House of Dust Read online

  “Watch it, laddie.” My father was over eighty and pretty frail after a series of heart attacks, but he could still put himself about. He peered at me. “Why are you dressed up like a Christmas tree?”

  I looked down at the red, green and white tartan waistcoat I’d found in the depths of a discarded clothing depot in Tollcross. “I’m going to a Council reception. I thought I should look my best.”

  The old man examined my black suit – the only one I possess – then raised his eyes to my face. “You didn’t think of taking that field of stubble off your face?”

  I grinned. “I wouldn’t want the guardians to think I was conforming.” Ordinary male citizens – including demoted auxiliaries like me – are not permitted facial hair.

  I glanced around my father’s room. Although he was a founder member of the Edinburgh Enlightenment and had served as a guardian, he’d been assigned to a standard retirement home. The house was all right – it was a large former merchant’s villa in the northern suburb of Trinity – but Hector had got used to a modicum of privacy when he occupied the only room on the third floor. When his health worsened he was moved to the ground floor, where the chatter and splutter of his fellow inmates did nothing to improve his temper. He spent his waking hours buried in Latin tomes that he must have read a hundred times when he was a professor of rhetoric in pre-independence times.

  “Reception?” Hector demanded, his sunken eyes glistening. “What are the bloody guardians wasting the city’s resources on now?” Since he fell out with his colleagues and resigned years ago, my father had been one of their most vehement critics – not that anyone except me has noticed.

  “It’s to do with the prison that’s about to be inaugurated,” I said. “The Council’s hosting an event for the Oxford experts who worked on it.”

  “Oxford experts!” The old man’s tone was scathing. “What did they need them for? There are enough self-appointed experts in this city as it is.”

  “True enough,” I agreed. “I wonder what’s in it for Oxford – or New Oxford as they apparently call it now. Edinburgh hasn’t exactly got a surplus of funds to hand over to them. It’s a bit of a puzzle.”

  Hector was studying me, his gnarled hands resting on the blanket. “That’s not by any chance why you’re gracing them with your presence, is it, Quintilian?”

  I winced as he used my full name. Fortunately he was the only person who did. “That and the fact that the best malts will be on offer, no alcohol vouchers required.”

  “I can read you like a book.” My father laughed then shook his head. “It’ll end in tears. Incarcerating young people always does.”

  We’d had this discussion often in recent months. Despite his time on the original hardline Council, Hector had always been concerned about the dangers of excessive authority.

  “I suppose the guardians had to do something,” I said with a shrug. “Youth crime is a major problem these days and the foreign tour companies have been putting the squeeze on them to improve safety.”

  “Don’t play the devil’s advocate with me, lad,” the old man said. “The tourists have already been afforded plenty of inducements. Free whisky, hot and cold running tarts – what the hell’s the city coming to?” He coughed then started wheezing alarmingly.

  I felt my stomach somersault. I’d been a helpless witness of his first heart attack.

  “Water,” he gasped, waving his hand shakily.

  I dashed to the bedside table and poured him a glassful. I watched as he gulped it down.

  “That’s better,” Hector said after a minute. He glanced up at me with a mischievous smile. “Did I give you a fright, Quintilian?”

  “Yes, you bloody did,” I said, scowling at him. “It would be just like you to drop dead in front of me.”

  He croaked out a laugh. “I’m not finished yet.” He handed me back the glass. “How’s that girlfriend of yours?”

  “Girlfriend?” I repeated. That term would have really impressed Katharine. “We’re not really—” I broke off, struggling to describe the stop-start relationship that had been going on for eight years. It seemed to have been rekindled again in the last couple of weeks, but I didn’t have much idea why Katharine had suddenly reappeared.

  “Not really what?” the old man demanded. “Haven’t you learned to express yourself at your age?”

  I shook my head. “No, I haven’t. Happy?”

