Water of Death Page 6

  “You know the drill by now, guardsman.”

  “Confirm ID, collate forensic evidence, list personal belongings . . .”

  “All right, smartarse. I’ll take the table, you take the rest.”

  “Done.”

  Although there was the usual range of Supply Directorate furniture in the room, I’d actually given Davie the easy bit. It looked like almost all of Frankie Thomson’s worldly possessions were on the table that stood under the front window – papers, dirty cups, old copies of the Edinburgh Guardian, a pair of socks with holes in the toes and a darning needle stuck through them, a couple of well-thumbed Ngaio Marsh novels. And, on the top, his ID card. That saved us some time. It also gave me a medium-voltage shock.

  “Well, well,” I said.

  “What have you got?” Davie came over.

  I fended him off. “Thomson, Francis Dee,” I read. “Status – citizen. Born 24.4.1972, height five feet five inches, weight eight stone six pounds, hair grey, teeth incomplete (upper rear denture plate), distinguishing mark none, employment Cleansing Department, Tourism Directorate, address 19 Bell Place, Colonies, next of kin none.” The face staring out was the one I’d seen by the river. In life the eyes looked as vacant as they did now.

  “Is that it?” Davie sounded disappointed.

  “No, it’s not,” I said, turning the laminated card round and holding it in front of his face.

  “Ah,” he said, registering the letters “DM” in bold maroon type at the bottom. “The dead man was a demoted auxiliary.”

  “Kind of changes things, doesn’t it?” I said, putting the card into my pocket. Although the Council carefully avoids doing DM-class citizens like me any favours when we’re alive, they find us much more interesting when we’re dead. Because demoted auxiliaries are by definition untrustworthy characters who’ve sold the Enlightenment out one way or another, their deaths are automatically treated as suspicious until proved otherwise.

  “I’d better notify the guardian,” Davie said, turning away.

  I reached out an arm and grabbed his shoulder. “Hold on. He’ll be off to the Council meeting soon. Let’s sit on this for a bit till we dig up some more about the guy.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Davie said, his eyes wide open. “The guardian’ll have my balls for breakfast if he finds out I’ve colluded in suppressing significant information.”

  “Who’s going to tell him?” I asked. “Anyway, you don’t have to work with me on this if you don’t want to.” I gave him a tight smile. “Or if I don’t want you to.”

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked desperately. “It’s just a waster who passed out in the sun, for Christ’s sake.”

  I ran my fingers across my unshaven cheek slowly. I wasn’t too sure what I was doing myself. Maybe I felt some irrational sympathy for a fellow former auxiliary. But more than that, something I couldn’t put my finger on felt strange about the whole set-up.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll give your boss a full report later on. Anything else interesting?”

  Davie shook his head in extreme frustration then continued his search. He’d taken the few books off the shelves and checked them for inserts. It’s amazing how many citizens put letters and other bits of paper they want to keep inside books. Maybe it’s a side effect of the Council’s drive to increase reading. He shook his head. “Nothing, Quint.”

  I went over to the rear wall and looked behind the Supply Directorate print of the castle. No interesting stash there. Then I looked round the room, wondering again about the accommodation Frankie Thomson had been allocated. Demoted citizens are supposed to get standard citizen-issue everything – housing, clothes, jobs, whatever – so how had he ended up with more rooms and space than single citizens are entitled to? I made a note about that for when I checked his file. Then I pulled out my mobile and rang the Tourism Directorate. It took some shouting and a three-minute wait but I got what I wanted.

  “What do you think of this, Davie?” I said as I cut the connection. “The dead man was a cleaner at the Smoke on the Water marijuana club in the Dean Village.”

  “Smoke on the Water? Isn’t that a piece of music?”

  “Depends how you define music, my friend.”

  A female scene-of-crime auxiliary appeared at the door.

  “Citizen? There’s something you should see in the kitchen.”

  We followed the white-suited figure into the back room. She pointed to the kitchen table. Three bottles of whisky stood in the centre of it, the caps screwed on and the labels facing the door.

