The Blood Tree Read online

  “What?” Haggs stepped forward again, his fist drawn back. “Are you threatening me?”

  Hel Hyslop put a hand on his shoulder. “All right, Tam,” she said in a low voice. “We haven’t got much time.”

  I glanced at the wall clock. It was after five. In an hour the prisoners’ lawyer would be knocking on the door. I’d heard that she was a real hotshot. We badly needed a breakthrough. Hyslop wasn’t optimistic about holding Macbeth for any longer. I’d already tried to arrange a private chat with the king so I could press the bastard about the Edinburgh kids, but she’d told me what to do with that thought.

  I took her to one side again. “Let’s show them the photos of the last murder,” I said. “I’ve got an idea I want to try out.”

  “The teenager?” she said. “We haven’t managed to find any link between him and the cult apart from the handbill in his pocket.”

  “No,” I whispered, keeping the identity of the other adolescents to myself. “But he was found near the Rennie. Maybe the cult’s tied up with the institute. The guys in charge are brothers, aren’t they?”

  Hel bit her lip.

  “Duart’s desperate to nail David Rennie,” I reminded her.

  “I know that, Quint,” she said sharply. “I am as well. I don’t like the power base he’s built up in Kelvingrove any more than the first secretary does. But we’ve got to carry out the investigation according to regulations.”

  I gave her a sceptical look. “According to regulations may mean no progress, inspector. Watch their faces.” I took the Strachan file from her desk and slid the murder scene photos out of their envelope.

  “Have you ever seen this person before?” I asked Macbeth, thrusting a shot of the dead teenager on the mortuary slab in front of him. Hel took another and held it up to Lady Macbeth.

  They were good. They hardly moved an eyelid. At least Shakespeare’s hero and heroine had the decency to show some emotion in the presence of violent death. Then again, people old enough to have lived through the drugs wars at the beginning of the century got used to mutilated corpses.

  “Who is this unfortunate?” the king asked.

  “That’s what I’m asking you,” I said, keeping my eyes on him.

  He looked up from the photo. “I think I read about this in the Herald. The boy was the latest in that series of revolting killings, wasn’t he?”

  I nodded and tried another tack. “Does this photo suggest anything to you?” I asked, putting another shot in front of him.

  Macbeth gazed at it intently then let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, very imaginative, Mister Dalrymple. Very imaginative indeed. But I hardly think you can build a case on that.” He turned to his queen. “Look, my dear. Birnam Wood has come to Dunsinane.”

  I showed her the photo of Dougal Strachan as we’d found him, branch covering his face.

  Lady Macbeth’s detached expression didn’t change. “Is this a joke?” she asked. “Are we supposed to know something about this crime because of a far-fetched connection with our play?”

  I shrugged. “You’re not supposed to know anything,” I said. “Your husband was the one who made the far-fetched connection.”

  Macbeth sighed, shaking his head. “Don’t play dumb, Mister Dalrymple. You thought of it yourself.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I thought,” I said, removing the photos and taking another one from the desk. “It’s what the crazy bastards behind the killings think that counts.” I showed him the photo. “How about the man in this shot? Is he familiar?”

  The king looked at Leadbelly, stoned and covered in the blood of his supposed victim, who was lying underneath him. He shook his head. “The mutilation suggests that this is another of those appalling murders. But the man? No, I’ve never seen him before.” His face didn’t betray any nervousness. “Who is he? Is he dead? There was nothing about a double killing in the papers.”

  Hel Hyslop stepped forward and snatched the photo out of my hands. “There was nothing about that in the papers because this man is very much alive and is a prime suspect. Are you sure you don’t know him?”

  The king shook his head. “Quite sure. We don’t mix with murderers. We’re responsible citizens.”

  Haggs dropped his cigarette on the floor beside the chair and stamped on it hard. “If you’re responsible citizens, I’m a horse’s arse,” he said.

  Macbeth stared at him. “That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night, sergeant.”

  Soon afterwards the lawyer turned up. It took the flame-haired harpy no more than half an hour to get the king and queen out on bail. The Cult Squad cobbled together charges of staging the play without proper safety insurance and equipping actors with offensive weapons, but that was about it. The other twenty-two performers were held for further questioning – the brief waived their six-hour rights – but Mr and Mrs Macbeth walked. Magnificent.