  The satisfied look that spread across the parchment of his face demonstrated that he was. In fact, he got on well enough with Katharine. Despite the fact that he was a misogynist of gargantuan proportions, she’d never laid into him. She reserved her fire for me.

  “And Davie? How’s he getting on?”

  “Okay,” I said, bending down to pick up the book that had dropped to the floor when Hector had his coughing fit. “He isn’t happy about being shunted sideways, but he’s probably the only person in the city who approves of the rise in crime. It’s given him plenty of opportunities for what he calls hands-on public order work.”

  “His hands on the bootboys’ private—”

  “Quite.” I handed over the leather-bound volume. “The Dialogues of Plato?” I said, managing to decipher the Greek. On my fifth birthday the old man decided that the best way for me to spend my spare time was learning dead languages. My lengthy rebellion against that order started when I was five and one day old. “Why aren’t you up to your elbows in Latin as usual?”

  He tapped his head and winked. “The Latin’s all up here. Permanent resident.”

  “Juvenal on your mind? Worrying.”

  “Nothing as worrying as what you fill yours with, Quintilian. Murders and mutilations and—”

  “All right, I accept I’m a picture of depravity.” I looked at him, eyes wide open. “You still haven’t told me why you’re reading Plato. Not turning back into a fan of the old fascist, are you?” The Edinburgh Enlightenment had based their city-state on ideas derived and extrapolated from the ancient philosopher’s Republic and Laws.

  Hector shook his head. “It’s not Plato that fascinates me these days, it’s his protagonist Socrates. I’ve been reading the Phaedo. It’s hard to understand how someone as rational and rigorous as Socrates can believe in something as woolly as reincarnation.” He looked at me, the set of his face softer. “But he does. And he dies well because he believes that, in some form or other, he’s coming back.”

  I got up and returned my chair to the desk, the corners of my eyes suddenly damp. It wasn’t only the calm assurance of the old man’s voice that was affecting me. My former lover Caro – dead for thirteen years – had flown up before me, her dark hair glistening with the sheen it always had after she’d washed it, her eyes soft brown and her lips parted. Then I blinked and she was gone.

  “I’d better get moving,” I said, nodding to Hector.

  “Aye, don’t let those Oxford buggers get a head start with the whisky.”

  “Goodnight, old man,” I said, tugging the blanket up so it covered his chest.

  “Goodnight, failure,” he replied with a hoarse laugh.

  I walked out of the retirement home and into the twilight. I wished I had the ancient Athenian’s faith in eternal rebirth. If I had, I might have been able to let Caro go more easily – as well as prepare myself more adequately for the full stop that I knew was soon going to be applied to my father’s life.

  I turned the corner and walked down to the bus stop on East Trinity Road. It was coming up to half past seven and I knew there would be a bus along any minute to pick up citizens who worked in the tourist bars and restaurants in the central zone. As I headed towards the small cluster of people I heard a voice raised in anger.

  “Yer vouchers, ya cunts! Gie us yer fuckin’ vouchers!”

  I slowed my pace but kept walking towards them, slipping my right hand into my coat pocket.

  “Awright, here you are!” a woman cried, the last word turning into a long-drawn-out sob.

  “Take them and leav
e us alone,” said another voice, male and unsteady. “Please!”

  I stopped and looked at the group. It was almost dark and though the streetlamps had come on, their light wasn’t yet bright. I thought I could see a pair of young men wearing cut-off coats and trousers turned up to beneath the knees: standard youth gang get-up. I considered calling Davie on my mobile then decided I could handle them on my own. That was my first mistake.

  “You two!” I shouted. “Stay where you are!” I walked quickly towards the bus stop as five heads turned in my direction: two middle-aged women, one with a scarf round her hair, an elderly man whose cheekbones looked like they were about to break through the skin of his face, and a pair of pimply, shaven-headed youths. One of them had a red lightning flash tattooed on his left cheek.

  “Who said we were goin’ anywhere, shite?” Flash stepped forwards and jabbed the point of a stick at me. I reckoned it was a sharpened broom handle, the weapon of choice for your standard headbanger.

