Impolitic Corpses Read online

  I looked over my shoulder. ‘The smart thing would have been to keep quiet about the House of Binns, Aku. Why did you drop the hint? Is there an execution squad waiting for us?’

  He lowered his head.

  ‘It’s obviously a trap, Quint,’ said Katharine. ‘But those can sometimes be sprung without too much cost.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ I said, leaning closer.

  ‘Me too,’ said Davie, swerving past a minivan that had stopped in the central lane. People were waving from the windows.

  Katharine sniffed. ‘No, you’re not, big man. You’re all arse.’

  So much for the three musketeers, I thought, though her idea was interesting. Shame we only had two knives, three pistols and a machine pistol between us. Davie argued, but I allocated the latter to her.

  Somehow we made it to the exit that would lead to the Binns. Not much further on, two cars had collided. Davie slid open his window, ordered the passengers out and then bulldozed his way through.

  ‘Those people will freeze,’ said Katharine.

  ‘They can get back in now,’ said Davie. ‘Don’t worry, if this works out the way I’m hoping, there’ll be plenty more cars coming down here. They’ll get help.’

  ‘You think so?’ said the Finn, with a manic cackle.

  I looked at Davie and he kept his mouth shut.

  ‘How much further?’ Katharine asked, racking the slide on the machine pistol and applying the safety.

  ‘About a mile,’ said Davie. ‘But the estate’s big. I’ll tell you when to bail out.’

  ‘Do you think there’ll be a gate?’ I said. ‘With guards?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he replied. ‘But this heap is in better condition than I thought. It’ll get us through.’

  Visibility couldn’t have been much more than five metres. Davie had the headlights dipped, which reduced the chances of us being spotted. I hoped.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ I said, wiping the windshield with my sleeve. ‘Gate. Guards.’

  ‘Oh, goodie,’ said Davie, with a worrying grin. He increased speed. ‘Hold on!’

  Katharine grabbed my thigh, which hurt. I managed not to squeal – until the front of the Land Rover hit the single-barred gate and crashed through. There was a burst of automatic fire and the rear window cracked all over and then fell in. The Finn gave a series of high-pitched laughs. We drove on.

  I eventually made out a faint blur of lights. ‘That must be the house.’

  Davie hit the brakes and we slithered to a halt. ‘Good hunting, Mrs,’ he said, as Katharine got out. She slipped away into the snow-filled dark. ‘Maybe we should all do that, Quint,’ he said. ‘We can put a sock in the cheek-biter’s mouth.’

  I considered that. ‘No, what we can do is use the Finn as a bargaining chip. Keep your pistol jammed in his side.’

  ‘Mon plaisir,’ Davie said in his atrocious accent, driving on.

  The lights got brighter and other vehicles became visible: all were under snow, but I could make out a pair of vans, a four-by-four, and a tractor with a snowplough fitted to its front. That explained why the last section of the road hadn’t caused Davie too many problems.

  ‘This’ll do,’ I said.

  We stopped about fifty metres from the house. I’d been once before, towards the end of the drugs wars. A gang of recalcitrant madmen had holed up in the house, which had been in the Dalyell family for centuries. The old four-storey building had been badly damaged, but from what I could see it was in good order now.

  Davie and I got out and looked around. There was no one in the vicinity, though the gatekeepers had surely raised the alarm.

  ‘You know what?’ I said. ‘We should gag the Finn.’

  ‘I’m not using my socks,’ Davie said. ‘Fortunately, I have a handkerchief. Used, but that’s too bad.’ He went to the rear door, opened it and hauled the prisoner out, jamming the handkerchief into his mouth before he could make a sound. Koskinen rolled his eyes but came along without resisting, the muzzle of Davie’s pistol in his side.

  There were at least ten external lights on the front of the house, two of them on each side of the main door. The Scottish baronial towers and battlements gave the place an appropriately Gothic atmosphere. I had a flash of Poe’s House of Usher before it slid into the tarn. Was there a Roderick inside? Was there a Madeline? I’d settle for a Margaret.

  The thick double doors were pitted by bullet holes rather than studded with iron nail heads. Very encouraging. There was no sign of Katharine or anybody else, though the snow was coming down like a curtain. I turned the circular handle and the lock disengaged.