  Seven in the morning. A tray of coffee and rolls was sent up from the canteen. Davie would have been impressed – the coffee smelled glorious and the bacon was divine. None of that was enough to prevent me wilting.

  Hel was sitting ashen-faced at her desk, having just put the phone down. Andrew Duart had ripped the shit out of her for blowing the interrogation. I don’t know what he’d expected the king to blurt out, but he was seriously unhappy with the blank we’d drawn.

  “Duart’s a wanker,” Haggs said. “If you’d let me use the electrodes, I’d have—”

  “Shut up, Tam!” Hyslop shouted. “You know we can’t do that with high-profile suspects.”

  I couldn’t resist the temptation to wind them up. “Electrodes, eh? Not even the City Guard in Edinburgh is allowed to use that kind of gear.”

  Big Tam glared at me. “Watch it, pal. I could easily attach them to your extremities.”

  Hyslop’s phone rang and broke up the sparring. She spoke briefly then put the handset down.

  “Good news,” she said, looking at me. “Your friend Leadbelly has come round.”

  “Good news for him,” I said. “Maybe not so good for whoever set him up.”

  They both stared at me.

  “You really believe he’s innocent?” Hel asked.

  “That’s what I’m going to ask him again,” I said, grabbing my jacket and heading for the door. “You can come too, if you want.”

  She caught up with me in the squadroom. “All right,” she said. “Hang on. I need to sort out Tam’s duties.”

  I watched as she went back and laid down some law or other to her sergeant. He didn’t look too pleased.

  “Trouble?” I asked when she rejoined me.

  “Nothing special,” she said, walking past. “Something he forgot to do.”

  I wondered what that might have been for a couple of seconds then followed her to the lift.

  “Where is the reprobate?” I asked as we got into the Llama.

  “In the Western Infirmary,” Hel Hyslop said.

  The name rang a bell. I looked at the road atlas. As I thought, the infirmary was in Kelvingrove, less than half a mile north of the Rennie Institute and the maternity hospital it adjoined. Dougal Strachan’s body had been found between the two medical facilities. I turned to her.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Hel’s tone was peremptory.

  I grinned at her lewdly. “I wasn’t.”

  “Piss off, Quint,” she said, pulling away from the kerb. “You know what I mean. We can’t get into the Rennie without a warrant.”

  I looked out at the morning rush. Buses and cars had packed the central streets. The air was thick with exhaust fumes that the motor manufacturers no doubt swore were harmless. I had a flash of Edinburgh’s relatively empty streets, but there was no point in getting homesick – the fumes were even worse over there because of poor-quality diesel and ancient exhaust pipes.

  “What makes you think I wanted to get into the Baby Factory?” I asked.

  “You had that look on your face,” Hel replied. “The one that says ‘Danger
– Smartarse at Work’. You’ve been wearing it a lot recently. Why don’t you come clean?” She gave me what she thought was an encouraging smile. “You know more than you’ve been letting on, don’t you?”

  I didn’t go for it. What I knew about the Edinburgh murders and the missing kids I was keeping to myself till I saw a way out of Glasgow. “You’d like to get into the Rennie yourself, wouldn’t you, inspector?”

  She glanced at me then nodded. “Duart’s right, I think. Professor Rennie’s up to something dirty. There’s been too much money pouring into Kelvingrove ward. I’m sure that tosser in the crown is in on it.”

  “So why don’t you get a warrant? Why doesn’t the first secretary arrange one?”

  She swerved round a corner at more than regulation speed. “Because this is a democracy, you fool. We can’t walk in on people without due cause. There are courts, judges, lawyers.” She looked at me. “You do know what those are, don’t you?”

  “Very funny. Okay, Edinburgh doesn’t have an independent judiciary. All the same, we nail criminals more successfully than you do.”

  “Oh aye?” Hyslop sneered. “I haven’t seen you catch any since you’ve been here.”