  “The Ultimate Usquebaugh,” Davie read. “I’ve never heard of that brand.”

  “That’s what I mean,” the auxiliary said. “I contacted the Alcohol Department in the Supply Directorate and they said the same thing.”

  I stepped closer and examined the bottles without touching them. “Be very careful when you dust for prints,” I said. “If this is contraband, we’ll need to trace it.”

  “The dead man worked in a club,” said Davie. “He probably got it there.”

  I nodded, still looking at the whisky. It was a dark brown colour. A small amount had been taken from the front bottle. The other two were full. The label looked to have been professionally printed but there wasn’t much else to go on. The Ultimate Usquebaugh were the only words, in maroon on a grey background with no other design features. “Usquebaugh” means “water of life” in Gaelic. For some reason that didn’t make me feel good.

  “Any glasses?” I asked the auxiliary.

  She shook her head. “No dirty ones anywhere. There are a couple of clean ones in the cupboard.” She pointed to the floor under the table. “There’s also this.”

  I bent down and saw a citizen-issue brown shoe that matched the one on Frankie Thomson’s left foot. I picked it up carefully – the scene-of-crime staff had traced round it with chalk – and looked in it. There were no bloodstains. As the dead man had no sock on either foot it was reasonable to suppose that, like a lot of Edinburgh people during the Big Heat, he didn’t bother with them. But would he have walked voluntarily to the rough terrain by the riverside with only one shoe on?

  “Our man liked a drink,” Davie said. He had his foot on the bin pedal. Inside were two empty bottles, this time standard Supply Directorate stuff: Cream of Auld Reekie. There was also a half-empty bottle of the same brand on the windowledge.

  “Dust all these then send them to toxicology – along with the Ultimate Usquebaugh,” I said to the female auxiliary.

  “He definitely had his ultimate drink, eh?” Davie said with a grin.

  I wasn’t on for grinning back at him. I was getting a bad feeling about what had gone on in number 19 Bell Place and at the side of the Water of Leith.

  The barracks commander Raeburn 01 came up from the street. “We’ve located all the residents,” he said, trying and failing to give the impression that he enjoyed reporting to an ordinary citizen like me.

  “And?” I wasn’t going to let him off the hook.

  “And only two of them admit to ever having spoken to the dead man.”

  I wasn’t too surprised. After twenty years of the guard’s sledgehammer public order tactics, ordinary Edinburgh folk don’t do them any favours.

  “So what you’re saying is that the rest of them didn’t know Frankie Thomson except to ignore on the street and didn’t see or hear what he was up to last night?”

  “Correct.” The commander bit the end of his pencil.

  “Who are the two you’ve managed to strongarm into talking?”

  Davie nudged me hard in the back as the guardian loomed in the hallway.

  Raeburn 01 stared at me then looked at his notebook. “There’s a female citizen called Mary McMurray who heard some noise here late last night.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” I said. “Who else?”

  “Citizen Drem.”

  “Angus with the broken nose?” I didn’t fancy listening to that scumbag again. “What did h
e tell you?”

  “Oh, he was very obliging.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said. He was no doubt the type who likes to make contacts in the guard. That’s how the black market prospers.

  “But he didn’t have much to tell. Apparently Citizen Thomson often drank to excess.” The commander wrinkled his nose. Senior auxiliaries usually have no time for human weaknesses like heavy drinking, despite the provision of alcohol in barracks messes. “Drem said he often saw him slumped over the table in his window.”

  I took Davie aside. “I want you to put the shits up Angus Drem. Threaten him with the third degree, a cell in the castle, whatever it takes. I want to know if he’s ever been involved in handling contraband whisky. Don’t mention the name of that stuff we found though. And Davie?” I lowered my voice. “Find out if he knew Frankie Thomson was DM.”

  Davie gave me a grim smile and headed out. I reckoned the Supply Directorate storeman would soon be regretting that he’d identified the body.

