House of Dust (10 page)

“Don't let him die on you,” I called after her. She made an unguardian-like gesture with her hand.

Davie came up holding a clipboard. “That was a surprise.”

“This case seems to be full of them. What have you got?”

“Nothing much so far. We're tracking down residents and canvassing for witnesses. Oh, and there's an all-barracks alert out for anyone who looks like a Leith Lancer.”

I walked to the vehicle we'd arrived in. “I need a wash and something to drink. I've still got the taste of that shithole in my mouth.”

He followed me. “The guardian's set up base-camp in Baltic Barracks. He's expecting you there.”

“Great.” I opened the Land-Rover door then took in the surroundings of Socrates Lane again. Broken windows, litter in the gutters, drainpipes hanging at crazy angles from stone blackened by the smoke from coal fires. “Jesus, Davie, this must be the worst street in the city.”

He started the engine and laughed. “Aye, it's almost as bad as the Fisheries Guard mess-hall down the road.”

“Close call,” I said, nodding. I'd spent a horribly drunken night on a horribly filthy floor with the crew of a patrol ship during the whisky investigation in 2025. The crew and their crazy captain had subsequently sailed off into the wide blue yonder. The latter wore an eye patch and had a dunt in his skull from a crowbar. “I wonder where Dirty Harry and his pirates ended up, Davie?”

“Wherever it is, I wouldn't fancy being in the vicinity,” he said, shaking his head as he pulled out of the street. “Harry'd have felt at home here though.”

“No, he wouldn't.” My thoughts were still full of the flat where we'd found the victim. “Not even a psycho drugs gang boss could survive in these tenements.” I stared out at the grey granite walls. “But the Council expects ordinary citizens to manage.”

Davie looked like he wanted to argue but he didn't bother. There wasn't much he could say.

Baltic Barracks was only a hundred yards from the junction, a solid building that used to be a spirits bond; the small, heavily barred windows had made it easy to defend during the drugs wars. No tourists ever come to Leith these days, so the guard depot and the main street it's on have had minimal maintenance.

Baltic 04 was in the entrance hall. “Thank Christ,” she said, taking her life in her hands by using a religious reference proscribed for auxiliaries. “The guardian and the Mi— His deputy have been making everyone's life—”

“All right,” I said, wading in before she was overheard. “You did a good job keeping them off my back at the scene.” I gave her an ironic smile. “Pity you didn't notice the victim was still with us”

The auxiliary's face fell. “Sorry about that, citizen.”

“Don't worry about it too much. I made the same mistake. Where are they?”

“In the ops room.” Baltic 04 pointed down the corridor. “Forgive me if I don't join you.” She headed off rapidly in the opposite direction.

“Come on, Davie,” I said. “Time to perform some more operations.”

That took up the whole afternoon.

“I don't understand why these adolescents won't talk.” The Mist turned away from the pair of sullen lads, irritation bringing dots of sweat to her face.

“Because they think all auxiliaries are poison,” I said, watching as the younger of the only Leith Lancers the guard had so far managed to pick up sniggered contemptuously. I was wasting my breath trying to get them on my side. I'd already had a go at breaking them down individually without any guard personnel present. They regarded me as poison too, my DM status notwithstanding. They wouldn't even confirm their names. We knew one of them was called Jax – the name was tattooed on his neck – but that was about it. They'd been found in a ruin on the other side of the Water of Leith so they probably didn't know what had happened in the tenement in Socrates Lane. Even a photo of the victim sent down from the infirmary provoked the big zero as regards reactions. The rest of the gang members were obviously keeping their heads as far down as they could.

“Very well,” Hamilton's deputy said to the barracks commander. “Lock them up. In separate cells. No food or drink.”

I watched as the youths were led away, the leg irons they'd been fitted with clanking as they walked to the door with studied jauntiness.

The public order guardian got up stiffly from a mess table. “This is getting us nowhere. We have no idea of the victim's identity and it doesn't look like he's going to be much help in the immediate future.”

Sophia had called several times. The one-armed guy was stable but still unconscious. There was a question of brain damage, though there were no visible wounds to his skull. It had been confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt that the arm in the administrator's bath came from the Leither.

I swallowed the last of my barracks coffee and got a mouthful of gritty dregs. “Anything more on the tip-off?” I asked Davie.

He shook his head. “The guard haven't been able to find anyone who'll own up to seeing who used the public phone in Easter Road.” The Council restricts telephones to one on every street and the exchange had been able to trace the number of the phone used to tell Baltic Barracks about the one-armed man.

“I'm still guessing it was a Leith Lancer who made the call,” I said. The barracks operator was only able to say that the voice had been male and the accent coarse. “Someone out there knew about the attack. It may just have been a witness who wanted to get help to the boy.”

“The scene-of-crime squad is still following up traces and prints, but so far there's nothing that points to the assailant's or the victim's identity,” Davie said. “The missing finger hasn't turned up either.”

The Mist was standing under the opaque glass at the edge of the basement mess ceiling; the heavy boots of auxiliaries on the pavement above were passing regularly. “And the Housing Directorate's list of residents in Socrates Lane tells us only that the tenement's been unoccupied for five years,” she said.

“Damn,” Hamilton said, shaking his head. “The senior guardian's not going to like this.”

His deputy turned and gave him a mocking smile. “No, he's not, is he?”

I glanced at her and raised my eyebrows. “What are you complaining about?” I said, finding myself in the unusual situation of standing up for Lewis. “We've found the source of the arm. What more does he want?” I realised too late that I'd given her an open goal.

The Mist directed her heavy features at me. “What more, citizen? A perpetrator? A motive? A weapon?”

I was spared further humiliation by the door to our rear bursting open.

“Quint? What happened in Socrates Lane?”

