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Authors: Paul Johnston

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BOOK: Water of Death
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“Ten minutes, Quint,” Davie said as he manoeuvred round the water tank and the citizens' bicycle shed at the end of Millar Crescent. “That's all I'm giving you.” Then his jaw dropped.

I followed the direction of his gaze. A young woman was on her way into the street entrance of number 14. She was wearing a citizen-issue T-shirt and work trousers that were unusually well pressed despite the spatters of paint on them. She also had a mauve chiffon scarf round her neck which had never seen the inside of a Supply Directorate store. She had light brown hair bound up in a tight plait and a self-contained look on her face. Oh, and she was built like the Venus de Milo with a full complement of limbs.

Davie already had his door open. “Well,” he said, “make it half an hour.”

We climbed the unlit, airless stairs to the third floor. The name Kennedy had been carved very skilfully in three-inch-high letters on the surface of a blue door on the right side of the landing. The incisions in the wood looked recent.

“This is the place,” I said, raising my hand to knock.

“Where did she go?” Davie asked, looking up and down the stairwell.

“Will you get a grip?” I thumped on the door. “Exert some auxiliary self-control.”

“Ah, but we're supposed to come over like human beings these days,” he said with a grin.

“Exactly. Like human beings, guardsman. Not like dogs after a  . . .”

Then the door opened very quickly. The woman we'd seen stood looking at us with her eyes wide open and a faint smile on her lips.

“Dogs after a  . . . ?” she asked in a deep voice, her dark brown eyes darting between us. A lot of citizens would have made the most of that canine reference in the presence of a guardsman, but there didn't seem to be any irony in her tone.

There was a silence that Davie and I found a lot more awkward than she did.

“Em  . . . I'm looking for Citizen Kennedy,” I said, pulling out my notebook and trying to make out my scribble in the dim light. “Citizen Fordyce Kennedy.”

“My father,” she said simply.

“And you are  . . . ?”

She looked at me blankly for a couple of seconds then smiled, this time with a hint of mockery. “I'm his daughter.” She hesitated then shrugged. “Agnes is my name.”

“Right,” I said. “So is he in?”

“Of course he isn't in,” she said, her voice hardening. “That's why we called you.” She leaned forward on the balls of her feet and examined my clothes. I breathed in a chemical smell from her. “You are from the guard, aren't you?” Then she turned her eyes on to Davie's uniform. “I can see the big man is.”

Something about the way she spoke the last words made Davie, who's never been reticent with women, look away uncomfortably.

“I'm Dalrymple, special investigator,” I said. “Call me Quint.” I registered the reserve in her eyes. “If you want.”

She didn't reply, just looked at me intensely like an artist eyeing up a new model. I resisted the urge to check if my clothes had suddenly become transparent.

“Who's that?” The voice that came from the depths of the flat was faint and uncertain, the accent stronger than the young woman's. “Who's that out there?”

“Is that your mother?” I asked.

“My mother,” Agnes Kennedy agreed, nodding slowly. “Her name's Hilda. She's a bit upset. And  . . . and her mind wanders.” She looked at me and succeeded in imparting a curious hybrid of appeal and threat. “Be sure you don't upset her.” She held her eyes on me for a few moments then turned abruptly and led us down the dimly lit corridor.

“It's the men from the guard, Mother,” she said to the thin figure that was leaning against the wall. Then she took her arm and pushed open the door at the far end of the passage. I heard her continue talking in a smooth, low voice, as if she were the parent having to comfort a frightened child. “They're going to find Dad for us  . . .”

Before I got to the door, I heard the sound of curtains being drawn rapidly. I came into the room and blinked in the subdued light, trying to make out the bent woman who stood moving her head from side to side like a lost sheep. She relaxed a bit when Agnes came back from the windows and took her arm.

“You don't like strong sunlight, do you, Mother?” the young woman said. “It's all right. Agnes has fixed it for you.”

My eyes accustomed themselves to the crepuscular gloom. The women sat down on the sofa, the senior of them looking at her daughter with a confused expression that only gradually faded from her features. Like many Edinburgh citizens, she'd been adversely affected by twenty years of what the Medical Directorate regards as a satisfactory diet. At least there's been a massive reduction in the heart disease resulting from the garbage we used to eat before the Enlightenment. These days people are more likely to die of respiratory failure or skin cancer brought about by the climate change. But this woman looked like she'd been gnawed by mental as well as physical demons.

“How long's your husband been missing, citizen?” Davie asked with customary City Guard forthrightness.

Agnes glared at him angrily then glanced back at her mother, who showed no sign of having heard the question. “Since yesterday morning,” Agnes answered.

“Under thirty-six hours?” Davie was unimpressed. “That's not long.”

Hilda Kennedy suddenly came to life. She stood up with surprising speed and moved in front of Davie. She stooped and the top of the ragged scarf covering her long grey hair reached not much more than halfway up his chest. “It's maybe not long to you, laddie, but my man's never late for his tea.” Then she stepped back, the surge of energy already gone.

I nudged Davie with my elbow. Although the guard usually don't check out missing persons for at least three days, lottery-winners are special cases.

“When did he leave the house, Hilda?” I asked.

She inspected me before answering, trying to work out whether to treat me as an auxiliary or an ordinary citizen. My use of her first name seemed to get me off the hook. “First thing in the morning,” she said.

Agnes was standing next to her mother now. She took her arm again and tried to make her sit down, but the older woman wasn't having it.

“He went to work?” I continued.

Hilda looked at me like I was a backward child. “What work? He won the top prize in the lottery, son.”

“It was six weeks ago,” Agnes put in. “He was exempted from work for life. Apart from two afternoons and two evenings a week publicity for Edlott.”