  “Where does the female citizen live?” I asked Raeburn 01.

  “Next door to the right. Number 21.”

  I went outside and looked down the street. Lewis Hamilton was speaking on the phone in his Jeep – probably still playing with his rosters. I knocked on the neighbouring front door.

  Mary McMurray was the woman I’d seen on my way to the body. She was painfully thin and had mousy hair, her face sunburnt and dotted with what I hoped were benign melanomas. Her daughter was right behind her, clutching her hand.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, kneeling down and smiling at the little girl. She was about five, her fair hair done up in plaits. “I’m not one of those nasty people in uniforms. I don’t like them.”

  The girl stared at me seriously then shook her head. “Neither do I. They stamp their feet and shout all the time.”

  I laughed. “My name’s Quint. What’s yours?”

  She was still looking at me with a grave expression. “Quint’s a silly name. I’m called Morag.”

  “You’re right, Morag. Quint is a silly name.” I decided against telling her it was short for Quintilian. “Will you go and play while your mum and I have a wee chat?”

  Mary McMurray shook her head. “Forget it, citizen. When I’m home, she never lets me out of her sight.” She led me into the front room. It was clean and tidy, the curtains partially drawn against the sun. Above the fireplace was a photograph of a handsome smiling guy.

  “That’s my daddy,” the little girl said, catching me looking at it. “He’s gone to heaven.”

  I looked at her mother. After a moment she shrugged.

  “What could I tell her, citizen? I know we’re supposed to be atheists but she won’t have it any other way.”

  “Border duty?” I said in a low voice.

  She nodded. “Cattle raid two years ago.”

  After a bit Morag went to the corner and started playing with a doll.

  “So tell me about Frankie Thomson, Mary.”

  She hesitated. “You’re the investigator they sometimes write about in the Guardian, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “But you do things for ordinary citizens as well as work for the Council?”

  “I’m a free agent, Mary. That’s why I’m dressed in rags.”

  She smiled reluctantly. “All right. But I haven’t much to tell you, citizen.”

  “Call me Quint.”

  “I still haven’t much to tell you, Quint.” The smile had stayed on her lips but her eyes were as sad as any I’ve seen in the city. “Frankie, och, he was okay as a neighbour. Apart from the drink. He got steaming a couple of nights every week. I suppose he had the booze from the club where he worked.” She looked out of the gap between the curtains for a moment. “Like I say, he was all right. At least he was quiet.” She turned back to face me. “Apart from last night.”

  That sounded interesting. I moved closer to her. “You heard something?”

  “Aye. It was the singing. It woke Morag up.”

  “What time?”

  “Just after three. They were really belting it out – something about the moon in Alabama, I don’t know.”

  “They?” Now I was really hooked.

  “Yeah, there was someone else in his place. Another guy. I pounded on the wall and they shut up. Eventually.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I heard his front door open and close, and their voices move down the street towards the river. I couldn’t see much, of course, with the streetlights not being on but . . .” She broke off. The way she was biting her lip kept my interest.

  “Did you see something, Mary? Anything at all?”

  She shrugged. “I did look out the window. It was pretty dark, but I caught a glimpse of the man who was with Frankie.”

  “What did he look like?” I asked, my throat suddenly dry.

  “Och, I don’t know.” Mary’s shoulders slumped. “I couldn’t really see. He was a bit taller than Frankie and he had dark clothes on. Maybe that’s why it stuck out.”

  “It? What was it?” I’d raised my voice involuntarily. Morag gave a frightened moan from the other side of the room. “Sorry,” I said more quietly. “What was it that stuck out, Mary?”

  “His head,” she said, frowning at me. “His head. The hair was cut right down to the scalp.”

  Great. In a city where water’s rationed and decent shampoo’s scarcer than self-effacing guardsmen, there’s no shortage of men who shave their heads. Christ, some of the women do it too. “Anything else?” I asked. “Did he have any hair on his face?”

