The Blood Tree Read online

  Suddenly everything went black. The clatter disappeared and was replaced by a gentle hissing, the breath of a light breeze over a heather-carpeted hillside. Then a face flew out of the darkness. I recognised it immediately. It was Caro, long-lost Caro. The dark hair was loose around her face, not drawn back in a grip as it had been the last time I saw her on the drugs gang raid that led to her death. And her expression was joyous, her moist lips parted and the straight white teeth visible between them. She kept smiling at me, mouthing words which I wished I could hear. But the wind was blowing stronger now, carrying everything she said away. Then she too was gone, back into the void.

  I woke up in a sweat, the bedcovers all over the place. It took me a long time to get my breathing back under control. A couple of mouthfuls of malt whisky helped. Christ. Caro. She’d been coming back to me a lot recently. As for the others, I didn’t usually dream about them – certainly not Lewis Hamilton. What was going on? Being away from Edinburgh was getting to me in a big way.

  It was three in the afternoon. The best way to banish the past was to work. I called the desk and asked if anything had been delivered. There was a package from the Major Crime Squad. I asked for it to be sent up, along with a double order of bacon rolls and coffee. Then I had a bath and got down to the files.

  Which weren’t particularly revealing. The interrogations of the twenty-two Macbeth performers didn’t give us anything about the cult’s funding or any links with the Rennie Institute. At least I found out the name of the masked man with the cloak. He was called John Breck. Not to his face though – the culties had to address him as Broadsword, or else. The other two missing actors, the ones I assumed were the bogeyman’s side-kicks, had been Joseph Graham and Eric Nigg before they metamorphosed into medieval men-at-arms with the monikers MacAlpine and Aidan. No one seemed to know much about any of them – cult members were encouraged to cast off their past existences like snakeskins.

  As for the men who’d been guarding the adolescents, they claimed they had no idea what was going on. When Haggs applied what the file described as “firm questioning” – which I took to involve electrical equipment – they only repeated that they were nothing more than sentries and that Broadsword was in charge.

  I sat back amidst the debris of crockery and green folders and tried to make sense of what was going on. I was the only person who had the full range of information, stretching from the burglary, kidnappings and murders in Edinburgh to the dead adolescent near the Baby Factory and the suspected involvement of the Macbeth cult in Glasgow. The question was, did I have too much material? Was everything connected? I took a gulp of what was by now very cold coffee and thought about it. Was there a thread, a line that ran through the apparently disparate crimes? Every instinct I had told me there was. One thing my years in the Public Order Directorate taught me was “always keep sight of the beginning”. And the beginning of this convoluted case or cases was the break-in at the old Parliament archive. A trio of men who I reckoned were now on the loose in Glasgow had taken a Genetic Engineering Committee file attachment. That had to be the key.

  I followed the line from there. The burglars – Broadsword the Bogeyman, MacAlpine and Aidan, I was pretty sure – had connections in Edinburgh with Knox 43, the first victim. But who would have sent them to get the file attachment? Professor Rennie was the obvious answer. Perhaps there was something in that document that he needed. Perhaps he also needed the missing adolescents – their high intelligence might play a part in his research into the human potential referred to in his mission statement. It could be that Knox 43 was killed to keep him quiet, while the physical training instructor was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then I remembered the modus operandi. I could understand why the Macbeth trio would have worn their costumes in Edinburgh. There are plenty of Tourism Directorate operatives wandering around every day in festival production get-up, making it as good a disguise as any. But why leave branches over the victims’ faces? They may not have been a very obvious link to Macbeth, but I reckoned they were a link all the same. Except the eight Glasgow victims before Dougal Strachan had been found without branches over them.

  The phone rang.

  “You awake, shite?” Haggs asked.

  “Evidently, Tam. What do you want?”

  “You. I’ll be round in ten minutes. Make sure you’re ready.” The connection was cut.

  While I was shaving, I followed the thread of the case through to Glasgow. What was behind the killings here? I was still sure Leadbelly wasn’t a murderer, even though he’d behaved strangely in the hospital in the morning. But he was employed at the Rennie so he was involved in some way. The fact that Macbeth was the professor’s brother and the fact that Andrew Duart and Hel Hyslop were suspicious of the institute made me sure that the line ended there. But the Baby Factory was a no-go area. The Baby Factory. What exactly was the significance of the name? I remembered Crummett, the American businessman Rennie had with him at the banquet. Exactly what kind of deal did they have going?

  The door was unlocked as I was pulling up my trousers.

  “Come on,” Big Tam said impatiently.

  “You need some beauty sleep,” I said, taking in his bloodshot eyes and pale skin. “A couple of hundred years ought to do it.”

  “Fuck you, Embra wanker,” he said, stepping forward with his fist raised.

  I walked past him, allowing the sleeve of my leather jacket to slap him lightly on the face. “You’re not my type, darling,” I said, heading rapidly for the lift.

  We worked the prisoners and the files into the evening – and reached the big nowhere. Searches of the cult’s numerous premises hadn’t turned up anything incriminating either.

  “We’ll have to let them walk,” Hel said around ten p.m.