“Katharine?” I said, taken aback by her dishevelled state. “What is it?”

Hamilton stared as she approached us, her black coat hanging loosely over her arm. “What is she doing in a barracks, Dalrymple?” Ordinary citizens are only allowed entry to auxiliary locations when they're under arrest. Lewis had forgotten that Katharine had an “ask no questions”, an undercover operative's authorisation that I got for her years back.

“This youth gang member who was attacked,” Katharine said, ignoring the guardian and his number two. Her words were coming out in a rush. “I think I know who he is.”

That got everybody's attention.

“So tell me exactly how you got on to this,” I said, turning to look at Katharine. We were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the front of the Land-Rover that Davie was driving at full speed towards the infirmary.

She shrugged. “I've been in the drop-in centre in Ferry Road since yesterday evening. The usual stream of desperate kids, most of them more frightened than aggressive. I tried to give them what advice I could.” She shook her head. “There was even one poor lad, Gus was his name, who'd had his wrist broken. He wouldn't tell me how.”

I managed to stop my jaw from dropping.

“He was worried about going to the infirmary but I eventually managed to pack him off there this afternoon. Anyway, some boys I've known for a couple of months came in to play table tennis. It was one of them who'd heard a rumour about one of the L.L.s being attacked in Socrates Lane.”

“What was his name?” I asked.

“Oh no,” Katharine said firmly. “I'm not landing him in it. He wasn't involved, I'm sure of it.”

I nudged her gently. “Not your source. You said you could identify the victim.”

“Wait till I see him; if it's who I think it is, I've met him a couple of times.” She gave me a tight smile. “Then, if you and the medical guardian ask nicely, maybe I'll tell you his name.”

I looked ahead as the monuments on the Calton Hill came into sight at the top of Leith Walk. And wondered if Katharine would ever let me forget the torrid relationship that Sophia and I had during the Big Heat of 2025.

We stood outside the intensive care unit and watched the nurses hovering over the guy with one arm. Tubes and wires hooked his motionless frame to several machines. Katharine was in with him, swathed in surgical robes.

This time I glanced round before Sophia reached me. “Anything new?” I asked.

She regarded Katharine with glacial eyes then nodded. “I'll tell you after Citizen Kirkwood does what she has to do.”

The seal on the door hissed as it opened to let Katharine pass.

“It's him all right,” she said, pulling her mask down. “George Faulds. They call him Dead Dod.”

Davie shook his head as he wrote down the name, then went off to run a check.

“What else do you know about him?” Sophia demanded.

Katharine shot me a glance. “Ask me politely, guardian,” she said in an arch voice.

Sophia hit me with her eyes too – I was everybody's punch bag. “Oh, for goodness' sake. Citizen Kirkwood,” she said mechanically, “please tell us what else you know about this George Faulds.”

“That's better.” Katharine handed the robes she'd been removing to the guardian. “Not much, as it happens. I've only seen him a few times in the centre. He has a reputation for being a loner. And he has quite a temper. He once broke a snooker cue over his knee when he missed a shot.” She shrugged. “At least it wasn't somebody else's knee.”

“He's definitely a Leith Lancer?” I asked. There have been cases of kids, desperate to join the gangs, doing their own tattoos. They usually end up with broken heads, but not severed arms.

Katharine nodded. “Oh aye. A Lancer and proud of it.” She looked at me. “What happened to him, Quint? It looks like he's lost an arm.”

Sophia passed the robes to a nursing auxiliary and turned away. “That information is classified,” she said.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Katharine's helped us, Sophia. She works with these kids. She's entitled to know.”

The guardian wasn't convinced, but finally she gave in and took us to her office. “There are some strange aspects to this case,” she said, sitting down at her desk and opening a grey folder. “First of all, the patient doesn't appear to have lost much blood.”

“What?” I said. “He had an arm severed.”

“Oh, you noticed?” Sophia said ironically. “There's no arguing with the test results, Quint. Second, the preliminary analysis shows an as yet unidentified chemical compound in his veins.”

“What kind of substance?” Katharine asked. “Sometimes those kids pick up new designer drugs from smugglers.”

“It may be something of that sort,” Sophia agreed. She gave me a stern look. “Unfortunately the city's chief toxicologist has been missing for a fortnight so we're not well equipped to identify the compound. His department's doing the best it can.”

I sat down heavily, suddenly aware of the fact that I hadn't slept last night. “Could it have something to do with the state he's been in?”

Sophia nodded. “Quite possibly. The assailant may have put him under before severing the arm. The reduction in heart rate and oxygen intake may have caused permanent brain damage – it's too early to say.”

“So we may not get a description of his attacker from him,” I said. “Great.”

Sophia put the file down slowly. “And I'm still no clearer about what was used to sever the arm. The surfaces are smooth but not as clean as a heavy blade such as a cleaver would produce. And the sealing, cauterisation, whatever – I can't make sense of it.” She looked at me desperately. “I don't suppose the scene-of-crime squad has found anything suggestive?”

I gave a hollow laugh. “That would be too easy, Sophia. The finger is still missing as well, by the way.”

“In that case the lunatic who took this arm off is still out there,” she said, her face pale. “With the means to do it again.”

The conversation ended.

Katharine and I headed to the exit in silence. Not for long. As we were crossing the reception area, a voice rang out.

“Here, Katharine!”

I looked to my left and saw a figure with his forearm in plaster approaching. I recognised him immediately. Oh shit.

“Hello, Gus,” Katharine said. “How's your—?” She broke off as the youth with the red flash on his cheek gave me a fearful stare.

“This is the bastard who broke my fuckin' wrist,” Gus yelled, his voice breaking. “Dinnae let him near me.”

The look I got from Katharine would have made William Wallace wet himself.

Chapter Five