The Bone Yard (9 page)

“Quint?” he repeated blankly.

“Come away in,” said a strong voice behind him. A woman who was nearly as tall as Peter Aitken appeared, nudging him gently out of the way. “I'm Morag, Roddie's mother,” she said, offering her hand. “You'll be the investigator we were told to wait for.”

I repeated my name.

“Quint? Is that short for Quintus, the fifth born?” Her eyes were dark brown like her son's and lively. Although her hair was pure white, the softness of her face suggested she was younger than her husband.

“No, it's short for Quintilian.”

“The Roman orator and grammarian,” Morag Aitken added. She'd probably taken advantage of the Education Directorate's continuing education programme. She led me and her husband, who was lagging behind, into the living room. It was a bit larger than mine and efforts had been made to decorate it distinctively. Someone had provided a series of pretty impressive watercolours depicting Edinburgh skylines.

“Mine,” Roddie's mother said, following the direction of my eyes. Then the façade cracked momentarily. “Roddie always liked them.” She took a deep breath then made an attempt at smiling. “Sit down, the pair of you.”

“I met your son,” I said, forcing myself to look at them. “I  . . . I liked him a lot.”

“Aye,” his father said. “Everybody liked him.” His voice broke towards the end of the sentence.

Morag Aitken was studying me. “How did you come to meet Roddie, Quintilian?”

“He visited me on Hogmanay.” I was watching them carefully to see how they would react. “He had a problem he wanted my help with.”

“What sort of problem?” Their voices came simultaneously. They glanced at each other in surprise.

It was obvious Roddie hadn't told them about the hooded man. Was he keeping it secret or did he just not want to scare his folks?

“Oh, just a minor hassle at work,” I said, looking down at my notebook.

“What was it?” Morag Aitken asked insistently. “Roddie never had any problems in the department.”

“That's right,” her husband said. “All the other delivery men thought he was a great lad. His superior told me he had high hopes for him.”

I would be checking that, but the impression I was getting from the parents tallied with my own. Roddie was a genuinely good lad. So why had he been tortured and killed?

“I'm sorry if this seems like an insulting question, but it may be important.” I found it difficult to look these seemingly decent people in the eye now. “Did Roddie ever  . . . em, bring anything home from work?”

Morag Aitken drew herself up like a lioness about to remove a jackal's head. “That
is
an insult, citizen. Roddie was brought up to be totally honest.”

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 Council 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—”