House of Dust (39 page)

I'd noticed the Victorian Gothic hotel opposite the Taylorian earlier. “Convenient for the Faculty of Criminology,” I observed.

Andrew Duart stared at me aggressively. “What's that supposed to mean?” he asked, tightening his florid silk tie.

“I saw the pair of you yesterday,” I said, aware that Hel Hyslop had stepped closer. She was rolling forward on the balls of her bare feet like a large feline that had just spotted its evening meal. “Coming out of the Department of Forensic Chemistry. Which, as you no doubt know, is a branch of the Criminology Faculty.” I stood up to face them. “Any chance you might tell me what you were doing there?”

Hyslop took a pace nearer. “I suppose that fire was your doing, Quint. It didn't occur to you that people could have been injured?” I wasn't keen on the way she was flexing her hands. I was pretty sure that she'd learned plenty about unarmed combat in the All-Glasgow Major Crime Squad.

Duart raised a hand to restrain her. “Our movements in this city are no concern of yours, Dalrymple,” he said in an icy voice.

“Dalrymple?” I said. “What happened to Quint? We used to be so close.” I glanced at Hel. “Until I discovered that you'd let a major criminal out after a few months. Been getting around, have you, Hel?” I was wondering if she could have had some involvement in the murders and mutilations.

They both stared at me.

“What's the point of that question?” Duart asked.

“How long have you been in Oxford, Hel?” I demanded. “Have you been in Edinburgh recently? And where were you between seven and eight o'clock yesterday evening?”

They were looking seriously puzzled now.

“To answer your questions in order, Quint,” Hyslop said. “Two days. No. At a seminar in this building. Satisfied?”

I shrugged. It wasn't very likely that she'd committed the murders; for a start, she didn't have size eleven feet, though the wearing of oversize footwear by miscreants isn't unheard of. What she did have was a history of complicity in numerous killings – except I'd never established if she carried out any of them herself.

“I don't suppose you'll be giving us an explanation as to why you burst in here,” Hyslop said.

“Not unless you tell me what you're doing in Oxford.” I glanced at Duart. “Both of you.”

The first secretary was straightening the creases of his trousers. “I'm here on business, not that it's any business of yours.”

“Ha,” I said, not laughing. “Signing Glasgow up for more Nox systems? You'd better be careful, Andy. They might take you over.” I might have been imagining it, but for a second I thought he looked unsettled.

Then Hel Hyslop moved towards me menacingly and I decided that I'd said enough.

Now it really was time to visit the chemist.

I went up the stairs, having ascertained from the display screen on the ground floor that 18/25 was on the third. There was no one around and the place smelled of polish and detergent rather than of human bodies. Maybe the list of names on the panel referred to old members who'd donated funds to the college rather than to living residents. But where would that leave Hyslop? Why was she being put up here?

This time I knocked. Not that it got me anywhere. I put my ear to the door and heard nothing. It looked like I was going to have to rely on the control card after all. Then there was a click and the door opened. On the other side of it was a face I recognised. But the condition of the body had changed a lot.

“Ramsay?” I said, using the chief toxicologist's first name. “Is that you?”

Lister 25 was propping himself up on one of those frames that old people use to get around. It was a long time since I'd seen something like that – the Council's welfare budget doesn't run to what the guardians see as fripperies.

“Dalrymple?” he said with a gasp. He screwed his eyes up. “Quint Dalrymple? Is that you?” Tears filled his eyes and began to run down over his jowls. They were looser and even more pachydermic than they had been.

I stepped inside and let the door swing to. “Aye, it's me,” I said, going up to him and smiling. “Don't worry, I'll get you out of here.”

The toxicologist manoeuvred himself awkwardly towards a high armchair and let his shrunken body drop into it. Then he dabbed his eyes with a dirty handkerchief and glanced around the room. “Get me out of Death Row?” He gave a bitter laugh. “You'll have to carry me. Think you can manage that?”

I followed the direction of his eyes, trying to understand what he meant by Death Row. The room was much larger than Hel Hyslop's, the living area broad and high, with a sofa as well as an armchair. A slatted wooden staircase led up to a platform on which there was a bed. It was a lot more comfortable than your average condemned man's cell.