  “Just wait,” I said under my breath. I looked away. This was getting out of control. I decided to offer terms. “Hel, let’s try and act like human beings instead of tearing each other’s throat out.”

  She shrugged noncommittally. “All right.” She drove across the motorway and headed towards the university’s tall tower.

  “So why did you join the Glasgow police?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Spare me the fake interest in my life story, Quint.”

  “It’s not fake. I like to find out what keeps investigators going. It’s not exactly a job that fills you with joy on a daily basis, is it?” I looked across at her. “I mean, Tam Haggs is different. I know plenty of guard personnel like him. He likes ordering people about and putting the boot in whenever he can.”

  Hel turned to me angrily. “Lay off Tam. You don’t know anything about him. He has his own problems.”

  I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m laying off him.” I opened my eyes wide at her. “As long as you tell me what makes you tick.”

  “Jesus,” she said, hands tight on the wheel. “I’m not making deals with you, Quint.”

  “Come on. We’re working a case together. What’s wrong with a bit of background?”

  “Oh . . . all right,” she said, her voice softening. “What do you want to know? I was born down the road here, I was brought up in Bearsden—”

  “What did your parents do?” I asked.

  The interruption put her off. She didn’t speak for a few seconds. “My parents? I never knew my parents. They were . . . they were killed in a car crash when I was a baby. I spent most of my childhood in care.”

  “Ah. Sorry.”

  She glanced at me. “It’s all right. You weren’t to know.” She stopped at a red light and watched a line of cult followers cross. They were dressed in green robes and were carrying yellow plastic fish, their arms extended. “After school I studied law and criminology at university. The police was a logical career move.”

  “That’s it, is it?” I asked, trying to cajole her into something more revealing.

  She looked puzzled. “What more do you want?”

  “Do you want a list? Are you married? Have you got kids? What do you do in your spare time? Do you like seafood? What’s your favourite kind of music?” I grinned. “For a start.”

  Her lips twitched. “No. No. Read contemporary women novelists. Yes, especially oysters. Glasgow Granite.”

  I tried to make sense of that lot. Most of it checked out. “What’s Glasgow Granite?”

  Hyslop laughed. “God, you Edinburgh folk are so out of it. Granite’s a cross between blue grass and urban metal. Great for leaping around to.”

  I took her word for it. Shortly afterwards we pulled up at the infirmary. Time to do the granite with Leadbelly. I wondered what the old blues addict would make of it.

  We were led by a nurse through a hospital that took my breath away. I wished my father had been in Glasgow when he had his heart attack. This place was something out of the twenty-fifth century – high-tech equipment everywhere, comfortable public rooms with small wards clustered round them, architecture and fittings that were pleasing to the eye as well as functional. Sophia’s Medical Directorate was in the Stone Age compared with this.

  “The patient has his own room,” the freckled nurse told us as we approached a door with a policeman standing by it. “He’s still recovering. Please stay for no more than five minutes.”

  I took Hel’s arm, feeling her jerk as I touched it. “Since we’ve been getting on so well, can I ask you a favour?”

  She looked at me dubiously. “What is it, Quint?”

  “Can I talk to Leadbelly in private?” I watched as her face set back into its usual hard expression. “Give the guy a break,” I pleaded. “He’s in a foreign city, he’s had a near-death experience and you want him to have another one. At least he knows me.”

  She wasn’t impressed but, to my surprise, she went along with it. That’s what you get when you ask someone about themselves – however much they try not to, they end up trusting you more than they did before. Not that I did it only to get a few minutes on my own with Leadbelly.

  I went into the room. The patient was lying on a high bed surrounded by machines that bleeped and hummed.

  “Leadbelly?” I said quietly.

  There was a bandage round his neck and various leads and wires ran in and out of him. The skin on his face and arms was clammy despite the air-conditioning. He had his eyes closed.

  I tried again. “Leadbelly? It’s Quint. I’m on my own.”

  That did the trick. His crusted eyelids came apart. He nodded his head at the jug of water on the bedside table.

  I held a plastic glass to his scabby lips. “There you are, man. Now you can tell me all about it.”

  “All . . . about . . . what?” He was wheezing like an Edinburgh coal miner.

