Water of Death (23 page)

I checked out the second victim's son with the thoroughness of a lice infestation controller in the city's primary schools. That involved a serious amount of cross-referencing. Although I'd cast an eye over Allie when I first investigated the missing lottery-winner, that gave me nothing more than a vague idea about him. Documentation on ordinary citizens collated by the various directorates is supposedly transferred on a weekly basis to the central archive. I spent an hour running between the stacks updated by the Education, Labour, Recreation and Welfare Directorates.

I didn't get much for my pains. Alexander Kennedy certainly wasn't one of the Enlightenment's success stories but neither was I. As I knew, he had a less-than-impressive school and work record, although the only formal notice of anything dubious apart from his spells in youth detention was a Public Order Directorate offence notification which hadn't been moved to his main folder. That referred to a case of gambling in a derelict house in south Morningside a year back. Nothing too worrying about that. There's no shortage of disaffected young people in the city who spend their evenings dodging the guard – who've got better things to do than chase them. The only other thing that I picked up was that Allie was registered as homosexual in his Sex Session Record. Before the current Council's opening up of the system, citizens had to attend a weekly sex session at their local recreation centre. Different partners were allocated every time in the original Council's drive to replace emotion with sexual variety – and to keep tabs on everyone. You had to declare yourself as either hetero or homo, bisexuality not being recognised by the Recreation Directorate who probably found it too untidy from a bureaucratic point of view. There was a long list of male citizens who Allie'd had sex with but none of the names meant anything to me. Frankie Thomson certainly wasn't on it.

I gathered my notes together and put back the files. I was going to have to check some of the details with the missing man's family. That idea didn't fill me with enthusiasm. On my way to the exit I looked into Ray's office again. This time he was in residence, bent over the chaos that was his desk.

“Hiya, Ray.”

His head shot up, the eyes heavily ringed and the mouth slack. He looked so bad that I almost expected him to croak “The horror, the horror.”

“Jesus, what happened to you?” I asked.

“I  . . .” He dropped his head again. “I  . . .”

“You  . . . you had a skinful last night?”

“No, I  . . . I  . . .”

“Don't worry, I'm not in a hurry.”

Ray looked across at me and I realised that this wasn't just a case of the “Bootlegger's Blues”. This was a guy who'd either had some very bad news or had just seen a ghost with its head in its hands.

“What's the matter, my friend?” I went round the desk towards him, but he dragged himself out of his chair quickly and stepped to the window. The sleeve of the pink shirt over his missing arm flapped like a dead flamingo's neck.

“Nothing  . . . I  . . . I just had a bad night.” He stared at me dully. “Pain  . . . pain in my arm. You know how it is.”

After a fashion. I glanced down at the stump of my finger. It does sometimes give me a hard time. “Aye. Here, any news from that American dealer?”

His eyes sprang open. “Dealer?” he repeated. “What dealer?”

“You know the one. Chandler editions?”

“Oh.” Ray's face slackened again. “Chandler. Yes. No. I mean, I haven't seen that dealer since you were last in.” He turned away and peered out at the street beyond the heavy bars on his window.

“Ray?” I went up to him and saw him flinch. “Are you sure you're okay?”

He nodded impatiently as if he very much wanted me out.

“I can help, Ray,” I said. “If you're in some sort of trouble  . . .”

This time he faced me. He blinked uncontrollably then pushed me gently away. “Hit the road, Quint. You've got enough problems of your own.”

He was right there even though he was only guessing. So I squeezed his shoulder and left him to his heaps of papers and scattered volumes.

It was only when I was out of the building that I remembered where I'd seen someone with a look of horror as deeply etched as the one on Ray's face. It was in Granton during the height of the drugs wars, after a City Guard unit had taken what then passed for the law into its own hands. A young guardsman was picking his way among the mutilated corpses with his eyelids stretched so far apart that for a second I thought his eyes would drop out. I was bloody glad I didn't get the kind of pain that had distorted Ray's features.

Chapter Ten

I called Davie. The barracks reports he'd been collating showed no sign of Allie Kennedy or – to my relief – of Katharine. The Ultimate Usquebaugh was keeping itself to itself as well. I asked him to assign me a vehicle, told him where I was headed and signed off.

When the clapped-out Land-Rover arrived, I sent the driver back to the castle on foot and set off towards Tollcross. The morning influx of citizen workers in buses was long over and the only vehicles on the road apart from guard vehicles like mine were tourist coaches and taxis. There were a few citizens on ramshackle bicycles held together with pieces of string heading towards the areas near the city line – houses damaged in the drugs wars years ago out there were finally being brought back into use. Soon I passed Napier Barracks and ran down the hill into Morningside. The Pentland Hills to the south shimmered light brown and dusty green, clouds of dust rising from the building sites as if sticks of bombs had just been dropped on them by one of the American air force's latest Skulk planes.

I turned into Millar Crescent and floored the brake pedal. The street was full of people clustered around the drinking-water tank. They were the unlucky ones who had the afternoon and night shifts – even though they weren't at work right now, they had to spend a large part of their so-called free time ensuring they had enough water to get through the day. I stepped out and looked over the lines of people in vests and T-shirts. Those who weren't queuing for drinking-water were waiting to use the communal bogs. I didn't see anyone from the Kennedy family, either male or female. A guard vehicle was parked further down. I'd already heard from Davie that the auxiliaries in it hadn't reported any individuals resembling Allie Kennedy.

I walked over to the drinking-water tank. It was at the end of the street beside the local bike shed. There was a heavy padlock on the inflow lid on top and I wondered how feasible it would be for someone bent on poisoning the supply to get it open. Very feasible indeed if you worked for the Water Department. I wondered what I had to do to get Sophia and Lewis Hamilton to protect what could be the poisoners' next target.

