Water of Death (43 page)

That sounded interesting.

Harry pushed the wheelhouse window open. “Andy,” he shouted, “bring one of those packs up here.”

Christ, the packs that Katharine saw Bryson and his mates carrying. I'd forgotten all about them.

A seaman in an oil-drenched shirt came up the steps and dumped a good-quality backpack down. I hadn't seen one like that since I went hillwalking when I was a kid. It was definitely not the kind of article provided by the Supply Directorate.

“Take the wheel, Andy.” Dirty Harry strode over and thrust a hand into the pack. “This'll get us started up over the water.” He pulled out a transparent plastic bag stuffed with dry, greenish-brown shredded leaves. “This stuff is dynamite and there's plenty of it.”

“Been sampling it, have you?”

“Going to shop me to the Council, citizen?” Harry laughed. “You tell them what you like, son. I'll be far away. This is a serious bit of gear. I heard the fuckers call it ‘Ibrox Gold'. The gang bosses over in Glasgow must have been cultivating some new, extra-knockout varieties.”

I leaned back against the bulkhead. How did the grass fit in with the rest of the case? The poisoners must have been intending to move it into the city and it was a reasonable assumption that Allie Kennedy was their contact. But did the deal start and end with him, or was Nasmyth 05 in on it? Was Billy in on it? And if they were, did that mean they knew about the Ultimate Usquebaugh?

Harry took the wheel back from his man. “We've got a load of old books and statues from Craiglockhart down below as well. Now all we've got to do is get as far away from Auld fucking Reekie as we can. After we've dropped you two.”

I nodded, looking at Katharine. She was standing against the wheelhouse wall, her face blank. Harry was talking about Edinburgh the way she'd often done in the past. Was she really serious about coming back to live in the city with me?

The big man spun the wheel and the boat came round, carving a frothing furrow in the sparkling waters of the firth. The crewmen at the rails looked up impassively, none of them questioning their chief's change of course. Even rebels are obedient in Enlightenment Edinburgh.

“Time you got your clothes wet again, citizen six brains,” Dirty Harry said, peering through his binoculars. “The port's full of my former colleagues in the guard.”

I stared at the crowd on the quay in the sunlight. I could make out Davie's large frame.

“Can you swim, woman?” the skipper demanded of Katharine.

“Even if I couldn't, I'd still jump to get off this rat-shit hulk,” she said, her eyes flashing.

“Given up the idea of killing me then?” Harry roared. “I like your spirit, woman. You should stay with us. I'd make it worth your while.”

“You'd wake up with your dick behind your ear if you tried.”

He was still laughing as he cut the revs completely. The boat bobbed on the water about a hundred yards away from the outermost sea wall.

“Think you can make it?” Harry asked. “Not that I care. This is as close as I'm going.”

“Come on, Quint.” Katharine went down the companionway.

“I can fix it for you, Harry,” I said. “The books and the antiquities are no big deal.”

“Jump, you fucker,” he said, a scowl spreading across his scarred face. “Jump. I've had my fill of this pit. Just crucify whoever killed Ray. And say goodbye to Davie for me.”

“All right, big man.” I went down to the deck and stood next to Katharine, then looked back up at him. Time to fly a kite. “What did you do with the bottles of the Ultimate Usquebaugh you kept, Harry?”

He shook his head. “Christ, you don't miss a thing, do you? Don't worry, we smashed them up. Down in the port. I had this idea of using them to settle some old scores in the Council.” He laughed bitterly. “Not even guardians deserve to die like that.”

“How many bottles were there?”

He shrugged. “Can't remember exactly. Around twenty.”

I nodded. So Allie Kennedy or whoever else sent the ultimatum didn't have much nicotine-tainted stock left – unless there was another cache.

“Jump!” Dirty Harry yelled. “Or shall I get the boys to toss you over?”

I looked at Katharine. “Ready?”

“Aye, ready,” she said.

So we jumped.

The water in the estuary was much colder than it was in the dock. I forced myself to move my arms and legs regularly, trying not to lose my breath. Katharine forged ahead in a smooth breaststroke, her hair darker now it was wet.

