Body Politic Page 25

  She was looking straight ahead. “I told you, Quint. I’m staying with you.”

  I couldn’t be bothered to argue with her.

  “Here,” said Davie. “You’d better take this.” He handed over his knife.

  “No, thanks. There’s been enough killing.”

  “You were right.” Davie pointed ahead. “The word’s out.”

  Guardsmen and women were swarming around like bees whose queen is under threat.

  After we stopped I beckoned to Davie to lean across Katharine and put his ear to my mouth. The murderer wasn’t the only one who had stage directions to give.

  The commander at the barrier scrutinised my authorisation then looked dubiously at Katharine and Adam. She’d insisted on bringing him along too, God knows why.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, they’re with me.” I grabbed Katharine’s arm and pushed past the auxiliary into Moray Place.

  “Where are they?” she asked, wincing. I’d taken hold of the arm she burned in the blaze.

  There was a clatter of boots from a squad running to take up position outside the senior guardian’s residence. When they’d passed, I walked over to the edge of the gardens that form the centre of the circular street, and gazed into the darkness at the heart of the Enlightenment.

  “They’re on the grass,” I said.

  “I can’t see any . . .”

  The floodlights ignited with a crack and a hum. I was blinded by the white light for a few seconds. I’d rarely seen the gardens lit up. The guardians only use the illuminations when they want to impress foreign dignitaries.

  Then I saw the two of them. They were standing close together in the middle of the well-manicured grass. The medical guardian’s head was lowered and his shirt was out of his trousers but I didn’t look at him for long. It was the figure next to him that I was drawn to, the figure in the pinstripe suit. That individual’s head, under a wide-peaked baseball cap, was also lowered, obscuring the face. There was a glint from their wrists and I made out a pair of handcuffs.

  “Stay here,” I whispered to Katharine. “I’ve got to go out there.”

  “Why?” she demanded, her eyes flaring as she turned to me. “Have you got a death wish?”

  “Don’t tell me you care.” I leaned forward and kissed her hard on the lips. I saw her brother grin. “Watch my back,” I said, then pushed her gently away.

  And stepped out from the line of bushes into the light.

  I stopped when I was about ten yards away from them. With a sweeping movement, the figure on Yellowlees’s right raised the hand untethered by the cuffs and grasped the peak of the cap. I could read the words around the heart emblem on it. They said “Edinburgh – International City of the Year”. I was also able to count the number of fingers as the cap was pulled off.

  Mary, Queen of Scots lifted her head and shook it a couple of times. Fair hair billowed out around her perfect features like the aura around a Pre-Raphaelite pin-up.

  “So, here you are, citizen Dalrymple. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Her voice was warm and welcoming, very unlike the average auxiliary’s. Then again, she wasn’t by any standards an average auxiliary. “Stand still, guardian,” she said, her voice still friendly. But her hand moved to her pocket quickly and re-emerged with her service knife, which she put to Yellowlees’s throat.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him.

  He nodded, keeping his eyes lowered.

  “We haven’t been introduced,” I said to the woman. “You’re from Scott Barracks, aren’t you? Close colleague of 391 and 477.”

  “Very good. I thought you might be getting close.” She looked at me and I felt my spine freeze. “Scott 372 is how they refer to me in this festering city.” She glanced behind me. “Who’s this?”

  I turned, my heart missing a beat as I saw Katharine coming towards us. In the background I suddenly caught a glimpse of my mother in the window of her study. Her face looked moon-shaped again. There was a tall figure I couldn’t make out at the curtain beside her.

  “Come and join us,” Scott 372 said with mock civility. “The more, the merrier. Just tell all my fellow auxiliaries to keep back if they want the guardian to stay alive, citizen.”

  I made the call and saw Hamilton raise his hand in acknowledgement from the bushes.

  “Now throw your mobile over here.” There was an easy smile on Mary, Queen of Scots’ face, the smile of someone who’s in complete control. “Let’s see what you’ve got in your pockets.”

  I tossed over my phone then dropped my notebook, keys and wallet.