So the Culture Directorate had chosen Fordyce Kennedy to advertise the lottery like the citizen dressed up as John Knox on the poster I'd seen earlier.

“Which character did he get assigned?” I asked.

“That writer fella,” Hilda said. “The one who did
Treasure Island
.”

“Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“Aye.” She shook her head. “He looked like a right idiot with his false moustache and bloodstained hankie.”

I looked round the room in the light that was coming in at the sides of the curtains. The furniture was dark-stained wood, the sideboard, dresser and table beautifully carved. They were about as far from the standard citizen-issue sticks as you can get.

“Did your husband make all this?” I asked.

Hilda nodded, smiling unevenly. “Aye, he's a cabinet-maker. Used to make stuff for the tourist hotels till he won the lottery. He did all this in his spare time.”

I went over to the dresser and looked at the photographs arrayed on it. There were individual shots of a washed-out man in his fifties, of Agnes and of a sullen young man with hair at what used to be the regulation citizen length of under an inch. There was also a family group. Hilda must have moved when the flash went off, blurring the shot and giving her the look of a corpse that had just jerked up on the sofa. Her daughter had the same faint smile that she'd greeted us with when she opened the door, while the son was frowning. Fordyce Kennedy just looked exhausted. Like many citizens, the family had taken advantage of the Council's loosening of the ruling that banned photos. The original guardians regarded them as socially divisive – they reckoned one of the main reasons for the disorder leading to the break-up of the United Kingdom had been the cult of the individual. Apparently we can be trusted with a few snapshots now.

“How old's your son?” I asked.

“Allie? He's  . . .” Hilda broke off. She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head but didn't say anything else.

“Twenty-six,” Agnes said, completing the sentence. “A year older than me.”

“At work, is he?” Davie asked.

“Him? At work?” Agnes laughed humourlessly. “He spends most of his time with his lunatic friends. Too keen on drinking and messing about.”

He wasn't the only young man like that in the city.

“How about you?” I asked Agnes. “What do you do?”

She looked at me coolly like she was wondering whether I was entitled to ask that question. “I'm an interior decorator,” she said. That explained the paint on her clothing and the smell of a chemical like turpentine. “I spend most of my free time looking after Mother.” She glanced at the woman beside her, who didn't seem to be following the conversation. “She began to lose it last year,” Agnes added in a low voice.

“And your father?”

Her eyes flashed at me aggressively. “What about my father?”

I smiled nervously. “Did he have any lunatic friends like your brother?”

“My father doesn't go out much,” Agnes said, her eyes fierce. “He's a missing person. He hasn't committed any crime.”

“All right,” I said quietly. “I wasn't implying anything.”

I pulled out my notebook and sat down. You usually run the risk of getting a broken spring up your arse from a Supply Directorate sofa but the lottery-winner must have fixed his.

Hilda Kennedy suddenly twitched her head and looked at me. Maybe she had been following the talk after all. “Fordyce was never the pally sort. He liked to stay in and work wi' the wood.” She let out a sudden sob and dropped her chin to her flat chest.

“My father loved his work,” Agnes said, stroking her mother's arm.

“So how's he been spending his days since he won the lottery?” I asked.

Hilda looked up again, her eyes taking time to focus on me. “I wish I knew, son. Like I say, he's always back for his tea. But during the day he just disappears. I've asked him what he does but he wouldn't answer. Said something about walking the streets once.” She stared at me. “He wasn't happy. They shouldn't have taken his work away.” She sobbed again and bent her head.

Agnes looked at Davie and me angrily, her face flushed. “Isn't that enough?” she demanded in a low voice.

“They shouldn't have taken his work away,” her mother repeated dolefully.

“Don't worry,” I said with as much encouragement as I could muster. “He'll turn up.”

“Will he?” Hilda said, suddenly turning her eyes on me, her dry lips quivering. “Are you sure, son?”

I avoided her gaze as I made for the door.

“Pretty strange pair,” Davie said as we drove back towards the city centre. The sun was blinding where it shone through the gaps between buildings.

“You didn't have to come in with me,” I said. “That'll teach you to chase female citizens.”

“What do you mean chase?” he said, laughing. “You saw the way she was looking at me.”

“Correct me if I'm wrong, guardsman, but don't the City Regulations forbid fraternisation between auxiliaries and citizens under thirty?” Until a few months ago auxiliaries weren't allowed to fraternise with citizens of any age. Another one of the Council's attempts to break down the barriers.

“Aye, I suppose you're right.” Davie shot me a suspicious glance. “What are you up to, Quint? Oh, I get it. You reckon that you can have a go at the delectable Agnes on the grounds that you're a demoted rather than a serving auxiliary.”

I held my breath as we passed through the cloud of exhaust fumes a guard vehicle had belched out. “Me? Certainly not. I'm already spoken for.”

Davie laughed, this time raucously. “Like hell you are.”

I let him go on thinking that.

Five minutes later he dropped me at my flat in Gilmore Place. I pulled the street door open impatiently, wondering if any traces of the perfume I'd got used to over the last couple of weeks would be lingering in the hot air.

They were. I raced up the stairs, opened my door and got an eyeful of the woman I'd been hoping would be there.

That didn't do anything to cool me down at all.

Chapter Two

“Hello, guardian.”

The Ice Queen turned and gave me one of the Antarctic glares that led to her nickname. Her short, silver-blonde hair also had something to do with that, as did the high cheekbones and tight lips that were unadorned by make-up. “Where have you been, Quint?” She sounded more like an exasperated schoolmistress than the city's highest-ranking medical officer. “I've been waiting for half an hour.”

BOOK: Water of Death
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