The Bone Yard Read online

  I glanced at Peter. He was nodding his head. I believed them. “If it’s any comfort to you, that’s what I expected to hear.”

  Roddie’s mother gave me a long stare, then nodded sternly. “That is some comfort, Quintilian.”

  I was quiet for a few moments.

  “He mentioned a girl. Do you know her?”

  “A girl in the romantic sense?” Morag asked, giving me a sharp look.

  “I think so. He wasn’t too specific. We’re talking to some of his friends . . .” I showed her the list of names.

  “Those are his oldest friends from school,” his mother said. “But he never said anything to me about a girlfriend.”

  I wasn’t particularly taken aback by that. If Morag Aitken had been my mother, I don’t think I’d have been too open about my sex life.

  “In this city, girlfriends are hardly encouraged,” she said. Neither are married couples like Roddie’s parents, but the Council allows citizen weddings if people are insistent enough.

  I stayed for another half-hour filling in Roddie’s background and finding nothing at all to suggest that he’d ever been a bad boy. On the contrary, he would have been an ideal trainee auxiliary – apart from the fact that he wasn’t the callous type favoured by the iron boyscouts.

  They showed me to the door. Something about the way Peter Aitken was looking at me made me think he wanted a private word. I said my farewells to his wife, then engaged him in conversation about the paint he’d used on his front door. That got rid of her quickly enough. It turned out that he’d had it from a friend in the pub and not from his son.

  “That girl you were asking about,” he said in a low voice. “He did mention her to me once. He was very pleased with himself.” He glanced back into the flat. “Morag’s a bit . . . well, she never liked the idea of Roddie being with a woman.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, son.” Then he gave me a conspiratorial smile. “But I do know that he met her at a sex session.”

  “Cheerio, then, citizen,” I said loudly, seeing Morag Aitken’s white head looming in the hallway behind.

  “Find the bastard who did that to my lad, son,” Peter Aitken said in a feeble voice.

  I hadn’t forgotten what I’d sworn at Roddie’s bedside. I might have known it would be this way. Cherchez la femme. The story of my life.

  I met up with Davie at my flat. We found some stale baps and floppy slices of cheese and ate them for lunch. I glanced through the letters requesting help that people push under my door, while Davie told me about Roddie’s friends. It was as his parents said. He’d known them all from primary school. None of them had the faintest idea why he’d been killed. What was interesting was that he’d kept his girlfriend secret from them all.

  “Look at the state of this writing,” I said, holding up a tattered standard-issue recycled brown envelope.

  “What is it?” Davie said, his mouth full. “One of the Dead Sea Scrolls?”

  The tiny, perfectly formed letters certainly looked like those of an ancient scribe. My namesake Quintilian must have got letters like this all the time. I opened the flap carefully and pulled out a single piece of the off-white writing paper citizens get from Supply Directorate stores. When I deciphered the address at the top, I discovered to my surprise that it was from my father’s retirement home in Trinity. I looked down at the signature.

  “It’s from William McEwan.”

  “The former guardian who misbehaved himself at the reception the other night?”

  “You heard about that, did you?”

  Davie grinned before taking another bite. “The story goes that the senior guardian froze him out in a big way.”

  “‘Quintilian,’” I read, “‘I fear there is nothing even you can do about the great injustice of the Bone Yard.’” I looked over at Davie. “The Bone Yard. I heard him mention that at the party. Have you ever heard the name before?”

  Davie sniffed suspiciously at a bottle of milk from my tiny citizen-issue fridge. “The Bone Yard? What is it? A new nightclub?”

  I read on. “‘I am breaking the Council’s confidentiality oath by writing this letter, but I cannot keep silent any more. The next time you visit your father, come to my room. We are guilty of a great wrong and I must share it with you before it is too late.’”

  Davie was making tea on my electric ring. “Bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  “You never know with the old ones.” I remembered William at the reception. “He was wound up about it enough to go for the senior guardian’s jugular.”

