The Blood Tree Read online

  Her eyes flashed cold fire at me. “Certainly not. I made use of a less technical form of eugenics.” For a moment she looked almost wistful and my stomach flipped. No, I wasn’t the one. I hadn’t been her lover for well over a year, since the time that Katharine returned to Edinburgh.

  “The hyper-intelligent teenagers who were kidnapped,” Sophia said, her eyes still lowered. “Where are they?”

  I felt my jaw drop. “Oh my God, Sophia, it wasn’t one of them?”

  She smiled weakly.

  I glanced at Hyslop and tried to work out a way of telling Sophia what had happened to Dougal Strachan. I couldn’t, so I took the coward’s way out.

  “Which one was it, Sophia?” I asked. “Just tell me.”

  Her lips twitched a couple of times. “Michael,” she said. “Michael MacGregor. Is he all right?”

  I swallowed a sigh of relief and nodded. “He’ll be back soon.”

  Sophia raised her shoulders. “Not that it’s of importance to me. He’s done all I wanted him to do. I don’t intend seeing him again.”

  I bit my lip and managed to hold myself back. Not for the first time I wondered if guardians had their emotions surgically removed before they were appointed.

  Davie and I were leaning on the wall of the esplanade, looking out over the lights of the tourist zone. The rain had let up and there was a fullish moon away to the west. We’d just put Hel Hyslop back in the Land-Rover and cuffed her to a stanchion.

  “Is she all right?” Davie asked, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Who knows?” I replied. “At least she seems to be developing a conscience.”

  “I suppose she had some justification,” he said. “Given what was going on in the Baby Factory.”

  “She and her friends killed a lot of innocent people, Davie. Including a teenage kid who hadn’t even started to live.”

  “Will they execute her, do you think, Quint?”

  “Who knows?” I’d called Duart on Hel’s mobile and told him about the end of the case. He was very keen on seeing her and Macbeth again. Hamilton and Sophia were also desperate to see the back of all Glaswegians connected with the case, so an exchange had been arranged – Hel and Derek Rennie for the two surviving Edinburgh teenagers. I got the feeling that a large law suit to terminate Macbeth and his cult was in the offing over in the west. Hel was another matter. “They’ll probably brush a senior police officer’s crimes under the carpet.”

  “So much for democracy,” Davie said, shaking his head. “Is the corruption in Glasgow as bad as it was over here in pre-Enlightenment times?”

  I thought of giving him a quick rendition of Bobo Jenkins’s “Democrat Blues” but thought better of it. “No, I don’t think so,” I said. Then I remembered the empty looks Lewis and Sophia had given me. “Forget pre-Enlightenment times, pal. Edinburgh under the Council is just as corrupt as it used to be. You might as well face it. Everywhere’s corrupt. It’s nothing to do with cities or political systems, it’s to do with human beings. Not even genetic engineering will change that. It’s in our nature to look after number one.”

  Davie looked like I’d slapped him in the face. “Not all people are like that, Quint. You’re far too bloody cynical. It is possible to think of others as well as yourself.”

  “Is it?” I asked doubtfully. I nudged him in the ribs. “By the way, I’m a sceptic, not a cynic. There is a difference.”

  “Is that right?” he asked, smiling then looking into my eyes seriously. “What are you going to do about Aurora?”

  “Good question, my friend,” I replied. “I haven’t worked that out yet.” I turned to the Land-Rover. “Run me over to the infirmary before you take the inspector to her hotel, will you?

  I’d arranged for Hel to be put up in a small tourist hotel rather than a cell. I owed her something for surrendering, but I couldn’t forget that, in addition to everything else she’d done, she’d sanctioned Dougal Strachan’s death and – I guessed – slipped the Macbeth handbill into the innocent teenager’s pocket when we were at the crime scene.

  As far as I was concerned any debt I had with her was now paid in full.

  It was when I was walking through the infirmary reception area that a final thought struck me. The missing file attachment at the beginning of the investigation had been given the codenumber “4.1.116”. It was a long shot but I’d always been keen on those. I followed the signs to the hospital library and found a copy of Shakespeare’s collected works. And there it was. Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, line 116 – “What, will the line stretch out to th’crack of doom?” David Rennie hadn’t been a member of the Genetic Engineering Committee back in 2002, but it looked like someone else on it had a literary bent, not to mention a well-developed sense of irony. Perhaps it was the mysterious Dorothy Taylor.