  “And you,” she said to Katharine. “What brought you out here? Don’t you trust your boyfriend?” She smiled, this time sardonically.

  “Why don’t you come over here and empty my pockets yourself?” Katharine asked.

  “No, thanks.” The auxiliary gave Katharine the imperious look I saw in the Bearskin. “Do it or the guardian dies.”

  I glared at her too and finally she produced a knife. She must have convinced Davie to give her his. She threw it away to the left.

  “Sensible move.” Scott 372 turned her gaze back on me. I tried to see beyond the mask of her beautiful, unperturbed face but didn’t get very far. Her eyes were vacant, definitely not the windows of her soul. I wondered if I would be able to provoke her. It was worth a try.

  “What’s your name?”

  She laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound and I saw Yellowlees glance at her nervously. “I don’t have a name, citizen. You know that.”

  “I’m sure Gordon Dunbar didn’t call you Scott 372 during sex sessions.”

  I saw her lips tremble momentarily. It looked like I’d got to her. Now what?

  “All right,” she said, her voice hardening. “My name’s Amanda.”

  “Well, Amanda, release the guardian. I guarantee you’ll be treated fairly. I know there’s corruption in the city. You can help me root it out.”

  She laughed again, this time an even more metallic, pitiless noise that was about as far from humour as you can go.

  “Spare me, citizen. I’m an expert at rooting out what’s wrong in the city.” She looked at me like I was a trainee footman in her court. “I don’t need your help.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Extract a confession from this butcher here.”

  The medical guardian’s head shot up as Amanda slammed the butt of her knife into his solar plexus, then he slumped down. She pulled him upright again.

  “You can both witness what he says. Then you’ll understand everything that I’ve done.”

  “Everything you’ve done?” Katharine said scathingly. “You’re protecting someone. You can’t be the murderer . . .”

  I jammed my elbow into her ribs.

  There was a hint of a smile on Amanda’s mouth as she turned to Yellowlees.

  “Stop her, Dalrymple,” he said, his eyes wild. “This is all a terrible mistake.”

  Amanda shot a cold glance at Katharine. Then punctured the skin below the guardian’s Adam’s apple with a lightning-quick movement. A thin jet of blood spurted out. Yellowlees gave a loud gasp and raised his uncuffed hand to the wound.

  “I don’t understand what you want from me,” he said desperately. “I don’t know . . . I’ve . . . I’ve never even seen you before.”

  The hesitation was enough for her. “You may not have seen me, but you certainly saw Gordon, Scott 391.” Her voice was rising in a crescendo. “Didn’t you?” she screamed.

  The guardian didn’t answer. She stuck her knife into his thigh and pulled it out so quickly that I hardly saw her hand move.

  His face twisted in agony. “Oh Christ . . . yes . . . I . . . I know who he was . . .”

  “You cut Gordon to pieces,” Amanda said, her lips close to his ear. “That nurse of yours wouldn’t tell me, but I know you did. Who else but a guardian would dare to carry out transplants in Edinburgh?”

  “No, you’re wrong.” Yellowlees was almost w
eeping now. Blood trickled between the fingers he had clamped to his thigh. “You’re wrong! There were no transplants.”

  The way he was pleading convinced me. I heard plenty of confessions during my time in the directorate and I learned to tell when bullshit turns into the truth.

  “You don’t deny you extracted organs from Scott 391?” I said. That was what the sentry had discovered when he opened the coffin in the crematorium.

  He shook his head dumbly, cowering from the blow he was expecting. This time it didn’t come.

  “That’s better,” said Amanda. “Now tell us how many transplants you’ve carried out.”

  She was obsessed by transplants. Suddenly I realised she’d misunderstood what the medical guardian had done with her friend’s organs.

  Yellowlees was staring at her, his mouth open. He’d realised that if he said the wrong thing now he was dead.

  I tried to distract Amanda. “It was your research, wasn’t it, guardian? That’s what was behind all this.”

  Yellowlees grabbed the lifeline I’d thrown him gratefully. “Exactly. My research into lupus requires certain hormones and cells. I only extract them from . . . dead tissue.” He was avoiding the auxiliary’s eyes. “As in the case of your friend.”

