The Blood Tree (30 page)

“He should be in a bloody hospital,” I said angrily.

Haggs glared at me. “Watch it, dickhead.”

“Clear the way!” Hel shouted.

Police personnel in green uniforms let us pass. We entered a small room with a single bed. The motionless figure on it was being tended by a male doctor in a white coat. A saline drip had been fed into Leadbelly's right arm, which was cuffed to the bed frame.

I groaned. “How is he?” The prisoner didn't look good at all. What I could see of his face around the respirator was ashen. His neck was bisected horizontally by a deep furrow. The skin there wasn't broken but it was a dark red colour.

“Alive, just.” The medic was young and reptilian, his round glasses magnifying cold blue eyes. “It's too early to say whether the brain's been irreversibly deprived of oxygen.”

“Why isn't he in hospital?” I demanded.

The doctor glanced at Hyslop. “I was told to keep him here until you arrived, inspector.”

She nodded. “Category Z prisoners cannot be transferred without approval from a senior officer.” It sounded like she knew the regulations off by heart.

“So fucking approve the transfer!” I yelled.

The room went dead quiet, the only sound coming from Leadbelly's assisted breathing.

The inspector wasn't going to be rushed. “Would additional treatment be beneficial?” she asked the reptile.

The doctor raised his shoulders noncommittally. “Possibly. The patient's stable now.”

I shook my head. “Anyone would think you're not interested in keeping him alive,” I said to Hel Hyslop, moving closer to the bed and examining the impression in the skin. “What was round his neck?”

A policeman stepped forward and addressed Hyslop. “A boot-lace.”

She nodded but didn't speak.

“He was barefoot last night,” I said pointedly.

Another silence.

“Yes, well, we'll be looking into that,” Hel said. Then she glanced at the door where there had just been another parting of the personnel.

Andrew Duart walked up and gave Leadbelly the once-over. “What's going on, chief inspector? I've just heard that your prime suspect tried to kill himself.” He turned his gaze on Hyslop. It wasn't friendly. “Very careless of your department to allow that, wasn't it?”

Hel's cheeks reddened. “I haven't had the chance to find out what happened yet.”

“Then I suggest you do so immediately.” Duart looked at me. “I can assure you we'll take better care of the prisoner from now on, Quint.”

“Before you execute him?” I said bitterly. “He should be in an emergency unit.”

He nodded. “See to it, inspector.” He turned to leave. “I want to see a full report on this unfortunate incident by the end of the day,” he said over his shoulder. “As well as the one you owe me on the death in Kelvingrove last night.” He stopped and shot Hel Hyslop a piercing glance. “Both are to include the input of our Edinburgh expert here, of course.” He headed off.

I stood back to allow Leadbelly to be carried out. Hyslop and Haggs weren't looking at me. It was pretty obvious that I wasn't their favourite alien.

That feeling was now even more mutual than it had been.

We went up to the fourth floor and occupied the corner office. The chair that Leadbelly had been sitting on last night was still in the middle of the floor, the shackles lying beneath it. At least they weren't attached to me. But the sight of the chair made me wonder about the former drugs gang member again. He wasn't the suicidal type. Christ, he'd survived seven years' solitary on Cramond Island without any hope of release. Why would he give up now, the day after his demand that I be brought to him was met? No, I wasn't buying suicide. The question was, who wanted rid of him?

I took a look at Hyslop and Haggs. They were at her desk, opening files and making checklists. Neither of them was a fan of Leadbelly. On the other hand, he was their chief suspect for the murders. Why would they want rid of him? Besides, they were with me when Leadbelly's air supply was cut off – though I was sure they had plenty of willing helpers in the building.

“What's your problem, pal?” Big Tam demanded, glancing up. “See something you like?”

“No,” I replied. “Nothing human, at least. What's in those files?”

Haggs grinned. “Are you a man or a bureaucrat?”

“Shut up, sergeant.” Hel Hyslop's face was drawn. “You heard what Duart said. Quint's in on this with us.” She sounded as happy about that as an American president who'd been caught in an intern.

“Brilliant,” I said with heavy irony. “So I can expect full co-operation, can I?”

“From me, you can expect a truncheon enema,” Haggs said, his stubbled jaw jutting forward.

“No, thanks,” I replied. “I'd prefer a corned beef and beetroot sandwich.”

To my amazement, I got one. And a mug of decent coffee. Then we got stuck into the files.

An hour later there was more bad news.

“You're kidding, aren't you?” I was staring at Hyslop but she wouldn't look up.

“You heard my end of the conversation,” she snapped, her hand still on the desk phone. “The post-mortem on the dead adolescent has already been carried out.”

I leaned over her. “What kind of regulations have you got in this poxy city? Surely at least one member of the investigation team has to be present when it's a suspicious death.”

She nodded. “Under normal circumstances the regulations do require that.”

“What do you mean ‘under normal circumstances'?”

Hyslop pushed her chair back and stood up. Haggs moved away, his eyes still on me and his face set hard.

“Exceptions can be made,” the inspector said.

“Exceptions?” I was having difficulty restraining myself. “Exceptions on what grounds?”

Hel shrugged. “On medical safety grounds.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded.

“If the cadaver is infectious, for example.”

I straightened up. “Was there any indication of that with the adolescent?”

“I don't know, Quint. They're sending the p-m report over now.”

“That's something,” I said between my teeth.

Haggs stepped towards me. “You want to get a grip on your temper. We don't speak to senior officers like that around here.”

“Maybe you don't,” I said. “Junior officer.”

He raised his fist and pulled it back.

“Forget it, Tam,” Hyslop said. “I can look after myself.”

