The Blood Tree (39 page)

“Who's . . .” I left the question incomplete because Big Eye was already on his way over to the man. I followed slowly, my hand on the weapon in my pocket.

“Professor!” Big Eye called. “Here I am.”

The scientist was looking at me intently. I recognised the gaunt features of David Rennie, the ward representative I'd met at the banquet who was founder of the institute and also Macbeth's brother. Although alarm had registered on them initially, it rapidly faded. He didn't look pleased to see his inmate but he offered me a welcoming smile. That put me off my stride.

“Cyclops,” the professor said sharply, “what are you doing here? Where's your escort?”

Big Eye grinned. “Gone. They left me all on my own when the alarm bells started.”

For a couple of seconds Rennie's expression suggested that the security personnel were for the high jump over the Erskine Bridge, but he quickly got a grip. “I'm rather busy at the moment, Cyclops. Why don't you go back to your quarters?”

“Too busy to see me?” Big Eye said haltingly. “But I'm your favourite subject, that's what you always say.” His expression was black again, but his voice was as querulous as a child's.

The professor eyed him with a hint of anxiety then pointed to a chair. “Why don't you sit down for a minute? I have to speak to your new friend.”

Big Eye glanced at me and smiled. “Fine.” Then he looked lost. “But I don't know his name.”

Rennie laughed. “Didn't he tell you? He's not much of a friend then. This is Quintilian. You'd better call him Quint. That's lot easier, isn't it?”

“Quint,” the young man repeated, smiling at me. “Quint.”

I nodded, trying to make out the condition of the figure beyond the professor. The body was sheathed in a white robe and the head turned away. The long dark hair and the slender form suggested it was a girl.

“Yes,” the professor said. “Quintilian Dalrymple.” He gave me another long look. “I've been expecting a visit from you. I imagine the farce at the front entrance is your doing. Yours and that idiot Duart's, along with the idiots in the Major Crime Squad.” He played with some buttons on his console. “What exactly do you hope to find?”

“The evidence that will nail you and close this place down,” I said, glancing at Big Eye. He was looking at me in horror. The poor guy obviously regarded the institute as home.

“Don't be ridiculous,” David Rennie scoffed. “This facility provides the ward and the city as a whole with an enormous amount of income, primarily from our American friends.”

“What exactly is it that you provide for them?” I demanded. “Cloned children?”

Rennie's eyes flicked uneasily over to the inmate. Then he nodded. “Among other things. Since the religious right over there prevailed in the abortion wars there's been a huge market for the genetic engineering services that they banned. We're world leaders in the field.”

I wanted to ask him where Big Eye and his wretched friends fitted into the grand scheme, but I had other priorities.

“You needed a file attachment from the old Parliament archive in Edinburgh, didn't you?”

The scientist's eyes were still locked on mine. “I wondered if you knew about the break-in. You're not in Glasgow just to do Duart's bidding, are you? How did you manage to link the file attachment to me?”

I wasn't planning on telling him about Leadbelly or the Edinburgh murders, at least not yet. “And you arranged the kidnap of three hyper-intelligent teenagers from Edinburgh via your brother's good offices, didn't you?” After a few moments he nodded. “Why? Had you run out of specimens?”

Now he was grinning triumphantly. “You're out of your depth, Dalrymple. You're flailing around like a drowning man.”

Then it hit me. “Jesus, those kids were genetically engineered too, weren't they?” I scarcely heard his affirmative reply. None of the kidnap victims was older than seventeen. That meant they'd been produced after the ban on genetic engineering in Edinburgh. Someone had been carrying out illegal research under the guardians' noses for years.

“Those adolescents are particularly fine examples,” Rennie said. “I needed to carry out tests on them to further my work.”

“Who was responsible for producing them in Edinburgh?” I asked breathlessly.

He laughed. “You don't expect me to tell you that, do you?”

“You're fucking right I do!” I shouted. The figure on the bed in the observation chamber moved slightly. “You'll be in the cells before the night is out,” I said, lowering my voice. “You'd be well advised to co-operate with me.”

The professor found that very amusing. “Co-operate with you?” he repeated. “It's you who'll be begging to co-operate with me, my friend.” He turned back to his monitors and made a note in a file. “As I said, I've been expecting a visit from you.”

“I suppose Broadsword told you about our meeting outside here the other night.”

He looked up – for a moment I thought he was surprised – then he went back to concentrating on his console.

“Dougal Strachan was here, wasn't he?” I said. “Why did you have to kill him?”

Rennie stared at me. “I had nothing to do with Dougal Strachan's death. I never even met him.”

“Bullshit.”

The professor shrugged. “Please yourself. But think about it, Dalrymple. Would I be stupid enough to arrange a murder within walking distance of the institute? And why would I want to dispose of a subject I hadn't even had the chance to use?”

“Maybe some of your minions are out of control.”

The professor thought about that. “What are you suggesting? That I employ the person responsible for the mutilations and murders?”

“You or your brother.” I stepped nearer him.

“Stay where you are,” he ordered.

“All that bollocks about the Macbeth cult and Scottish reunification is just a cover to provide you with subjects for experiment, isn't it?” I looked at Big Eye. “What do you think about being a victim, my friend?” I had the feeling that I needed all the allies I could get. Rennie's confidence was making me wonder where Broadsword and his side-kicks were.

“A victim?” the inmate said, his forehead above the single eye heavily lined. “What do you mean, Quint?”

“A victim to be used as the subject of experiments,” I said. “That's what happens to you, isn't it, Big Eye? He keeps you locked up here when you could be living an ordinary life in the outside world.”

Rennie laughed harshly. “How many people can you see behaving normally when he's in the room, Dalrymple? He's a freak. We produced him to test the limits of our procedures.” He glanced at the young man. “And to give us material for future experiments.”