  I shrugged. “Why not? Either they’re in the dark about what Macbeth’s been up to or the bastard’s made them learn their lines perfectly.”

  She nodded, scribbled on a form and handed it to Haggs. “Get the Cult Squad duty officer to countersign that and let the culties go. Grade 2 surveillance is approved.”

  He walked off without a word.

  “What next?” I asked her.

  She stared at me, her face wan. “God knows. I’ve just about had it.” Her expression hardened. “I know you’re keeping things from me, Quint.”

  I tried to look surprised. “What things?”

  “Don’t fuck about. What did Leadbelly tell you this morning?”

  “Nothing,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. Lies were unnecessary. “He was still out of it.”

  I could see she didn’t believe me, but she was too tired to argue. “I’m packing it in for the day. Come on, I’ll drive you back to the hotel.” She moved to the door.

  “Hel?” I asked, flicking back pages in my notebook. “Is it normal practice in Glasgow for murder victims’ backgrounds to be ignored?”

  She gave me a curious look. “What do you mean?” Her eyes flashed. “Are you criticising our working methods?”

  “No,” I said appeasingly. “But you’ve got eight sources of potentially useful information on motive and you haven’t investigated more than the last few months of their lives.” I glanced round the large squadroom. “You’re not short of manpower, are you?”

  Hel headed for the lift. “Not particularly. But you said it yourself. We’ve had eight violent deaths – nine including the adolescent – over a relatively short period. Every time we get into the victims’ past histories, another corpse turns up.”

  I nodded as the doors closed and we moved downwards. Series of murders do put investigating teams under heavy pressure, but something about her answer didn’t ring true.

  “You’ve been sleeping all day,” Hel said as we reached the ground floor. “What are you going to do now?”

  “What choice have I got?” I said ironically. “Your flunkies in the St Vincent will lock me in as soon as I arrive.”

  She stopped by the Llama and smiled. “I
don’t think we need to bother with that tonight, Quint. After all, Edinburgh’s a long way away and where else are you going to go?” She pressed the electronic lock control. “You wouldn’t be crazy enough to case the Rennie, would you? As senior investigating officer, I couldn’t possibly condone that.” Her tone wasn’t exactly discouraging.

  Hel Hyslop was a more devious operator than I’d thought. Pity she wasn’t coming too.

  Two and a half hours later I was in a bush to the west of the institute. I’d walked all the way, having decided that the underground railway the locals call the Clockwork Orange was a bit too obvious. Besides, I was never a fan of the novel of that name – too many difficult words.

  I’d been there long enough for my feet and hands to start tingling in the cold. The perimeter fence was twenty yards away and it was the main problem – twelve feet high, the top three strands consisting of vicious-looking razor wire, bright lights every second post and what I reckoned were hyper-sensitive alarm cables wound through the barbed stuff. To top that, there were cameras on the walls of the main building. Fort Knox had nothing on this place. That only added to my suspicions. What was so secret and sensitive to require all this security?

  I gave it another five minutes then withdrew to the parkland behind. The undergrowth was thicker there and there were trees to provide cover as well. Any thoughts I had of effecting a clandestine entry to the Rennie had disappeared faster than a Glasgow citizen’s fashion allowance. The comforts of my hotel room, not to say its central heating, were becoming an irresistible temptation.

  Then I saw him. My stomach clenched for a second before liquefying. Jesus. It was the bogeyman. Or Broadsword, John Breck, whatever the lunatic wanted to call himself. His long hair and scarred face were visible in the lights of the Rennie and his cloak was flapping as he strode straight towards me.

  My breath rasped in my throat as he got closer. In his right hand he was holding a branch that was partially bare of leaves. Something metallic glinted beneath it. And in the left hand was the solid mass of a mallet. I looked round, frantically calculating if I could reach the trees before him. No chance. Birnam Wood was on its way to Dunsinane. The mutilated faces of the victims and their third eyes flashed before me. That stiffened my resolve. The bastard. He owed a debt for what he’d done to them.

  I swallowed hard, stood my ground and faced the foe.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I stood motionless as the branch-wielding figure approached. When he was about five yards away, he stopped and stared at me. I could see his eyes glistening behind the mask. Close up, the scars were even more ragged and the material looked worryingly like real human skin. He dropped the branch – it was from a copper beech – and I saw what was underneath it. A chisel. At this point the fact that I’d been right about the implement used to mutilate the victims didn’t make me rejoice.

  “Why didn’t you run?” The bogeyman’s voice was cracked and high-pitched, as it had been when he was on stage. “Do you want to die?”

  I kept my eyes on his, even though the urge to bolt was hard to resist – at this range the killer was even more terrifying than the witnesses had described. I clenched my fists, wishing I had something more than them to defend myself with.

  Broadsword took a step forward. “Eh, dick? Curiosity getting the better of you?” I could see his lips form into a malevolent smile through the hole in the mask. “You know what curiosity did to the cat.” He lifted the mallet and chisel a few inches.

  I took a deep breath. “I know what you did to nine people in Glasgow and another two in Edinburgh.” Provoking psychos is a seriously risky business. You either get them to give themselves away or you die – or both eventualities occur in quick succession.