  I leaned closer. “All about what happened in the holding cell.” I looked over my shoulder. “We haven’t got much time.”

  Leadbelly blinked a couple of times.

  To my surprise I saw that his eyes were damp. I clutched his bony arm. “Come on. Tell me who put the lace round your neck and I’ll nail the bastard.”

  He was staring past me, his eyes bulging. “No . . .” He looked back at me helplessly. “No . . .”

  “You can tell me, Lead,” I said. “You’re safe in here. I’ll make sure they don’t get to you.”

  Leadbelly shook his head. “No . . . they . . . they . . . didn’t . . .” His voice trailed away.

  I shook his arm. “Tell me, Leadbelly. Was it Hyslop’s people? Tell me.”

  “Christ,” he gasped. “What . . . what if . . . what if I really did kill her?”

  I looked at him. Was that what was bothering him? Did he think that he really did murder the pregnant woman?

  Suddenly Leadbelly started jerking his head from side to side. “The bastards . . .” he said, his cracked voice louder. “What they did to those poor fuckers . . .”

  “Who are you talking about, Lead?”

  He stared up at me. “The poor fuckers,” he said, his words almost inaudible. “The poor, tortured fuckers . . .” He closed his eyes.

  “Who?” I said, trying to keep the volume down. “Tell me, Leadbelly, for Christ’s sake. It’s the only way we’ll ever get out of Glasgow.”

  But he wouldn’t open his eyes again. By the time the nurse came in, he was sobbing. That got me a disapproving glare.

  I walked out with my head in a spin. What the hell had happened to the hard man who used to run with the Howlin’ Wolf? And who was tormenting him so badly?

  Leadbelly wouldn’t talk to Hyslop – no surprise there – so we headed out of the hospital.

  “That was a complete waste o
f time,” she said as we hit the car park.

  I glanced at her. If she’d been behind Leadbelly’s supposed suicide, she’d have been worried that he might have said something incriminating to me. All I could see was irritation that she’d been distracted from the main thread of the investigation.

  “What now?” I asked as we got back into the Llama.

  “I’m going back to the chambers. You?”

  “I’m so knackered that a squad of naked nuns couldn’t keep me awake.” I saw her look of distaste. I’d been hoping to provoke a response as I still wasn’t sure if Hel Hyslop was a fully functioning human being. “Can you drop me at the hotel?”

  She nodded. “You’re lucky it’s on my way. Otherwise you’d be hoofing it.”

  When we got to the St Vincent she kept the engine running.

  “I don’t suppose you fancy a second breakfast,” I asked as I opened the door.

  She gave me a cool look. “I thought you were ready to crash out, nude nuns notwithstanding.” She smiled primly. “Anyway, you don’t suppose correct,” she said, turning to the front. “Too much to do.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Can you send me round copies of the interrogation reports as soon as they’re completed?”

  Hel nodded. “All right. When are you planning on gracing us with your presence again?”

  “I’ll let you know, inspector,” I said with a laugh. “Good night.”

  I slammed the door and walked away across the sunlit pavement.

  I thought I’d got away with it. Wrong. Hel was way ahead of me. A hotel security guy joined me in the lift, followed me down the corridor to my room and locked me in. Bollocks. I’d been thinking about going on an unguided tour of a certain research facility in Kelvingrove. It looked like I’d have to crash out after all. So, after calling reception and telling them not to disturb me, I did.

  Not that the sleep I got was particularly restful. I had a lot of visitors from out of town. First there was the old man, lying on a bed in the infirmary back home, his face drained of colour and his mouth slack. Then there was Sophia, the bulge in her midriff pushing out her surgical robe. She was saying something to me but I couldn’t hear any words, just the incessant hum of hospital monitors like the ones attached to Leadbelly. Then I saw Hamilton and Katharine and Davie. The guardian was tearing a strip off the others, his finger wagging and his face purple. Again, I couldn’t hear what he was saying but this time the background noise was a deafening racket, that of an industrial plant working full out. Katharine was reacting to authority as she always did – with extreme disdain. Davie was being a bit more respectful but he didn’t look too impressed either.