  “You can’t go in there, citizen,” the nursing auxiliary said firmly. “They’re all sleeping.”

  I put my finger to her lips. “I won’t make any noise. I’m just going to look in on my father.”

  She thought about arguing then stepped back.

  I walked into the ward and the sound of twenty people snoring and wheezing enveloped me. In the dim light I could make out Hector’s bed. I went up to the head of it and looked down at the old man. His wizened face was at ease, the parchment-like skin less wan than it had been the last time I saw him. His breathing was easy and his eyelashes were twitching as he dreamed. I hoped it was a good one.

  I was thinking about Aurora again; and Caro; and whether to tell him about the little girl. She was the last branch – direct or indirect – of the Dalrymple family tree, of our blood tree. I considered the quotation from Macbeth. The line, our family line, didn’t stretch out to the crack of doom. Everything ended with her. The old man had a right to know that she existed. He was entitled to know that at least Caro’s side had been perpetuated.

  Then I shook my head. There was nothing of me or my family in Aurora. And no matter how much in love Caro and I were, we’d never married; such a rite was and is impossible for Edinburgh auxiliaries. So what kind of immortality did Aurora confer on those of us who, unlike Caro, had survived the Enlightenment’s early years? The only real immortality is in the memories of the living and when they die, it’s farewell my lover.

  I felt my eyes dampen. After touching the top of Hector’s hand, I walked quickly away.

  I let myself into Katharine’s flat as quietly as I could. Although the electricity supply was still connected, I left the light off. In the glow from the emergency candle that I lit, I saw her curled up on the sofa with a blanket over her. I went through the open door of the bedroom and lifted the light over Aurora. She was sprawled across the bed, one foot protruding from the covers, the gentle whisper of breathing coming from her half-open mouth. I took in Caro’s almost perfectly resurrected features again and felt my heart flood with emotions I never thought I’d experience again. It was almost too much. I went back into the main room and put the candle down on the table with a shaking hand. That roused Katharine.

  “Quint. Where have you been?”

  “Tidying things up.” I sat down on the floor and nestled into her. “You smell good.” I breathed in her warm, sweet odour and kissed her.

  “Mm.” She blinked and looked at me. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Knackered. Did Aurora give you any trouble?”

  “No, she was fine. She was very tired.” She looked at me with her eyes wide open. “Quint? I’ve been thinking about—”

  “I’ve been thinking too,” I interrupted.

  “Oh yes?” Katharine pulled herself up and leaned on her elbow.

  “About Aurora. I’m going to take her back to Glasgow. And I’m not going to tell her anything about Caro. Or about me.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I was going to say. She’s been asking for her Mum and Dad, and for her brother and sister. It seems to be a very close family. She belongs in it.”

  I rested my head against the arm of the sof
a and tried unsuccessfully to hide what I was feeling.

  “Oh Quint, it’s all right,” Katharine said, swinging her legs out from the blanket and enveloping the top half of my body in her arms. “I understand how devastating it must be for you. To see . . . to see Caro again after all these years in the little girl’s face, it must be so hard . . .”

  I was shaking my head, trying to get my breathing under control. “It’s not devastating, Katharine,” I said eventually. “Or hard.” I swallowed a sob. “In a . . . in a weird kind of way it’s affirming. I think it’s added something to my pitiful waster’s life.”

  She pushed me back tenderly in order to see my face. A few seconds later she leaned forward to kiss me. “That’s good,” she said. “And by the way, it’s not such a pitiful waster’s life.” She wrapped me in her embrace again.

  I stayed there for a long time. Finally I shook myself free.

  “Right, that’s settled,” I said. “Tomorrow I’m going on the exchange with Aurora and Hel Hyslop and Macbeth.”

  “Wrong,” Katharine said. “Tomorrow we’re going on the exchange.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. And after that I’m coming back here to sleep for a week.”

  “Wrong,” she said again. “After that we’re coming back here to sleep for a week.”

  “Of course,” I went on, “after a day or two, I might begin to get bored with sleeping.”

  Katharine rolled towards me and grabbed my shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

  It looked like she already had.