Water of Death (46 page)

“They've taken a hell of a beating,” Davie said, looking up at me from the trench in which two men lay motionless. They were covered in blood and dirt and, when I got nearer, I saw that they had been bound and gagged. Their mobiles had been stomped into small pieces.

“They're alive,” Davie added, struggling to undo the lengths of cloth that had been tied round their mouths. Their heads lolled, making them look like throttled chickens.

“Leave them to the others,” I said to Davie. “We've got to check out the Kennedy place.” I turned to the guardsman. “Get a medical squad down here and tell the command centre what's happened.”

He nodded and pulled out his phone.

As Davie and I walked towards number 14, I noticed citizens silhouetted against the windows all around. They were standing motionless, staring out at us.

“Panic partly over,” I said. “It looks like people are alive and well.”

“What do you think happened to the operatives?”

“Your colleagues will squeeze it out of the locals eventually. I would guess that our man got the yobs who were playing footie to beat the shit out of the auxiliaries. You know how popular snoops are with citizens.”

I pushed open the street door and started to climb the stairs.

“Why would Allie Kennedy have done that?” Davie asked, his boots ringing on the worn stone.

“Let's leave the explanations for later,” I said, struggling to keep my breathing under control. Where the hell was Katharine? Were we about to find her in the same condition as the guys in the trench or had she suffered something even worse? The Ultimate Usquebaugh bottle flashed up in front of me like an unholy grail in the gloomy stairwell.

We slowed as we approached the third floor. Davie moved ahead of me, his auxiliary knife drawn. Then he nodded to me to follow.

“The door's open an inch or two,” he whispered as I got to the landing.

At least we didn't have to break it down again. The carpenter had replaced the shattered panels with unpainted slats. The combination of colours made the door look like it was the camouflaged entrance to a lair.

Davie looked at me and pulled out his truncheon. I gave him the nod and he made his move, using the City Guard's standard method – head down, weapons forward, bloodcurdling shout. It's always made me uncomfortable, despite the fact that I recommended it in the
Public Order in Practice
manual. I went after him, checking each room as we went. No sign of anybody or of any disruption. Then we got to the sitting room. It was pitch dark, the curtains fully drawn. I reached for the lightswitch then pressed it down.

And got a knife point against my jugular.

“Quint? You almost scared me to death.”

“Katharine?” I heard my voice come out like a frightened child's. The pain in my neck disappeared but my heart was still halfway through a sprint. “What the fuck  . . . ?” I leaned over and took a deep breath. As I straightened up, I saw Hilda Kennedy sitting in the armchair. She was staring at me like I was a ghost.

“Fool,” Katharine said to Davie. “Why did you charge in like a jackass in a china shop?”

“Why were you sitting in the dark?” he countered angrily.

“Because I thought we were about to be assaulted by a psycho wearing heavy boots.” She laughed humourlessly. “I wasn't far wrong, was I?”

I pushed them apart. “That'll do, children.” I gave them a frosty glare that wasn't anything like as good as one of Sophia's. “What the hell are you doing here, Katharine? I've been shitting myself about you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I left a note under your door.”

“What? I didn't see it.”

“Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “I did try. I sat around for hours. When you didn't come back, I thought I'd come and see if you were here. I used my ‘ask no questions' to get a lift in a guard vehicle.” She laughed softly. “The guardswoman was kind enough to replace the knife Dirty Harry took.”

“So where's Agnes?” I asked.

“Search me. I got here about half an hour ago. The carpenter was just finishing and the mother was on her own. I've been trying to keep her happy.”

Davie and I exchanged glances. “You didn't notice anything strange going on in the street?”

“Strange?” Katharine looked at me quizzically. “I suppose it was a bit quiet.”

I told her what had happened to the surveillance team.

“That must have happened before I got here. I didn't see any movement from behind the screen.”

“No, you wouldn't have.” I walked round the room. It was the same as it had been when we were there earlier.

Hilda Kennedy watched me as I circled the furniture. Her eyes were restless and damp, her body loose. She was now wearing crumpled citizen-issue blouse and trousers that looked several sizes too big for her. When I stopped and returned her gaze, she suddenly smiled.

“Good lad, Allie. You came back to your mother.”

I went over and sat down next to her. “I'm not Allie, Hilda,” I said quietly. “Do you know where he is?”

“Good lad, Allie,” she repeated, clutching my arm.

I pulled it away gently. “Where's Agnes, Hilda?”

She looked at me then smiled again. “Good lad, Allie,” she said, this time more in hope than certainty. Her head dropped and she started to weep.

“Well done, Quint,” Katharine said, giving me a fierce look as she came over to comfort the woman.