  “I’d have it black, unless you’re keen on tea-flavoured yoghurt,” Davie said, handing me a mug. “So what does it mean?”

  “God knows,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll check it out when I next see Hector.” I looked at my notebook. “Right, then, back to the files. Let’s check out Roddie’s workmates.”

  We spent the afternoon in the archives. Some of the guys who worked with Roddie had been done for black-market activities, but none of it looked too serious. I turned my list over to the public order guardian – he’d enjoy terrorising them.

  Meanwhile Davie and I went off to Roddie’s local sex centre to hunt the mysterious girlfriend. The poor woman was probably looking forward to her next meeting with him, completely unaware of the murder. I hoped to hell I wasn’t the one who would have to tell her.

  Chapter Six

  The tourists braving the cold on the Royal Mile had forced smiles on their bluish faces. The sky was overcast now and the temperature had gone up by a few degrees. I suppose that was as good a reason as any to feel cheerful. But tourists are only in the perfect city for a week or two. The rest of us have to live here permanently – no foreign holidays, no dancing in the streets (apart from Hogmanay) and no time off for good behaviour. All that most citizens have to look forward to is the weekly sex session. Even that’s less exciting than it sounds, especially if, like me, you haven’t ever really come to terms with having sex with complete strangers. Then again, you can get used to anything.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that none of Roddie’s friends knew anything about this girlfriend of his?” Davie said as he turned down St Mary’s Street.

  “Not necessarily. Maybe he was just keeping her to himself. He wouldn’t be the first guy to do that.”

  I looked out at the grimy buildings on both sides. As soon as you leave the Royal Mile the atmosphere changes. No more souvenir shops, expensive tea rooms or restored medieval façades. You’re into ordinary citizen land, although the Council has made a bit of an effort to tart up the Cowgate further down. It’s here they run the cattle along to the Grassmarket and the tourists who watch sometimes venture into the pubs. They’re still pretty shitty though. When I was a student we used to call the Cowgate the ninth circle of the inferno. The bars stayed open all night and the road was full of paralytic lost souls bewailing their fate and desperately searching for friends who’d long since buggered off home. The curfew’s put paid to all of that.

  Davie pulled up outside the Pleasance buildings. A sign on the wall described them as Citizens’ Leisure Centre Number 13. In pre-Enlightenment times they were part of the university – there was a theatre, squash courts, bars and the like. Now it’s a licensed knocking shop. Unusually for this city, tourists are not allowed in. They’re catered for in the much more upmarket facilities run by the subtly named Prostitution Services Department. And they have to pay. At least citizens get laid for free. But we pay for that privilege in other ways.

  “How do you want to play this?” Davie asked before we got out.

  I knew what he meant. Guardsmen are about as welcome in sex centres as a tingling in the urethra. The places are run by low-ranking auxiliaries who do their best to convince clients that they have only citizens’ interests at heart. Of course, copies of the records they keep are collected in the middle of every Sunday night by plain-clothed guard personnel. Where would the Counci
l be if it didn’t know exactly who was screwing who? Maybe that’s how the celibate guardians get a thrill.

  “Let’s go in together,” I said, grinning at him. “It’s a bit chilly for you to stay out here.” Davie’s a useful guy to have around auxiliaries who think they’re something special. Which means more or less all auxiliaries.

  The middle-aged reception clerk looked me up and down with a practised eye but ignored Davie completely. Then she picked up the phone on her desk.

  I cut the connection. “Hold on, citizen Macmillan,” I said, reading the badge on her flat chest. “A few questions before you call your supervisor.” I showed her the Council authorisation Hamilton had given me earlier in the day.

  “I’m only on the door,” the woman said in a dull voice. “I don’t know anything.” Her face was fleshless, the skin pocked with scabs. Another triumph for the medical guardian’s Dietetics Department.

  “You don’t know anything about what?” I asked, giving her an encouraging smile. “I haven’t even told you what I’m after yet.”