“You didn't get hit at Craiglockhart?” I asked, getting a mouthful of very salty water.

“No. I'd have cut some of them but I looked round to see what they were doing to you and they managed to get my knife off me. Bastards. Is your head okay? I heard they locked you in the cellar.”

“I wasn't there too long. Harry called Davie and told him where I was.”

She looked round at me. “I suppose I'm going to be grabbed by the guard now.”

“No chance. You're in the clear as far as I'm concerned.” I heaved for breath, glad that the harbour wall was getting close.

“Do you think you can convince your girlfriend of that?” Katharine asked.

I let that go unanswered, and not just because I was short of breath. I remembered the doubts about Katharine that had gripped me more than once, the last time as recently as on the boat. I decided not to say anything about those.

We got to the outer mole. Fortunately there was a steel ladder on the steep sea wall. I let Katharine go first. Water cascaded from her clothes, which then stuck to her limbs and torso. If I hadn't been so knackered, I might have got excited. As it was, I wallowed in the shallows till she reached the top then hauled myself out with difficulty. That was enough bathing for one day.

As I pulled myself over the parapet at the top, I was met by Davie's face. He was not amused.

“Why the fuck did you enter the port on your own, you lunatic?” He looked out to sea. “Where's Harry going?”

“On a world tour.” I collapsed over the wall and sat gasping. “He said goodbye.” Katharine was sitting breathing easily and running her hands through her hair. “It's all right. I got some hot information from him.”

“Just as well,” Davie said, eyeing Katharine suspiciously. “There's been another message to the Council.”

Davie pulled away from the port area, glancing in his mirror at Katharine and me in the back of the Land-Rover as we changed into the dry clothes that a Fisheries Guard auxiliary had given us. Hamilton had called and told us to get to the castle pronto for a meeting with him and the senior guardian.

“We should have sent the other boats to bring Harry back, Quint,” he said, shaking his head. “The public order guardian's going to be very unhappy.”

“Tough,” I said, sticking my head through a T-shirt with a harpoon logo. Davie's jaw had dropped when I'd told him the big man's crew were the ones who killed the people in the mill house. “Even if the other crews agreed, Harry's guys wouldn't let themselves be taken alive. Anyway, the guardian's got other things to worry about.”

“Like rioting all over the city if the drinking-water's poisoned,” Katharine said. Her hair was tousled, the lighter colour returning now that it was drying.

“What are we going to do with her?” Davie said, glancing over his shoulder. “If we're taking her with us, she'll have to be cuffed.”

“For fuck's sake, Davie, she's clean.” I looked at Katharine. “Aren't you?”

She raised her middle finger and bent over to tie the laces of a battered pair of auxiliary boots.

“Uh-huh,” Davie muttered. “You'd better be right, Quint. By the way, what happened to that van you took from Nasmyth Barracks?”

“Ah.” I busied myself with the buttons on my fly. “It's in the car wash.”

“What?”

“They should be able to pull it out of the dock. The brakes need an overhaul.”

Davie let out a long sigh. He'd never thought much of my abilities behind the wheel. I was glad I hadn't disappointed him.

You could tell someone had hit the Council's spot. The esplanade was like a dodgems ring on a Saturday night in the time before the Enlightenment deemed fairgrounds trivial – which contemporary citizen diversions like Edlott aren't, of course. Davie managed to get up to the castle gate without being shunted.

“What about me?” Katharine asked. “Am I supposed to sit here and sweat to death?”

I shook my head. “No. You're coming with us.” I was almost convinced that Sophia hadn't known anything about Nasmyth 05's scam with Billy and Ray – let alone anything about Harry's bloodbath – but I wanted to make absolutely sure. Parading Katharine in front of the senior guardian would definitely bring out the worst in her and, if jealousy was all it was about, I could live with that.

We passed between the statues of Wallace and Bruce. There had been a move by the original Council to take them down on the grounds that an independent Edinburgh had no need of Scottish heroes. They decided against it eventually, as the old warriors had been stuffed down the populace's throat so much in the years of pretend devolution that no one gave a shit any more. Besides, they're pretty neat sculptures.