“The name Frankenstein springs to mind,” I said. “You can't treat people like that, even if you do produce them, as you so delicately put it.”

The scientist turned his back on me again. “You're in no position to stop me.” He leaned forward and spoke into a microphone. “Derek? Come to the main lab now.”

I had my hand round the Ladykiller but I kept it concealed for the time being. I wanted to see what happened next.

“You are impotent, Dalrymple,” Rennie said, standing up and pointing at the bed in the chamber. “Totally powerless. Take a look.”

I stepped forward, registering the arrival of Macbeth at the far end of the lab. He was in normal clothes for a change, the tweed jacket making him look worryingly like an Edinburgh guardian.

“I mean take a look in the observation unit,” the professor said, turning a switch under the mike. “Wake up, Aurora,” he said in a soft voice. “Wake up. There's someone who wants to see you.”

I stared at the scientist then looked to the front.

The occupant of the bed stirred and sat up, rubbing her eyes. She turned towards us and lowered her hands. Her eyes met mine and I felt the floor beneath my feet move violently. Earthquake, dislocation, the sensation that my heart was being torn apart. For a few seconds I even thought I heard Sonny Boy Williamson singing “She Brought Life Back to the Dead.”

The girl was about eight or nine. The face that the black hair shrouded was a beautiful one, the lips slightly parted and the eyes brilliant dark pools. It was also a face that had been imprinted permanently on my mind.

It was the face of my long-dead lover Caro.

Chapter Eighteen

I was staring at the little girl, staring at her like the world, time, the order of things had all lost their meaning. Which they had. I was back on the hillside at Soutra, my eyes on Caro as she prepared for the last operation against the Howlin' Wolf gang. The girl's face, it was Caro's face – younger and softer, but indisputably the features I'd loved and never been able to forget. And it was a living face, not the reddened, contorted horror that I found on the floor in the barn as the rope choked the last breath from Caro's lungs.

Then the child looked at the four men ranged around the observation chamber. Her eyes screwed up in panic and she began to sob desperately. Macbeth was holding a heavy-duty automatic pistol in his right hand. Both he and his brother had empty expressions on their thin faces. I heard a low moan from Big Eye. No doubt he'd been in that chamber often enough himself. I got the impression that he was sympathetic to Aurora's plight. Aurora. For a moment I thought about the beautiful name which meant “dawn” in the original Latin. Who had given her that name? Then I wondered how many of us would see the dawn that was approaching. The Ladykiller was still in my pocket, but I couldn't risk a firefight with Macbeth – he was on the other side of the chamber and Aurora was between us. I took my hand off the weapon and my finger encountered the other small object in there.

“Well, Dalrymple,” Rennie said in gloating tones, “what do you think of my latest subject?”

“What have you done, you sick bastard?” I said. I looked past him to the little girl in her awful distress and my heart cracked again. Another moan from Big Eye suggested he was being affected in the same way.

“What I've done,” the scientist replied, “is take steps to ensure that you constitute no danger to us.” He beckoned to Macbeth. “Come round here, Derek. Dalrymple appears to be seeing sense, but there's no point in taking any chances.”

I stepped forward. “Can I . . . can't we do something to put her at ease?” I could hear Aurora's loud sobs through the console speaker.

Rennie laughed. “Are you good with children, Dalrymple?”

I felt Big Eye move up to my side. The sight of him made the girl squeal in terror.

Macbeth arrived with his weapon and pushed the inmate back. “You're frightening her, Cyclops,” he said, a tight smile appearing beneath his regal beard. “Get back to your den.”

“Lay off him,” I said. “You're the one who's scaring her.” Aurora's eyes were locked on to his gleaming weapon. I turned to the professor. “For God's sake, what have you done?”

He ignored me and leaned towards the microphone. “Take off your robe and get dressed,” he said. “Your clothes are under the bed.”

Aurora jumped when his voice came over the speaker in the chamber. She was still crying as she bent down and retrieved her clothes.

“Hurry up, girl!” Rennie added.

She looked out at us blindly and I was crushed by impotence and guilt. But Macbeth had stepped up to me and levelled his gun at my midriff. I stood a better chance of helping Aurora when she was out of the glass-enclosed space. She turned her back to us and slipped out of the robe. I turned away but Rennie and Macbeth watched as she pulled on her clothes. I could hear Big Eye's uneven breathing somewhere to the rear. I looked round and saw tears running down his nose.

“Good,” the professor said into the mike. “Now sit down and wait. And stop that whimpering.”

“Leave her alone, you fucking bully.” I doubled up and dropped to my knees as Macbeth rammed the butt of his gun into my belly. I heard Aurora wail again. Her breath was coming in traumatised gasps.

David Rennie looked amused. “Well done, Derek,” he said. “You owed him that. He thinks the cult is just a scam to provide me with human subjects.”

Macbeth pulled me up. “Is that right, Dalrymple?” He belted me again but didn't allow me to fall. “That's a big mistake. I'm deadly serious about reuniting Scotland. There are far too many feeble-minded scum like you in the city-states. I have a vision for the nation we once were.”

“Believe him, Dalrymple,” his brother said. “He's even set up a cult cell in Edinburgh.”

I felt Macbeth's grip loosen.

“Quiet, David,” he hissed. “He doesn't need to know that.”

The professor laughed, the callous sound making me shiver. “He's not going to bother us any more.” He came up to me and took my chin in his long fingers. They were surprisingly strong. He forced my head up till it was level with his. “So I'm going to satisfy his curiosity about the girl.” He looked to one side of me. “What are you doing, Cyclops? Sit down on that stool and behave yourself.” He used the same tone with the hapless inmate as he had with Aurora.