  The other bootboy looked less courageous. He moved behind the innocent bystanders and stared at me, his jaw slack.

  “Eh, shite?” the first guy said.

  “Put it down,” I said, making sure my voice didn’t waver. “It’ll be better for you if you do.”

  “Fuck you, pal,” he said, running his eyes over me and grinning broadly to reveal shiny yellow teeth; some of the gangs apply metallic paint. “What are you, anyway? Undercover slime?” He stamped his boots on the pavement. “I like steppin’ in youse.”

  “Put the stick down,” I repeated. “Last chance.”

  “Last chance for you, fucker.” Flash lunged at me, his weapon aimed at my throat.

  I stepped aside and brought my cosh down hard on the youth’s forearm. The unmistakable sound of cracking bone rang out.

  The stick fell to the pavement, rapidly followed by its owner. He started squealing in agony.

  I left him where he was and moved towards the others. They were all motionless, the other gang member included.

  Then the timorous one shouted “Nae surrender, Gus” at his prone pal.

  I turned my head for a second. In an instant the shouter was away, his heavy footwear pounding down the asphalt. There was no chance of my forty-four-year-old legs getting near him so I didn’t bother giving chase. I went back to Flash and dragged him to his feet.

  “You bust ma arm,” he said in disbelief, his bravado completely gone. “You bust ma fuckin’ arm.”

  “Stop whining,” I said, trying to get my heart rate down.

  The man at the bus stop looked at the two women, then turned to me. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “He isn’t much more than a child.”

  “Aye,” one of the women put in. “Ma Kenny’s about the same age as him.”

  “Terrible,” the other woman said. “The violence in this city nowadays is a disgrace.”

  “What?” I gasped. “They were robbing you. This scumbag tried to skewer me.”

  The elderly man was shaking his head. “It was your own fault. You threatened him.” He stepped up to me. “Who are you? Show us some identification, please.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said, glaring at him and the women. “I was trying to help.”

  “Aye, well, you needn’t have bothered,” the woman in the scarf said. “The wee tike that ran off had all our vouchers.”

  I groaned then raised a finger at Flash who’d let out what sounded like a laugh.

  “I want to see some identification,” the man insisted. “You can’t just attack people in the street.” He gave me a stern look. “Nor can you take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “It was self-defence,” I said, shaking my head. “Have you ever heard of that?”

  “The gospel teaches us to turn the other cheek,” he said piously. Typical. I’d run into one of Edinburgh’s few remaining Christians.

  “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to let him go next,” I said, watching as the three victims shuffled their feet and looked away. Then the penny dropped. “Oh, I get it. You know this specimen, don’t you? He’s a local and he knows where you live.”

  They all nodded.

  “Can ye no’ be lenient wi’ him?” asked the bareheaded woman. “It’ll be better for all of us . . .”

  I glanced at Flash. His face was still screwed up in agony, but his eyes were pools of viciousness that were focused on the three citizens. Bloody hell. I didn’t fancy letting the little barbarian hoof it; he’d be back on the streets as soon as his plaster was off. On the other hand, I still wasn’t keen on calling the guard. Davie would cover for me but since the Mist descended over the castle and cramped Hamilton’s style, I’d been trying to keep a low profile. Although I was still officially chief special investigator and my anomalous position as a DM in the directorate was tolerated, I had less room for manoeuvre than I used to.

  So I let Flash go. From the end of the road I was treated to a detailed breakdown of what he’d do to my internal organs when he caught up with me. That – and the atmosphere of frosty disapproval created by the three citizens before the bus arrived twenty minutes late – really put me in the mood for an evening in the company of the city’s great and good.

  The City Guard had slung a chain across Waterloo Place beyond the east end of Princes Street. What appeared to be an army of uniformed personnel was looking alert and checking everyone’s papers. Even though the guardswoman who stopped me seemed to know who I was, she insisted on seeing my authorisation.