I shook my head and brought myself back to the present. The case was heading to a climax and there didn't seem to be too many imponderables left. In my experience, that's when complacency sets in. If you reckon you're home and dry, prepare to be surprised. I wondered if there were any surprises left in this twisted tale. It seemed a lot more than five days since it started with Frankie Thomson's body lying by the Water of Leith and the bullfrogs barking their blues in the background.

We were waved through Hamilton's outer office by a female auxiliary who turned her nose up at Katharine and me. Davie knocked on the heavy door to the main office and opened it.

“At last. What have you been doing, Dalrymple?” Hamilton said, looking up from the conference table where he was sitting next to Sophia. He dried up when he saw Katharine.

“Catching wanted deserters apparently,” the senior guardian said, giving Katharine an icy stare. “Have this woman placed in the cells, guardian.”

“Not if you want me to catch the person who's threatening the Council,” I said.

Sophia's face was even paler than usual. She was reacting as I'd hoped. It was hard to read her emotions, but the way she was holding her eyes on Katharine suggested she was extremely needled by her presence. That didn't exactly square with my idea that the senior guardian had been plotting to undo the Council's user-friendly policies. Sometimes I overdo the creative element during investigations.

“You think it's appropriate to issue more threats, do you, citizen?” Even when she was speaking to me, Sophia held her gaze on Katharine.

“That wasn't a threat, senior guardian,” I said, noticing the minuscule flicker of her eyelashes as I used her official title. “It's the way it's going to be. Katharine wasn't involved in the poisonings. Take my word for it or finish the case without me.” There wasn't time now to go over how Katharine had come by the bottles of poisoned whisky.

Hamilton and Davie both found this exchange embarrassing. They were looking at the floor, their cheeks red. On the other hand, Katharine was having a great time. She was smiling at Sophia, returning her stare without difficulty.

There was an extended silence then Sophia finally cracked. “I think you owe us an explanation, Citizen Dalrymple,” she said, returning the favour with my own official title. “What have you uncovered?”

I told them about Nasmyth 05 and Ray, excluding Billy Geddes from the equation at this stage. Mentioning him would just have driven Hamilton to apoplexy – he would have happily exiled my former friend years ago. Then I filled them in about Dirty Harry and the Fisheries Guard's role in the cellar at Craiglockhart. That caused the public order guardian's face and fists to clench and his breathing to quicken. I decided against mentioning the Ibrox Gold at this stage in case he had a stroke.

“And you let Jamieson 369 sail away unhindered?” he demanded, glaring at both Davie and me.

“That is not our primary concern, guardian,” Sophia said. It looked like she'd followed the drift of my narrative. “I take it you assume the short-haired male that the dead archivist saw at the mill was the missing citizen Alexander Kennedy.”

I nodded. “Who subsequently killed Ray. The overwhelming likelihood is that he has at least a small amount of poisoned whisky still in his possession.” I looked at Sophia and Lewis. “So tell us about the latest message you've received.”

Hamilton glanced at Sophia for approval. She nodded reluctantly, taking her eyes off Katharine.

“It was on a public phone this time,” the public order guardian said. “The caller rang the guard command centre at two thirteen and asked for me.”

“You spoke to him yourself?” I asked.

The guardian nodded. “I couldn't make out what was being said very easily. He was holding something over the mouthpiece.”

“You recorded it, of course,” I said.

Hamilton nodded and stretched over to the cassette recorder by his desk phone.

We all craned forward as the tape began to roll.

“Public order guardian.” Lewis's voice was clear enough.

“I know you're recording this. Don't interrupt.” The voice was slow and muffled, with an unnaturally deep quality. “We deal in nicotine death. We deal in the Ultimate Usquebaugh. Francis Thomson and Fordyce Kennedy drank it down. So did the old men in Trinity. We made you lower the flag on the castle. We killed the auxiliary in Buccleuch Place with the whisky too. You know what we think? Screw negotiations. We're going to do some tourists next.”

Hamilton hit the stop button.

“Is that it?” I asked.