  Now he was looking at the instruments of death in his hands. “Nine people in Glasgow and two in Edinburgh?” he repeated, his voice scratchier. “Eleven dead.” He seemed to lose the plot for a few moments. Then he raised his eyes to mine again. “Yes, that’s right. We’ve killed eleven.” He took another step towards me. “And you’re about to become number twelve.”

  I’d been in situations like this before. The only thing to do is keep your assailant talking. “Look,” I said, trying to stop myself gabbling, “you wear a mask. I don’t know who you are. There’s no need to kill me.”

  The laugh that issued from the hideous face made me quiver. “Oh, you’ve got to die all right, Dalrymple. There’s no getting away from that. You know too much.”

  “How do you know my name?” I asked. “I don’t remember being introduced to you, John Breck.”

  The mask’s fixed features didn’t conceal the twist of his lips. “I don’t like being called that.” The voice was low in volume but there was no mistaking its intensity.

  “Okay.” I smiled, hoping my extreme nervousness wasn’t visible. “How about Broadsword?”

  He laughed. It was a hoarse, empty sound. The bogeyman was about as far from having a sense of humour as I was from becoming an auxiliary again. “Like I say, you know too much.” His gaze suddenly dropped again. “Christ, we’ve gone too far,” he said in a harsh whisper. “We shouldn’t have killed the boy.”

  The boy? He must have mean Dougal Strachan. “Why was he killed?” I asked before I could swallow the question.

  Bad move. The bogeyman looked up again. “You’re too curious, dick. The others are right. We have to deal with you.” He raised the mallet and drew it back.

  There wasn’t time to think about who the others were, I had to go for broke. “The institute’s finished,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. “Duart and the executive know all about Rennie’s involvement in the murders.” That line was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment.

  Broadsword laughed again. “Good,” he said, moving forward. “That’ll put me in the clear.” The mallet was pulled right back now. “This is it, Dalrymple.”

  Everything slowed down. I’d taken a step away, but what I’d seen when I glanced round at the Rennie was puzzling me even as the lunatic made his move. Or rather, who I’d seen. Surely not.

  “Hit the ground, Quint!” yelled a familiar voice.

  I was already in the process of doing that. As I dived to the grass, my attacker swung the mallet and lost his balance. He straightened up quickly and took aim at me again. Then, with a dull plop, the haft of a knife appeared in the upper part of his right arm. He let go of the wooden weapon.

  “Step back, you in the mask!” came a barked command.

  Broadsword didn’t hang about. He took several steps to the rear then turned and ran, the cloak spreading out behind him like an octopus discharging its ink. In a few seconds he was through the line of trees and away.

  I twisted round on the damp ground and took in the figure that was racing towards me.

  “Are you all right, Quint?” he demanded, sliding the last yards on his knees.

  “Aye, Davie. Thanks to you.” Then I took another, even more surprised look as Katharine stepped swiftly out of the undergrowth.

  From Gothic horror to romance in the blink of an eye.

  We were in the bushes on the far side of the grass from the institute. There was no sign of the guy who’d been about to deal with me. To be honest, he wasn’t uppermost in my mind at that moment.

  “What the fuck are you two doing here?” I gasped.

  “Good to see you too, Quint,” Davie said with a loose grin. He was wearing good-quality jeans and a leather jacket that was almost as cool as mine. “Just as well we made it when we did.”

  “Bloody right.” I was staring at Katharine. She hadn’t needed to bother with Glasgow chic as her own wardrobe was already pretty off the wall. She was in a pair of loose black trousers and a fluffy orange jersey that concealed her figure effectively. But she still looked stunning, her eyes bright and her face split by a smile.

  “Darling, are you okay?” she asked ironically. “We’ve been so worried.” She squeezed my hand to show she wasn’t just taking the pis
s.

  “Apart from having the operational life of my heart reduced by about half, yes, I’m remarkably okay. What about Hector? Is he all right?”

  Davie nodded. “I checked before we left. He was fine – improving all the time.”

  “Great. Thanks, Davie.” I looked at them. “How the hell did you two come to be lurking in those particular bushes? Come to that, how did you get into this bloody city?”

  They exchanged anxious glances, which immediately made me suspicious.

  “Come on, out with it,” I said, ducking down as the lights of a passing car shone over us.

  “Em . . .” Davie was looking more sheepish than the specimen called Dolly.

  “We tailed you,” Katharine put in. Her eyes were lowered, concentrating on the leaves she was brushing from her clothes. “There was a butt from a Glasgow cigarette on your landing. Given the other connections the murder victims had with this city, we were pretty sure you’d been brought here. So we hitched a lift on a Fisheries Guard vessel then tramped to the border. We made out that we were refugees from the wicked Council. They let us in like a shot.”

  If they hadn’t kept avoiding my gaze, I might have bought the story. But there had to be more to it. “So that got you to Glasgow. But it’s big enough city, even if you don’t include the rest of the territory it controls. How come you ended up in this precise location?”

  “Em . . .”

  “I wish you’d stop saying that, Davie,” I snapped.

  The eyes above the heavy beard opened wide. “All right,” he said, fumbling in his pocket. “If you must know, we traced you with this.”