Lister 25 laughed again, his head twitching uncontrollably. “This is their idea of retribution, Quint. When I couldn't work any more they put me in a room where I couldn't reach the bed except by crawling.” He gave one of his trademark pouts. “Fuck 'em. I've been sleeping on the settee.”

I squatted down in front of him. “What's happened, Ramsay?” I asked in a low voice. “You've been working in the Poison Fields, haven't you?”

He opened his eyes wide. “How did you find me, Quint? What do you know about the PFs?” He started coughing.

I stood up and looked for a glass. I found one by the sink in the far corner of the room. By the time I got back to him, he was in a full paroxysm. I managed to take his hands away from his mouth and get some liquid down. Eventually the tearing sound subsided.

“My lungs,” the toxicologist said, shaking his head. “They're done for. I'll not make it back to Edinburgh.” He looked at me sadly. “Or hear another Robert Johnson song.” The old bugger was still addicted to the blues – I found that reassuring. He made a throaty noise and I thought he was going to start choking again. Then I realised he was laughing. “‘Hellhound On My Trail' would seem appropriate.” He swallowed and stared at me. “How did you find me?”

I told him about the reference to him in Raskolnikov's file, editing out the part about the nocturnal visitor and the message on my mirror. I also mentioned the murders in Oxford. He hadn't heard about either of them.

“So the criminals in charge of this festering utopia brought you here to do their dirty work,” Lister 25 said, shaking his head in disgust. “I'm surprised you agreed, Quint. Or did they hold a gun to your head?”

“Uh-uh. The killings here are linked to things that happened in Edinburgh. A Leith Lancer had his arm amputated.” I looked at him. “And Lewis Hamilton was shot, probably by mistake. I reckon the bullet was meant for Administrator Raphael.”

The old chemist was peering at me, his eyes watery but focused. “The public order guardian was shot? Is he dead?”

I nodded. “Heart failure.”

“Bloody hell.” Lister 25 shook his head slowly. “Poor bastard. I didn't like him much, but . . .” His words trailed away. Then his body stiffened and he gripped the arms of his chair. “It's a pity Raphael didn't get it. That woman's deranged.”

“Have you met her?” I asked, glancing up at the Nox Imaging Systems photo of Oxford that was on the wall above the armchair, the Radcliffe Camera's high-tech dome its centrepiece. I wondered if everything we were saying was being overheard and relayed to the chief administrator.

The toxicologist nodded, clearing his throat with difficulty. “After her people hustled me on to the helijet in the middle of the night a couple of weeks back, she made a personal appearance on the nostrum they gave me.” He nodded at me. “Smart devices, those. Have you got one?”

I took mine out of my pocket, then let it slip back.

“Aye, well,” Lister 25 continued, “she made it very clear to me that the work I was instructed by the senior guardian to do on certain soil samples had suddenly become even more crucial: absolutely essential to the security of New Oxford, as she put it.” He gave a dry laugh. “Have you noticed how the top brass here sound exactly like the guardians?”

“Oh yeah,” I replied, noting Slick's involvement for future reference. “Something to do with people who wield power unchecked.”

“Aye,” the old chemist grunted. “They begin to speak like machines. Anyway, she was there waiting for me when the helijet arrived. She was as welcoming as a cold fish can be. Not that she apologised for spiriting me away from Edinburgh. She even took me down to the research station herself. There was another top-ranker with us, a character by the name of Dawkins . . . no . . . what was it?”

“Dawkley?”

“Aye, that's it. Fancied himself as a scientist. Sounded more like a bureaucrat to me.”

I had my notebook out. “Where was this research station, Ramsay?” I asked.