Haggs nodded. “I know you can. I'm just not sure that this cunt does.”

I didn't bother responding to that. Instead I picked up the notebook I'd been using and turned away. “We're going nowhere fast with this. No one saw D . . .” I broke off, coughing loudly. Using the Edinburgh youth's name would have been a major faux pas. “. . . no one saw the dead boy in the streets, no one's been able to identify him, and we don't know why he died. Bit of a result, eh?”

The others looked at their files leadenly.

“Still,” I continued, “at least we've found out which arsehole was responsible for giving Leadbelly back his boot-laces.” I was glaring at them but they still weren't responding. Half an hour earlier a sheepish young policeman had been dragged in. His story was that Leadbelly had complained of cold feet in the holding cell. Constable Plod Minor claimed he didn't know prisoners weren't allowed laced footwear. I wasn't convinced. He looked thick enough, but I found it hard to believe that a high priority suspect like Leadbelly would have been assigned such an inexperienced guard. The latest news from the hospital was that Leadbelly was still unconscious. If someone had wanted to shut him up they may well have achieved that end, even if he wasn't dead.

There was a rap on the glass door. “Special delivery,” said a fresh-faced young policewoman. Apparently the Major Crime Squad recruited straight from primary school. She handed Hel a large envelope and departed after giving Tam Haggs a frosty look. Perhaps he'd tried it on with her in the past. If she'd told him where to go, she wasn't as stupid as her male counterpart from the cells.

“What have we got then?” I asked, moving to the desk.

“P-m report,” Hyslop said, running her finger down the typed front sheet. After a minute she sighed and handed it over to me. “No great help.”

I tried to make sense of the pathologist's tortured syntax in the summary. It didn't help that the layout of the report bore no resemblance to that of the forms I was used to – trust Glasgow to do things as differently as possible from Edinburgh.

“Time of death, between nine-thirty and ten p.m.,” I read. “Cause of death, massive brain injuries caused by a single heavy blow to right side of cranium. Medical history unknown but no debilitating or malignant conditions. No traces of any drugs or alcohol. Stomach contents show ham and wholemeal bread and tea, consumed approximately three hours before death.” I glanced over the back-up pages but failed to find anything else of significance.

Hel Hyslop was sitting back in her chair with her hands crossed, her eyes on me. “So, Mister Investigator, what next?”

“If there were no debilitating or malignant conditions, why was the p-m carried out in secret?” I asked.

“The pathologist isn't required to provide that information,” she replied. “Perhaps he was given orders by a superior.”

“Like who? Surely there would be a reference to that in the report?”

She raised her shoulders.

I sat on the other side of the desk. “Look, Hel, I was born with a suspicious mind. If I don't attend a p-m, I don't trust the report.”

Her eyes flared. “Don't you dare question our procedures, Quint. You're a guest in this city and—”

“I'm an unwilling guest in this city,” I interrupted. “And anyway, your procedures stink.”

This time Haggs completed his punch.

I hit the floor.

Chapter Fourteen

We were in the Llama, Hel Hyslop at the wheel. Haggs had been banished to the back seat after his attempt to dislocate my jaw. Fortunately the evasive action I took meant that he only scuffed the end of my chin. Round one to Quintilian on points, but I knew I had to watch my back – and my front – even more carefully from now on.

“Don't we need tickets for the show?” I asked. “There were a lot of people in the necropolis this morning.”

“I've arranged that with the Cult Squad,” Hyslop said, stopping at a crossing to let a group of youths stream over the road. They must have been at the magic all afternoon. In Edinburgh going over the top like that would have got them a month down the mines. “As long as you give a big enough donation to Macbeth's cause, you're in.” Her tone was heavily ironic.

I peered out into the street. Despite the bright lights of the shops and bars in the city centre, it was a gloomy evening. The idea of watching an open-air production wasn't at all enticing. “His cause? You think he's serious about reuniting Scotland? He's just a smalltime crazy, isn't he?”

Hel shook her head. “I'm not so sure. My opposite number in the Cult Squad reckons the so-called king's been getting much stronger in recent months. Unlike most of these madmen, he doesn't seem to be corrupt. Everything he takes is used to recruit new members and set up branches across the wards.”

I looked at her face. It was glowing green in the light from the dashboard. “Yeah, but how can he seriously imagine that Scotland can be brought back into existence?” I asked. “Apart from a few city-states with varying degrees of civilisation, the land is wilder than it was in Viking times.”

Haggs stirred in the back. “There's only one state with any degree of civilisation, pal, and it's not the one you come from.”

I turned to him. “Glasgow, city of the right hook, you mean?”

“Stop it,” Hel Hyslop ordered. “Otherwise I'll send the pair of you to Greenock, city of continuous shifts in the shipyards.”

Round two to the inspector.

This time we left the Llama down a back-street and walked a couple of hundred yards to join the crowd that was streaming into the necropolis. The place was even weirder at night. Although the bright glare from the stage up the hill was obviously produced by electricity, the path that led through the ranks of funeral monuments and headstones was lit by wooden torches dipped in pitch – the return of the Dark Ages.

A tall guy in casual clothes appeared at Hyslop's elbow and handed her an envelope.

“Tickets,” he said in a low voice. “My people are all in position. All you have to do is give the word.”

Hel nodded and he disappeared. She'd spent the afternoon planning a heavy-duty raid on the cult. It wasn't just the handbill from the dead boy that had got her going – apparently there had been a couple of reports of people going missing after showing interest in Macbeth. The king had some awkward questions to answer. I had a few I wanted to ask his henchman with the messed-up face mask as well.