  Amanda turned to me. Her lips parted and the tip of her tongue protruded. She was staring, as if what I’d said was inconceivable. Then she snapped to attention again. She’d dismissed the idea that she’d been mistaken.

  “You’re lying, guardian,” she said sharply. “I know you’ve been doing transplants.”

  Yellowlees looked at me imploringly. “Help me, Dalrymple. Your mother’s benefited from my work.” He tried to step forward, then juddered to a halt like a dog on a lead as Amanda pulled him back. “I was only interested in my research. I had nothing to do with the illegal deals the others were running, you must believe that.”

  I did, but I wasn’t calling the shots. I had a nasty feeling he’d overplayed his hand.

  “Others?” said the auxiliary, her features alert. “Which others?”

  The guardian swallowed, then dropped his head. “Heriot 07 . . .”

  I had a feeling that if he ran through the names of the murder victims he would only convince Amanda he was involved. I tried to muddy the waters. “You realise that your research led indirectly to Margaret’s death?”

  “I know that,” Yellowlees said weakly. “I can’t stop thinking about Margaret . . .”

  “Which others?” Amanda said inexorably. “Heriot 07 and who else?” She saw me move. “Stay where you are, citizen.”

  The guardian raised his head as warily as a cow in an abattoir. “The Greek Roussos, the driver Baillie, the guardswoman Sarah Spence . . .”

  The auxiliary’s chin went up like she’d been electrocuted. “That bitch?” she hissed, pulling Yellowlees closer. “Well, don’t worry about your precious Margaret any longer. Soon you’ll be . . .”

  Before she finished the sentence I raised the stump of my forefinger to my chin, hoping that Davie had positioned spotters all round the gardens.

  For a split second everything seemed to stand still – Amanda with her knife to the guardian’s neck, Katharine by my side, the guardsmen lined up beyond the grass – we were all like players on a stage, motionless before the curtain falls.

  Then the lights went out with a loud crack and I leaped forward into the blue-black night.

  Chapter Twenty

  I’D ARRANGED WITH Davie for the lights to go off for ten seconds. They seemed longer than the slowest-moving episode in the French New Wave films my parents used to watch on their video in pre-Enlightenment times. I reached the spot where I thought the auxiliary and the guardian had been, but found no one. Then I heard a thud and a groan to my right. Before I could move I was hit in the chest by a blow which would have broken ribs if it hadn’t struck my sternum. I went down in a heap, winded. At the same time the lights came back on. Someone ran past and dived on to the scrum of bodies in front of me.

  By the time I crawled over there, only one of them was moving. It was Amanda. She stood up unsteadily. Beyond her I could see Katharine lying on her side unconscious, her mouth open. Her brother was crumpled on top of Yellowlees. I saw legs in dark blue pinstripe come close and tried to sit up. I still couldn’t catch my breath. My heart was pounding. I saw the knife in the murderess’s hand, the blood on it. She bent over me. I waited for the thrust of the blade.

  “Come on, citizen. I didn’t kick you that hard.” She put her arm under my back and sat me up. “I don’t know about your girlfriend.” She looked over at Adam. “Who was that madman? I think I may have killed him.” She said the words as if they were a meaningless platitude.

  “Yellowlees,” I gasped, noticing that she no longer had the handcuff on her left wrist. “What happened?”

  “I don’t think he’ll be doing any more surgery.”

  “Drop the knife.” Davie had an automatic pistol in his hand. “Stand up slowly and put your hands on your head.” He glanced down at me. “Are you all right, Quint?”

  “I’ll live. What about Katharine?”

  An army of guard personnel surrounded us. I saw a couple of medics squat down beside her. I managed to stand up, in time to see Amanda’s hands being cuffed behind her back. Hamilton was on his knees with more medics beside the medical guardian and Adam. I stumbled over and crouched down.