  I walked up the slope and got an eyeful of the new prison. I didn’t have any choice. The whole area on the crag above what used to be Waverley station in the days before the Council did away with railways was lit up like a bonfire. Filters over the floodlights were turning the high walls of the buildings maroon, the city’s pet colour. White searchlights were roving across the stone surfaces, even though the first prisoner hadn’t yet been admitted, let alone managed to escape. Passing the Old Calton Burial Ground, I realised that it was enclosed behind the razor wire that festooned the whole area. It seemed that even Edinburgh’s venerable dead were going to have to do time.

  A line of guard vehicles swept past me, slowing as they reached the New Bridewell’s main accommodation block. The scaffolding that had been over the building for months had now been removed. It used to be St Andrew’s House, a grandiose edifice with a pillared façade that housed the Secretary of State’s office and then the Scottish Executive when Scotland still existed as a component of the United Kingdom – until the drugs wars did away with the concept of stable nations. The busts over the mullions high above street level represented, among other ideals, education and health. I had a feeling those weren’t the moving forces behind the Council’s incarceration policy.

  “Quint!”

  I looked to the left and saw Davie waving at me from a parked Land-Rover. “Don’t tell me they’ve got you on sentry duty, guardsman?” I said, heading towards him.

  “Screw you, pal,” he replied. “Believe it or not, I’m in charge of security in this sector tonight.”

  I glanced round at the swarms of auxiliaries in unusually pristine uniforms. “You’ve got enough personnel to help you out.”

  “Aye. Nothing but the best for our friends from the south.”

  I leaned against his door. “I’m surprised they put a reprobate like you on this detail.”

  He laughed. “The Mist wanted to give the job to one of her tame monkeys, but Hamilton insisted it went to – I quote – a commander with proven public order skills.”

  “Looks like you’re back on the fast track, Davie.”

  “Nah,” he said. “That argument’s the only one the chief has won recently. His deputy’s got her podgy fingers in every other pie.” He looked past me. “See what I mean?”

  A large Jeep drove slowly by, its occupants all gazing at the prison’s maroon and white walls.

  “I don’t see Hamilton in the pleasure wagon,” I said.

  “That’s the point,�
� Davie said. “The Council’s taken it away from him. On the Mist’s recommendation, so I heard. The poor old sod has to use one of these wrecks like the rest of us now.”

  Things were definitely looking bad for the guardian. The Jeep was a gift to the Council from a multinational company that the guardians had collectively brown-nosed, but Hamilton had been treating it as his personal wheels for years.

  “See you later, big man,” I said. “Try not to beat up too many locals.” The words were out of my mouth before I remembered I’d been guilty of exactly that offence less than an hour before.

  In its wisdom the Council had chosen the Corrections Department as the venue for the reception. I reckoned that was another of the Mist’s recommendations, considering she was in charge of that particular department. In fact, it was a good location if you wanted to impress people, which seemed to be the guardians’ predominant aim. In pre-Enlightenment times the replica of a Doric temple had been the Royal High School; as it dated from 1829, it could be said to form some kind of link between the original Edinburgh Enlightenment of Hume, Smith and Adam and the pale reflection produced by my father and his colleagues. The buildings had been designed as part of the acropolis that was meant to turn the city into the Athens of the North. The uncompleted Parthenon on top of the Calton Hill above was a juicy and still relevant metaphor for the substantial gap between ambition and reality.

  After showing ID again, I went up the steps and reached the main entrance that was behind a row of columns. A large banner had been hung above the ornate door, informing guests that the Corrections Department of the Public Order Directorate cordially welcomed them. No doubt the first inmates of the prison would get just as cordial a welcome.

  Hamilton and his deputy were standing inside the door, the guardian looking uncomfortable in an Enlightenment tartan kilt and the Mist filling out a long skirt of the same material. The sash over her white blouse was tight and less than flattering.