  ‘They’re waiting for us,’ I hissed to Davie.

  ‘Bring them on,’ he said.

  I pushed the heavy door open and went slowly into a wide hall from which the flooring had been removed. We walked on frozen earth. It was a disquieting effect – the outside of the house in good condition and the inside more like Poe’s creation. There was also a strange smell about the place.

  ‘Someone’s not been using the bins,’ Davie said, holding Koskinen tightly to his left side.

  I swallowed a laugh. ‘Do you think that staircase is safe?’

  The structure was missing numerous boards, the wall alongside it dotted with the remains of plaster that looked as if it had contracted leprosy.

  Davie glanced around. ‘Let’s stick to this floor.’

  ‘Yes, you should,’ said a thin, piping voice from a door that had just opened to our right.

  ‘Indeed you should,’ said another voice, deeper than the first but oddly similar in tone – which was a mixture of satisfaction and something less easily definable. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  Aku Koskinen started to make a keening noise through the handkerchief and Davie jabbed the pistol into his side.

  ‘Don’t hurt the Finn,’ said the first voice.

  ‘No, don’t hurt him,’ said the second. ‘He’s ours.’

  The accent of both voices was hard to pin down, but it definitely meant something to me. Once again, my memory let me down.

  ‘Come in,’ said the first voice.’

  ‘You’re quite safe,’ said the second.

  I exchanged glances with Davie. ‘Is Lady Margaret Macdonald here?’ I asked. ‘We’re not going anywhere until we know.’

  ‘Of course.’ The second voice dissolved into laughter that wasn’t exactly hysterical but was disturbing enough. ‘Come in. She’s waiting for you.’

  I saw no armed men in the brightly lit hall, though that didn’t mean they weren’t waiting for us in the room.

  ‘Let’s do it, Quint,’ said Davie. He pulled Koskinen forward.

  ‘Yes, do it!’ said the two voices, like children about to get a treat. ‘Do it, quickly!’

  I lagged behind for some moments, wondering if we were about to make a terminal mistake. But I was also afflicted by the investigator’s curse: curiosity. Who were the owners of those eerie voices? They had kept themselves out of sight. There was only one way to find out. I moved forward.

  Davie went through the door, pushing the Finn ahead of him so that there was room for them to get through. ‘Whoa,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Quint, get in here.’

  At least he wasn’t warning me off. I walked on and crossed what turned out to be the threshold to a world of wonder. The first thing I saw was a large reproduction of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. The second made me stop in mid-stride, then almost collapse.

  ‘Hello, Quintilian Dalrymple,’ said the voices in unison.

  I stood open-mouthed at the sight before me, after managing to regain my balance. Standing on the faded Persian carpet was a woman. Two women. A woman with two heads. She … they had black trousers on their two legs and a pink blouse over a single upper abdomen that was wider than usual. I managed to raise my lower jaw.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, my voice little more than a croak.

  ‘I’m Amber,’ said the head on the left.

  ‘And
I’m Penny,’ said the head on the right. ‘Penelope really, but I don’t like that.’ There was suddenly an edge to the higher of the voices.

  ‘You’re Davie, aren’t you?’ said Amber, looking at the big man, who had lowered his weapon. ‘You can take whatever that is out of Aku’s mouth. He’s no danger to you now.’

  Koskinen went to the conjoined twins and dropped to one knee. ‘I brought him to you, mistresses. Are you happy?’

  He was struck in the chest by the left of the two feet and let out a squeal.

  ‘Brace up, man,’ said Penny. ‘Go and sit in the corner.’ She pointed with the arm on her side.

  He did as he was told. It was then that I saw the figure in an armchair, ropes around her chest and legs, with her mouth taped. I recognized Lady Margaret from her short, pure-white hair. Her skirt was the tartan that her husband wore.

  I saw that the door had closed behind us.

  ‘Don’t worry, Quint,’ said Amber. ‘Come and sit down. We want to get to know you.’

