked at her with interest. “Oh aye?”

  “Don’t even think about making any smartarse comments, guardsman,” I warned.

  Katharine kept quiet, daring him to have a go, but he refrained. Apparently my threat about taking him off the case was having some effect.

  “Extremely advanced sexually?” I asked. “What exactly does that mean?”

  Katharine leafed through her notes. “It means that from the age of ten the boys and the girl were supplied with sexually explicit literature and photographs, and from the age of fourteen they were given sex sessions by experienced auxiliaries.” She paused. “Of both sexes.”

  “Christ,” Davie gasped. “I didn’t realise that was part of the fast-track scheme.”

  “Neither did I,” I said.

  “I wonder how they chose the experienced auxiliaries,” Davie mused. “I never saw a notice asking for volunteers anywhere.”

  Katharine turned to him. “I suppose you’d have applied like a shot.”

  “No chance,” he replied. “Fourteen’s too young for me.”

  “Fourteen’s too young for anyone,” Katharine said.

  I nodded. “You’re right. But the fact that they were sexually precocious doesn’t get us any further on with their kidnapping, does it? Unless they were taken by a white slaver with a client demanding an unusually cerebral standard of post-coital conversation.”

  The fog was thicker over the Dean Bridge. We drove into the dense mass and the outside world completely disappeared from view. Just like the three kids and their kidnappers had done.

  Katharine and I got out at the infirmary – Davie was going on to the castle to check on developments.

  “You don’t have to attend the post-mortem,” I said to her.

  Katharine looked at me coolly. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “I know you have. It’s just that—”

  “You don’t want me to have another run-in with the Ice Queen.” Her voice was sharp.

  I didn’t argue. The last thing I needed right now was the pair of them exchanging glares over the body of Cramond 333.

  “Don’t worry,” Katharine said, relenting. “I’ll go and visit Hector. I wonder who he’ll think I am this time.”

  We separated in the entrance hall which, as usual, was crammed with ailing citizens. I watched as Katharine turned away towards the general wards. She walked with long strides, her head held high and her arms moving gracefully. It was hard to believe that she’d suffered prison and years of hard labour, and come through with her spirit unbroken. I knew I wouldn’t have pulled that off.

  I went into the mortuary and put on surgical robes in the outer room. I could see Sophia at the slab through the glass screen. She was standing at the head, directing an assistant who was wielding a dissecting knife. I pushed open the connecting door.

  “Ah, there you are, Quint.”

  “Sophia. How are you getting on?”

  “About half-way through.” Her eyes above the mask opened wide. “I decided not to wait for you this time.”

  I followed her over to a table by the wall. “Same modus operandi?” I asked.

  She nodded, pulling down her mask. “Heavy blows with a blunt instrument to the left side of the head, then a similar cavity opened in the forehead above the nose.”

  “And the left eye transplanted there.”

  “Correct.” Sophia was looking at me intently. “Those missing teenagers. They must be in terrible danger.” Suddenly she sounded very apprehensive. “You’ve got to catch this killer, Quint. He’s a madman.”

  “You’re assuming the killer’s a man and that he’s psychologically unstable?”

  She twitched her head. “All right, I realise ‘madman’ isn’t a term that either the medical texts or the Council would approve of. Too unspecific, too emotive. But, yes – I do think the killer is male. A fair amount of physical strength is required to break through thick bone such as that of the forehead. The blows to the side of the head also suggest a well-conditioned arm.”

  “There are plenty of guardswomen with well-conditioned arms,” I said. “And as for psychological instabil
ity, it seems to me that the killer knew exactly what he – or she – wanted to do. The murders were carried out with precision. Think of the identical body positions, think of the mutilation, think of the branch in the right hand.”

  “It’s like a ritual, isn’t it?” Sophia said, biting her lip. “But in the Council’s judgement ritual and religious rite are clear signs of mental instability, so my characterisation stands after all.”

  “Maybe,” I conceded. I didn’t want to get into a psycho-theological discussion. “I don’t suppose you found any significant traces of the assailant, did you?”

  “We took scrapings from the fingernails, but I think they’ll turn out to be mud and the like from the locality. We found no blood or fibres from anyone else. The first blow the victim took to the head would have dropped him on the spot. There wouldn’t have been a struggle.”

  “Anything out of the ordinary with the cadaver physiologically?”

  She shook her head. “Cramond 333 was a healthy auxiliary – unusually fit even for that rank. There were no traces of alcohol or drugs and no medical irregularities.”

  “Time of death?”

  “The organ temperatures suggest that he died between eight and nine this morning.”

  I looked up from my notes and nodded. “That early?”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  I shook my head. She’d confirmed what I’d been thinking earlier. But if the physical training instructor was killed between those hours, why had the murderer and his group waited so long before they kidnapped the nascent geniuses?

  “Quint?” Sophia said, breaking into my reverie. “What is it?”

  “Em, nothing.” I ran my eye down her robed form, taking in the bulge in her abdomen. I wondered if daily exposure to diseased and dead bodies was good for a fetus. Then I remembered that two of the kidnapped adolescents were hotshot science and medicine students.

  “Sophia, did you know . . .” I flicked the pages of my notebook “. . . did you ever meet Michael MacGregor and Dougal Strachan?”

  Her eyes flicked open a touch too quickly and I remembered her apprehension about the missing kids.

  “Michael . . . ?” She looked at me uncertainly. “Oh, Michael and Dougal. They’re two of the kidnapped adolescents, aren’t they? As a matter of fact, I did talk to them once. They were at a lecture I gave a few months back.” She shook her head. “Brilliant boys,” she said, her eyes locking on to mine. “You must find them, Quint. We . . . the city needs them badly.”