I climbed up to the Kennedy flat, breathing in the simmering, fetid smell of Edinburgh stairwells during the Big Heat. Agnes opened the door. A brief flash of surprise registered in her eyes when she saw me. There were dark rings around them. She was dressed in her usual paint-dotted clothes, the scarf round her neck tied in a double knot. Her raven-coloured hair was loose. It didn't look like she'd passed a restful night.

“Citizen  . . .” she said, her voice fading away.

“You can call me Quint,” I said.

“What  . . . what is it?” she asked dully.

“Can I come in? I need to ask you some questions.”

Agnes seemed reluctant to admit me. Finally she shrugged and opened the door wider.

“How's your mother?”

She had her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Away in her own little world. I don't know if she really understands what's happened.”

“Are you not working today?”

She raised her hand to her scarf. “My supervisor gave me the day off.”

“Unusually decent supervisor,” I said under my breath. Bereaved citizens are entitled to take time off work only for the cremation service. In Fordyce Kennedy's case that wouldn't be happening for some time.

“That's the Council's new way, isn't it?” Agnes said. “Auxiliaries are required to be responsive to citizens' needs.” I heard her snort derisively as I glanced into the rooms off the hall. The surviving man of the house wasn't around.

She led me into the sitting room. The curtains were drawn, allowing only a little of the burning sunlight in. Hilda Kennedy was on the sofa, keeled over against the arm. Her eyes were blank and a drop of saliva was at the edge of her gaping mouth. She looked like she wasn't just away with the fairies – she was dancing jigs with pixies, goblins, elves, sprites, the lot.

Then I realised that Allie wasn't the only person missing. “Agnes, where's the nursing auxiliary who was assigned to you yesterday?”

She looked up from wiping her mother's mouth with a handkerchief. “She went off in the middle of the evening.”

“Went off?” I tried not to shout.

Agnes was helping her mother to sit up straight. “She got an urgent call. Around nine o'clock.”

Hilda turned towards me, her face suddenly animated. “Allie's a good laddie,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice. “A good laddie, our Allie.” Then her eyes rolled and she slumped against the sofa arm again.

I finished swearing at the auxiliary's absence under my breath and watched as Agnes sat down next to Hilda on the sofa. The ornate furniture that Fordyce had made stood around us like a ring of memorial stones. I had a thought that didn't make me proud of myself.

“Agnes, is there any chance of a cup of tea?” I said quietly. “I was out of the house very early this morning.”

She studied me for a few seconds then nodded. “Just let her be,” she said, inclining her head towards her mother.

I watched her go then moved towards the older woman. “Hilda?” I said in a loud whisper. “Hilda, can you hear me?”

Her eyes focused on me slowly.

“Hilda, where's Allie?” I said.

Nothing.

“Where's Allie?” I repeated. “Where's he been?”

A smile spread across her thin lips. “Allie's a good laddie. Aye, a good laddie.” Then she lost contact and drifted back to the set of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
.

“Why didn't you ask me that question, citizen?”

I jerked back from Hilda.

Agnes was at the door, a cup in her hand. “I told you to let her be,” she said. The look on her face was placid but there was an edge to her voice.

“Sorry, I was just wondering  . . .”

“I'll answer all your questions, don't worry.” She handed the cup to me.

I nodded, my mind suddenly elsewhere. The dark-stained wood around me had given me another idea. Maybe Fordyce Kennedy's cabinet-making skills had something to do with his death. I sat back in the unusually comfortable sofa and tried to make something of that. Illicit furniture smuggling? A black-market scam in fake antique escritoires? It didn't sound very likely.

“For your information, Allie was here last night,” Agnes said.

“He slept here?”

“What do you think he did?” Her eyes flashed again.

“What time did he arrive?”

“Don't worry. It was before curfew.”

I didn't expect anything other than that standard response. For all the Council's loosening up, citizens must be in their registered abode by curfew or face a month in the mines or on the Council farms. It wasn't likely that Agnes would shop her brother if he'd been somewhere else. Which is why I'd made sure the bloody nurse was posted inside the flat in addition to the guard vehicle on the street.

“Did you see him this morning?” I asked.

Agnes shook her head. “He was away early. I don't know where he's gone.”

“How did he take your father's death?”

She looked at me like I'd deposited something nasty on the carpet. “How do you fucking think, citizen?”

I shrugged ineffectually. “Sorry. Can I see his room?”

“Can I stop you?” Agnes was keeping her eyes off me now.

I went into the second bedroom down the dingy hall. It was furnished with the usual Supply Directorate sticks and slats – there was nothing handmade by Fordyce in this room. But the bed had been slept in, the top sheet thrown back untidily and the poor-quality mattress and pillow indented. A few clothes had been tossed around the floor, none of them stained or marked in any obvious way. There weren't many others in the narrow deal wardrobe. I took a shirt and a pair of underpants for the forensics team to play around with just in case. Then I went over to the window. It was half open and gave a view to the backs of other flats across the overgrown strips of garden. I ran my hand above the frame and felt the rope that was the Fire Department's idea of an escape route in cases of emergency. It was coiled tightly and secured in its rack, which didn't necessarily preclude recent use. I wondered if that was how Allie had escaped the attention of the auxiliaries in the street. Despite the signs of overnight inhabitation, the room had the atmosphere of a pied-à-terre which was only occasionally occupied. There was dust on the bookcase and chest of drawers and nothing that suggested day-to-day occupancy – no crumpled bits of paper, no half-emptied cups, no hairs in the hairbrush under the small mirror. That made me think.