  They both smiled and I took in their faces, which were well formed and attractive, as well as very similar. Both were wearing makeup, Amber’s laid on thick and Penny’s much more minimal. The hair on both heads was black. Amber’s was in a short bob, while her sister’s was in long plaits. I began to grasp that they were quite different personalities. But who were they?

  ‘What’s your surname?’ I said, sitting on their right on a large sofa.

  ‘He’s curious,’ said Penny. ‘Shall we scratch his itch, dear?’

  Amber looked past her sister and gave me a broad smile. Her head was more angled outwards. ‘We agreed we would.’

  Evidence of a plan.

  Davie went to the door and turned the handle. ‘Locked,’ he said, raising his pistol. ‘Want me to break it down, Quint?’

  ‘No, no,’ said the twins, in harmony. ‘We’re all friends here.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Davie. He stood near the door so he’d be concealed when it opened.

  ‘Pringle,’ said Penny, whose voice was the higher. ‘That’s our name. Penny Pringle, that’s me.’

  ‘Amber Pringle, at your service,’ said the other twin, again leaning forward and smiling.

  ‘At our service?’ I said. ‘In what way?’

  They looked at each other, suddenly serious.

  ‘You really don’t know why you’re here, Quintilian Dalrymple?’ Penny said. Her tone was formal now, like that of a prosecutor. ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘We gave you so many clues,’ said Amber.

  I tried to ignore my somersaulting stomach. ‘The finger,’ I said.

  ‘Of course!’ they said together, enthusiastic again.

  ‘That made you think; admit it,’ said Amber.

  ‘It certainly did. Why on earth was it in the drawer under the Macdonalds’ bed?’

  The twins looked at each other again.

  ‘To make you realize that your actions have consequences,’ said Penny, her head held high.

  That wasn’t encouraging, but curiosity was still my master.

  ‘Which actions?’ I asked.

  ‘Can I tell him?’ asked Amber.

  Penny gave her a sharp look. ‘No, that’s my job.’ She turned her almost black eyes on me. ‘We hereby charge you with the murder of our father.’

  Bile immediately filled my mouth. The witness to the death must have talked. The Ear, Nose and Throat Man had been such a psychotic slaughterman that it never occurred to me that he might have had children. Given the number of women he and his fellow gang members raped, I saw now that there were bound to be offspring. But these poor souls? A wave of sorrow crashed over me and I almost moved to embrace them. Then I saw the look on Penny’s face.

  ‘Quintilian Eric Dalrymple, we hereby sentence you to death by hundreds of cuts.’

  The door banged open and several burly men rushed in, one of them laying Davie out with a single blow as soon as he showed himself. I stood up, but stayed where I was when a machine pistol was pointed at my chest.

  ‘And here’s your executioner,’ said Amber, with a chilling laugh.

  A tall man with short hair walked in. He was carrying a wide black leather bag. I didn’t need an introduction. This was Mr Edward Sebastian, the surgeon who called himself the teratologist, and I was clearly the monster in his view.

  ‘We’re dicephalic parapagus,’ said Penny conversationally.

  I was watching the surgeon. He pulled on latex gloves and started laying stainless-steel operating instruments out on a rubber mat he’d put on the slate table in front of the sofa. My mouth went drier than a vermouth-free martini.

  ‘Yes,’ said Amber. They got up and walked without awkwardness towards the log fire. ‘We’re fused at the abdomen and pelvis. We have one liver, three kidneys, one bladder and two breasts. Each of us has our own heart, stomach, spine, lungs and spinal cord. We’re twenty-eight.’ The last sentence was spoken with pride.

  I studied them. They were shorter than usual, probably around five feet, but otherwise were startlingly average in appearance – excepting the two heads, which were both angled slightly outwards, Amber’s further.

  ‘Bosch,’ I said, pointing at the reproduction of The Garden of Earthly Delights. ‘What’s the interest?’

  They laughed, the contrasting tones discomfiting. Penny gave me a mordant smile.

  ‘You know perfectly well, Quintilian.’

  ‘Are there conjoined twins in the triptych?’ I didn’t recall such figures, though there was no shortage of grotesques in Hell; there were also naked people standing close to each other in the central panel who could have been linked physically.

  ‘If you want there to be,’ said Amber.