Lister 25 drew the back of his hand across his brow. “Research station? It was more like an army camp. Checkpoints everywhere, electronic surveillance, heavies much worse than any guardsman back home.” He let out a cracked laugh. “Or guardswoman. The place is known as Sutt. It's a village about ten miles south of the city. I found out from one of the lab assistants that it used to be called Sutton Courtenay. Apparently some Prime Minister lived there back at the beginning of the last century.” He broke off and drank from the glass I'd given him, then laughed again – it was more like a croak. “I'll tell you something funny, Quint. I went for a walk one day – before the contaminated samples got to me – and wandered round what was left of the church. The drugs gangs had blown the buildings to pieces but the cemetery was still in pretty good shape. Guess whose gravestone I found.”

I looked across at him and shrugged. “John Mayall's?”

“Ha!” The noise that erupted must have traumatised what was left of his lungs. He gulped water. “John Mayall. Very good, lad. He could play the blues. Not that it was the real thing. No, this grave was much more appropriate to this twisted state.”

I raised my shoulders again.

He leered at me. “Eric Blair.”

For a moment I got caught up on the surname: nasty memories of image-obsessed, terminal governments from the years before the break-up of the UK. Then the juxtaposition of names hit me. Jesus. Eric Blair, that was the real name of one George Orwell. I should have spotted it the second I heard it – I was born in 1984, after all.

“You're kidding?” I said. “Was it really him?”

Lister 25 nodded solemnly. “Apparently. I eventually found someone in the place who confirmed it. The rest of the morons didn't even know who Orwell was.”

“So symbolism is alive and well.” I shook my head to bring me back to the real world. “What was the research you were doing out there, Ramsay?”

The toxicologist's face fell. “Don't ask, Quint,” he said in a low, unsteady voice. He coughed agonisingly. “Look what it did to me.”

“I'll get you home,” I said, leaning towards him.

He shook his head. “I've seen what happens. Two or three days is all it takes.” He clutched my forearm with surprising strength. “The pollution in the Poison Fields is more severe than anything I've ever studied. Apparently it's been getting even worse in recent months. If it goes on like this, the city will soon be uninhabitable. That's why they've sent every scientist they can find out to the station in Sutt. Unless they can control the toxic gases and counter the effects they have on the immune system, they're lost.”

Things were coming together. The RED code file I accessed referred to the human immune system, as well as to the Poison Fields. Was this what the case was about? But how did that tie up with the murders and mutilations?

“Ramsay,” I said, my voice no more than a whisper. “Have you ever heard of the Grendels?”

His bloodshot eyes opened so wide that I thought they were going to slip out of their sockets. “The Grendels?” he said hoarsely. “You know about them?”

I shook my head in frustration. “Not enough. What are they like?”

Slowly he closed his eyes, his head twitching. “The Grendels?” he repeated in a weak voice. “Remember what I said about a hellhound on my trail?”

“Aye. And?”

But before the chief toxicologist could say anything more, there was a loud knocking. The door behind me opened.

I let out a groan and turned to face the music.

Except it turned out to be a different genre to the one I'd been expecting – along the lines of a female vocalist singing a cappella rather than a group of howling bulldogs.

“I hope you haven't been tiring my charge out,” said a thin, middle-aged woman in a green and white striped jacket as she stepped past me. The strong smell of antiseptic came in with her.

I glanced down the corridor. She seemed to be on her own. “Not as much as you just did by flagellating the door.”

She looked round at me from the armchair containing Lister 25. “Flagellating?” she repeated, her voice expressing bewilderment. “What do you mean?” She stood up straight, suddenly more interested in me than the sick man. “Who are you?”

“You know exactly who I am,” I said, moving towards her. “You were sent up here to interrupt us, weren't you?” I was pretty sure that someone – Connington? Dawkley? Raphael herself? – had been listening to our conversation and had decided to pull the plug before the old chemist said any more. Information in New Oxford seemed to be controlled by drip-feed. But why were they letting me find out anything at all if they were so touchy about the Grendels and the research projects at Sutt?

There was a strangulated sound from Lister 25. The nurse or whatever she was bent over him and loosened his clothes. Then she started speaking urgently, presumably into her nostrum.

“Code nine. Worc Masterman 18/25, top priority,” I heard. She turned to me. “You'll have to go,” she said, her voice taut. “The paramedics will be here in a few minutes.”