  She thought for a few seconds. “No, he was clean-shaven.”

  “What age do you think he was?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. He put what looked like a sunhat on as soon as he got to the pavement. The only other thing I saw was that he had a bottle in one hand.”

  I wondered if that had been the Ultimate Usquebaugh. “What build was he?” I asked.

  “Slim,” she said after a few seconds’ thought. “Definitely slim.”

  “Are you sure you don’t remember anything else?”

  “Nothing. Except . . . except I was just dropping off again when I heard this shout. From the river. Well, it was more like a scream now I think about it.” She shook her head and looked guilty. “Now I know what’s happened.”

  I glanced over at the corner. Morag was facing us but she was more interested in the conversation she was having with her doll.

  “Did you hear anything else?”

  “No. I was knackered after my shift on the bus.”

  “The other voice, can you tell me anything more about it? Was it a tenor or a bass?”

  She looked at me uncomprehendingly. “I don’t know. The two of them were singing. That’s all I remember.”

  I waited. It’s surprising what people remember if you don’t hassle them too much.

  “The other guy’s voice wasn’t particularly deep, if that’s what you mean. Kind of in the middle.” She stared at me, the flawed skin on her face taut. “What happened to Frankie? Was he . . . was he murdered?”

  “Of course not. He probably just had too much whisky.” I could tell she wasn’t convinced. “Listen, Mary. Did you know he was a demoted auxiliary?”

  She held her eyes on me then shook her head slowly. “Does that matter now?”

  I met her gaze. “Not to him it doesn’t,” I said, turning to the door. “But it might do to me.”

  Chapter Four

  I came out on to the street, saw that Hamilton’s Jeep had gone and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d be tied up in the Council meeting for a couple of hours. By the time he was back at his desk in the castle I’d have checked the dead man’s DM file in peace.

  I cadged a bottle of water from a guardsman and crossed the street. Through the window I could see the storeman Angus Drem in a chair, his shoulders in a state of collapse and his face drenched in sweat. I tapped on the pane and signalled to Davie to suspend operations.


  “What’s the story then?” I asked when he joined me.

  “Standard bottom-feeding Supply Directorate lowlife.” Davie grinned. “I’m ninety-nine per cent sure he’s coming clean with me.”

  “So what have you got?” I emptied the waterbottle. “Did he knock around with the dead man?”

  Davie shook his head. “Says not. He shared the odd bottle with him but nothing more than that. He says Frankie Thomson was a tight bugger. He didn’t say much even when he was pissed. Drem reckoned there was more to Frankie Thomson than he was letting on, but he could never get him to talk about himself.”

  “So he knew Frankie was a demoted auxiliary?”

  “Aye. He saw his ID card not long after he was billeted here.”

  “The bottles they shared – who provided them?”

  “They both used their weekly vouchers. Drem’s never worked in the Alcohol Department.”

  “We can check that easily enough. Not that where you work in the Supply Directorate makes any difference. The guys in the black market can provide anyone with anything.”

  Davie nodded. “Still, I reckon he’s telling the truth about the booze. He’s been very co-operative.”

  “I’ll bet. You didn’t leave any marks on him, did you, guardsman?”

  He gave me a disapproving look. “Certainly not. That would be contrary to the Public Order in Practice manual.”

  “Very amusing.” I’d written that when I was in the directorate.

  “How about you? What did you find out from the woman?”

  I told him Mary’s story.

  “There was another man drinking with him last night?”

  I nodded. “It couldn’t have been Drem though. He’s the wrong build and Mary would have recognised him.”

  “What shall we do with that streak of piss?”

  “Hand him over to Raeburn 01 and get him put in a cell. Not too uncomfortable, mind. We might need his co-operation again.”

  Davie smiled grimly. “You’re too soft, Quint.”

  Sometimes I worry about my assistant. Like most of the guard, he’s become more hardline since the Council loosened the City Regulations. Then again, he definitely has his uses. But what kind of two-faced bastard do I make myself by encouraging him?