  Penny gave me a lubricious look that made my cheeks burn. ‘Well, do you?’ she asked. ‘Want us to be there? Or here?’

  I closed my legs as the teratologist picked up a saw-edged blade that glinted in the firelight.

  ‘We had a third arm,’ said Amber. ‘But Edward got rid of it for us.’

  I decided to play hardball, maybe for the last time.

  ‘Put it in the bin, did he?’

  There was more jarring laughter.

  ‘Honestly, Quintilian,’ said Penny. ‘You were so slow.’

  ‘How do you think I could have worked out that Lady Margaret was in this house, let alone you?’

  The twins shrugged, a disconcerting movement.

  ‘Not our problem,’ said Amber. ‘Admit it. Since you found the finger, you’ve been quivering with fear.’

  I snorted. ‘In your double dreams. I killed your father. Do you think a finger, even a right forefinger like the one I lost, would bother me?’

  ‘Yes,’ they replied, Amber loudly and Penny considerably less so.

  ‘How do you know the ENT Man was your father?’

  ‘Guess,’ said Penny. ‘Though that doesn’t seem to be your strong point.’

  Finally, I identified their accent. I hadn’t heard a similar one since the Truth and Reconciliation Hearing – the dignified old black South African judge.

  ‘How about this?’ I said. ‘Your mother – poor woman – was one of the Howlin’ Wolf gang’s sex slaves. When she found she was pregnant, she managed to escape; I can’t imagine how. I’d hazard she was injured. And, even more amazingly, she managed to find somewhere safe to give birth – somewhere with a functioning hospital. I imagine your birth wasn’t straightforward.’

  ‘Portsmouth,’ said Amber. ‘Sailors defended the city centre from the criminal gangs, at least until we were healthy enough to travel.’

  ‘Then your mother took you on a ship to South Africa.’ That was pure conjecture. I didn’t know whether ships had been sailing anywhere in 2010, let alone to the southern hemisphere.

  ‘Wrong,’ said Penny. ‘You were right about Mother. She succumbed to her wounds and loss of blood three hours after we were born. She’d stolen some gold from Father’s gang and arranged for a young woman to accompany us to Cap
e Town. It was as far away from Edinburgh as she could afford. Diane stayed with us till we were nineteen. She was killed during the civil war.’ She sobbed once. ‘Such a kind woman. She wouldn’t have liked the new regime, though. The poor cow was sorry for the blacks.’

  I looked up at the teratologist. He had pulled on green scrubs and tied an incongruous scarf decorated with vibrant colours over his head. He eyed me like a lizard about to consume a fly. I had no interest in being a fly; I wanted to be a male Scheherazade – the longer I talked, the longer I would stay in one piece. But I had little expectation of lasting one night, never mind a thousand and one.

  Where was Katharine? Would Davie ever come round? I was on my own and, for once, I wasn’t enjoying that in the least.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘You know who he is, don’t you?’ I said, pointing at the surgeon.

  ‘Of course,’ said Amber. ‘Mr Sebastian’s been our consultant for ten years.’

  ‘Nine and a half,’ said Penny, with a frown.

  Amber gave her a cool look. ‘He removed our third arm when we were eighteen. And don’t say nineteen, dearest. I remember the year clearly.’

  I picked up animosity between the sisters, which could be useful.

  ‘You know what he calls himself?’

  The surgeon’s eyes locked on mine.

  I kept going. What did I have to lose? ‘The teratologist.’ I spoke the word in a doom-laden voice.

  Both twins looked at me, their eyebrows rising.

  ‘What is that?’ said Amber. ‘I don’t know what it means.’

  ‘I do.’ Penny turned away from her twin.

  I went for broke. ‘A monster specialist – that’s what he is.’

  ‘What?’ shrieked Amber.

  ‘That is incorrect, miss,’ said Sebastian. ‘Teratologists are experts in physical abnormalities.’

  ‘And “teras” means monster in Greek,’ I added. I didn’t say that it also meant marvel – that might come in handy later.

  Amber stared at the surgeon, eyes bulging. ‘You think we’re monsters?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Sebastian dismissively. ‘Have I ever done anything to harm you?’

  Amber’s cheeks were red. ‘You want to separate us.’