  “They’re both gone,” the public order guardian said hopelessly. Yellowlees’s throat had been cut from ear to ear. If he hadn’t been lying face down, there would have been blood everywhere. As for Adam, there didn’t seem to be a mark on him. Till I looked at his chest and saw the stain over his thorax. You didn’t have to be a cardiologist to realise which organ had been perforated.

  “We have failed to look after our young,” said my mother from behind me. “The heart of the body politic no longer beats.”

  I looked up at her. She was leaning against my father, her face a blotched and flaking ruin.

  “She’s coming round,” the medic said. “Heavy blow to the chin, but her jaw’s still in one piece.”

  I kneeled down beside Katharine and helped her sit up. Her eyes rolled then focused on me.

  “What happened? Where . . .” She was slurring her words. She started to look around. “Where’s Adam?”

  “Why did you follow me out here, Katharine? I told you to . . .”

  She grabbed my arms hard. “What’s happened to Adam?”

  There was nowhere to hide. “When the lights went out, he ran out. To help you, I suppose . . .”

  “She killed him,” Katharine said dully. “The bitch killed him.”

  I nodded slowly. “She killed the guardian too.”

  Her eyes flared. “I don’t give a fuck about the guardian. He deserved everything he got. But Adam . . .” She let out a single, devastated sob. “Adam . . . never laid a finger on anyone. That’s why they all took advantage of him.” She pushed me away and got to her feet. “I want to see him.”

  Hamilton stepped up. “Come with me. He’s in that ambulance.” I was surprised by the sympathetic look on his face.

  “It’s over now, Katharine,” I called after her feebly.

  She turned and skewered me with a glare. “It’s not over for me, Quint.”

  “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Where are you going?” she demanded suspiciously.

  I squeezed her arm. “Things to clear up. Keep your mobile switched on.”

  “You’re not going to interrogate her now, are you?” She brought her face up to mine. “I want to be there when you do.”

  I wasn’t going to commit myself to that. I shook my head. “I’ve got some family business to sort out.”

  She kept her eyes on me. “So have I.”

  My mother looked like she’d collapsed into the armchair by the fireplace in her study. Otherwise I would have been harder on her.

  “You had him here all the time, didn’t you?” I glance
d at my father. He was leaning against the marble mantelpiece and looking uncomfortable.

  She nodded.

  “Thanks for telling me. You realise I might have caught the murderess more quickly if you hadn’t put that distraction in my way?” I bent over her. “Did you know that Billy was funding Yellowlees’s research so he could sell the results?”

  “No, Quintilian,” she said weakly. “Anyway, you’ve no hard evidence of that.”

  I’d seen the look on the medical guardian’s face when he mentioned Billy’s barracks number. “You must have known that Yellowlees couldn’t have made that kind of breakthrough without finance.”

  “He was . . . reticent about how he’d been able to make such progress,” she said, looking away. “I know, I should have pressed him.” Her eyes, almost invisible under swollen flesh, moved back to me slowly. “As you see, I’ve already stopped using the serum.”

  I didn’t feel congratulations were in order. “You sent for Hector, didn’t you? Why?”

  Her distended cheeks took on an even redder tint. “Vanity. I . . . I wanted him to see how much younger I looked.”

  I glanced at my father again. He shrugged awkwardly.

  “I got what I deserved,” my mother said with a faint laugh. “He was horrified by what he called the unnatural reversal of my condition. He wanted to get you to investigate the medical guardian.” She shaded her eyes with unsteady fingers. “I couldn’t allow that so I kept him here.”

  I was amazed. I couldn’t say I knew my mother well. Over the past fifteen years I’d rarely seen her. But the idea that she was concerned about how she looked seemed almost as much of a betrayal of Enlightenment principles as Billy’s deals. Then again, I was an expert in betraying the Enlightenment. Maybe it ran in the family.

  “I want all of this to be given full publicity,” I said.

  My mother raised her head, wincing with the effort. “That is a matter for the Council to decide.” Her tone was more like it used to be.

  “I want everyone to know that senior auxiliaries were stealing from the city, that they were selling the city’s young people as whores. I want the medical guardian’s use of illegally obtained organs for . . .”