  “I don’t know anything,” she repeated sullenly. This is how citizens are nowadays. Hyper-suspicious of the Council and all its works.

  I showed her the photograph from Roddie’s file. “Recognise him?” I saw her eyes flicker.

  The skin around her mouth loosened and she almost smiled. “Oh, aye, that’s Roddie. Roddie Aitken. He’s been coming here for a long time.”

  Five years, I calculated. Citizens attend weekly sex sessions from their eighteenth birthdays.

  “Roddie’s fine. We all like him here,” she said, her face suddenly hardening again. “What’s he done?”

  “Don’t worry, he hasn’t done anything,” I said. That was true enough. I sat on the end of her desk and gave her another smile. All that did was make her look down at her thin thighs, which were poking out from the short skirt sex centre staff are required to wear. “Who was he with in the last few weeks?”

  Citizen Macmillan seemed to freeze for a few seconds before she answered, her eyes still lowered. “I can’t remember. I’m only on the door. It’s not my job to—”

  “It’s not your job to do what, citizen?” The man’s voice was as smooth as the duvet cover in a tourist hotel bedroom. I almost believed he was unconcerned.

  He didn’t wait for the receptionist to answer. “And you are?”

  “Dalrymple,” I answered, flashing my authorisation again. “I need to see your files.”

  “Where’s your barracks number badge, auxiliary?” Davie demanded. You can’t take him anywhere.

  The supervisor smiled urbanely. “I do apologise, guardsman. I must have left it on my desk. I’m Moray 37.” His low barracks number indicated that he’d been a member of the Enlightenment before independence. He led us down a corridor, his long legs sheathed in an unusually tight pair of cream trousers. He didn’t look like he would last a day on the border, but he’d have got in as an auxiliary before the boyscouts restricted the rank to heavy-duty headbangers.

  “Well, here we are,” he said, tossing carefully tended locks of black hair back from his forehead. “Chez moi.”

  The room we were in was a file-spotter’s paradise. Apart from the table and chair a couple of paces in from the door, the furniture consisted entirely of gunmetal filing cabinets. Judging by the neat array of pens, pencils, notepads and proformas on the tabletop, I reckoned Moray 37 was that file-spotter.

  Davie picked up a barracks number badge and tossed it to the auxiliary, who gave him a brief smile.

  “Well, gentlemen, tell me how I can be of service.” The supervisor sat down in front of us and propped up his head on the extended fingers of one hand. He was probably tired after a hard morning with his pencil and rubber.

  “A citizen by the name of Roddie Aitken,” I said. “Do you know him?”

  “I think not.” Moray 37 almost pulled it off. If his eyelashes had quivered for a micro-second less, I’d have gone for it. “Should I?” he asked with a studied lack of interest.

  “Citizen Macmillan at the door says he’s very popular around here,” I said, watching him carefully.

  The auxiliary fluttered his lashes deliberately this time. “Citizen Macmillan doesn’t know the meaning of the word popular.” He leaned back and pulled open a drawer in the nearest cabinet. “Aitken, Roderick. Here he is.” He pulled out a grey cardboard folder and opened it. “Aitken, Roderick.” His features were blank. Too blank. “I can’t say I remember him. It appears he’s one of our people though. Next due in on Saturday.”

  No chance of that. I wondered whether Moray 37 had really heard nothing on the grapevine about the murder or whether he knew more about Roddie than he was letting on. Time for the third degree. I gave Davie the nod.

  “Do you think I’m funny, auxiliary?” Davie asked mildly.

  Moray 37 raised an eyebrow. “You’re about as far from funny as I am from playing in the front row of the barracks rugby team.”

  Davie leaned over the table until his face was a few inches in front of the supervisor’s. “So why are you laughing at me?” he demanded.

  “I can assure you, guardsman . . .” There was no way that sentence was ever going to reach the finishing post.

  “You’re taking the piss. My boss and I come in here asking questions and what do you do?” His beard was close enough to tickle Moray 37’s cheeks. Davie brought his fist down hard on the table. “You give us the runaround.”

  The supervisor’s eyes sprang open wide, then his gaze dropped. “I . . . oh, very well . . . you can see the file for yourselves.”

  “Thank you.” I took it and looked down the attendance sheet. Next to the dates of sex sessions is entered the name of the partner. Unmarried ordinary citizens must, as the city regulations put it, “enjoy sexual congress” once a week with a different member of either sex, depending on whether they have declared themselves hetero or homo. (Bisexuals aren’t catered for – they made the original guardians feel insecure, don’t ask me why.) This was supposed to be a way of widening people’s sexual experiences and ensuring that everyone screwed everyone, whether they were handsome, ugly, fat (not many of them nowadays), thin, spotty, greasy-haired or whatever. Believe it or not, the Council actually reckons this improves social cohesion. I’ve had sessions with women who definitely did not have that effect. No doubt there are several female citizens who would say the same about me.

  There wasn’t anything special about Roddie’s attendance sheet. I made a note of the last six female names he had been with. Then I flicked through the other pages. One detailed his sexual preferences (oral sex was one – how unusual); another, the comments made by his partners to centre staff afterwards. They were mostly complimentary, although one woman didn’t think much of his technique. The last page gave the results of his most recent medical check-up, which were clear.

  “Satisfied, citizen?” Moray 37 asked. His voice sounded just a bit tense.

  I smiled at him. “No. Show me the reception records.”

  The auxiliary went as grey as the white bread in the city’s bakeries. This looked promising.

  “I’ll come with you,” Davie said as Moray 37 got up and headed back to citizen Macmillan’s desk in the entrance hall. He suddenly seemed to be carrying a great weight.

  They were back in a minute, Davie holding another grey file. The auxiliary sat down slowly.

  It only took me a few seconds to discover what he was worried about. “Well, well,” I said. “The Council is going to be very upset. You haven’t been balancing your records, have you?”

  Moray 37 now looked like he was about to lose control of his lunch. He shook his head distractedly.

  What I’d found were the check-in slips for Roddie’s last three partners. And the juicy bit was that, while the attendance sheet showed three different names, the slips all had the same one. Moray 37 could be demoted for this. Regulations state that citizens are forbidden to enjoy sexual congress more than once with the same partner u
nless what’s called a “long-term relationship permit” has been issued.

  “Did you know about this, Moray 37?” I asked, showing him the slips.

  “I . . . no . . . I . . .” His shoulders dropped. “Well, yes, I did have some idea . . .”

  “Some idea?” Davie yelled. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  The auxiliary shifted around on his chair as if a burrowing creature had just broken through the fabric of his trousers. “You know how it is, citizen,” he said, looking at me hopefully.

  I did but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  He started shuffling paper. “Sometimes citizens form emotional attachments. They like to see the same partner every week.”

  “And what do you get for arranging these romantic trysts?” I asked.

  “What do I get?” Moray 37 tried to look outraged. “I’m an auxiliary. My job is to serve citizens.”

  Davie sounded like he was about to choke. “Your job, in case you’ve forgotten, is to serve the city.”

  “Which isn’t exactly the same thing,” I said. “Don’t tell me you did it in the cause of young love.”

  The supervisor squirmed again. “Obviously you have no understanding of the feelings experienced by young people.”

  He was wrong there, but I still wasn’t buying it. Auxiliaries, even older ones, aren’t known for acts of charity to citizens. Maybe someone was pulling his chain, but short of taking him up to the castle and setting Davie loose on him in a big way, it didn’t look like I was going to get much more out of him.

  I looked at the name on the last three check-in slips. It was an unusual one. “Get me Sheena Marinello’s file, auxiliary.”

  Now Moray 37 had the look of a pre-independence banker whose company car had just been surrounded by a crowd of ex-customers objecting to the way their savings had gone walkabout to the Cayman Islands. He moved away.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” said Davie with a death’s-head grin.