Davie and I went out into the corridor.

“What do you reckon, Quint?”

“Allie Kennedy's several steps ahead of us,” I said, shaking my head. “I reckon he came back to get his sister out. And to demonstrate that he's got us wrapped round his little finger.”

“He left his mother behind. We can still use her to distract him.”

I nodded slowly. “We can. But remember what happened to his father. I don't think he's too bothered about his parents.”

“You could be right. What do we do now?”

I went into Agnes's room and sat down on the bed. It had been made up neatly, the pastel-coloured covers carefully arranged. I ran my eye round the different fabrics she'd hung on the walls and at the scanty collection of Supply Directorate cosmetics that female citizens get on the chest of drawers. Agnes and Allie. Christ, had she been pulling the wool over my eyes from the beginning? She'd given the impression that she was a dutiful daughter and that she grieved for her father but maybe the person she was really closest to was her brother. What if she'd only been pretending that he hurt her? What if she was a lot smarter than I'd given her credit for? Maybe Allie hadn't come back for her; maybe she'd gone to meet him somewhere. I remembered how much she'd been in control of herself after her father's body was found. She managed to keep going to her job after that shock. Her job. Jesus. Her job was at a tourist hostel that was about to open its doors for business.

I leaped to my feet and ran into the sitting room. Katharine looked up in alarm from the sofa, where she had her arm round Hilda's shoulders. “Davie and I have got to go. Stay here with her. I'll send a nursing auxiliary.”

Katharine stood up. “Where are you going?”

“I'll tell you later. Get yourself back to my place. And don't disappear again!”

She opened her mouth to speak but I turned away and sprinted down the corridor, Davie at my heels.

“What is it?” he shouted.

“I think I know where they are,” I said over my shoulder. “But I don't know if we're going to get there in time.”

It seemed to take an age to drive across the south side to the tourist hostel off Nicolson Street. We got stuck behind a sewage tank in the Grange's narrow backstreets and had to take a long way round. I called the Medical Directorate during that time and asked for an auxiliary to be sent down to Hilda. Davie was driving like a madman, the tight smile on his lips suggesting that he was having an unusually good time. I tried to find out from the Tourism Directorate if the hostel had been opened yet but the switchboard was permanently engaged. No doubt all personnel were concentrating on the Edlott inauguration.

“Call for backup,” Davie said as we careered on to Newington Road.

I shook my head. “We can do that when we get there. I don't want your boss sending the whole of the guard down. If the hostel's in operation, there'll be plenty of tourists who can be turned into instant hostages.”

“So how are we going to play it?” he asked, giving me the exasperated look I always get when I bend guard procedures.

“By ear, my friend. Like all the best bluesmen.”

“Ha.” He floored the accelerator and swerved past a delivery van.

As we went past, the shocked driver mouthed the words “Fucking guard arseholes”.

“Okay, it's down the next street to the right. Pull up on the main road.”

We jumped down, leaving the doors open. Nicolson Street was quiet, the citizen curfew only minutes away. Tourists in the central zone are allowed out all night these days. I just hoped that if the new hostel had any guests, they'd been packed off on a group outing to the Haggis Sucker Club or some such place. I held Davie back from the corner then I stuck my head round gingerly. I was confronted by a façade with very few windows lit up and the large banner advertising its imminent opening still draped above the door.

“We're in luck,” I said, pulling my head back. “The hostel isn't open yet.”

Davie took a look. “According to the sign, it's going to be opened tomorrow.” He stared at me. “Bloody hell. It's a perfect target.”

I nodded. “And I bet we find that the booze in the bar and the water supply have already been checked by the toxicologists.”

“Christ, the bastards could kill dozens of people if they tamper with things now.”

“Exactly.” I started round the corner.

“What are you doing, Quint?” Davie caught up with me. “We can call for backup now. There's no danger of tourists being taken hostage.”

I kept moving. “Call for it. I'm going in before brother and sister nicotine do a runner.” I heard him start talking into his mobile.

A middle-aged guardswoman appeared at the top of the steps as I approached.

I flashed my authorisation at her. “Anyone inside?”

“No, citizen,” she said. “The last cleaners left an hour ago.”

“Have you checked all the doors?”

She nodded.

I stepped back and looked up at the building. The only lights were in the upper stairwell. I remembered speaking to Agnes there when she was dangling from the roof in her harness. There was a good chance she'd have worked out a way to get into the building, probably using the fire escape at the rear.

“When your lot come, send some of them round the back to cut off their escape route,” I said when Davie caught up again. “Then bring the rest upstairs.”

“Wait, you mad bastard,” Davie called.

“Neither mad nor a bastard,” I said with a nervous laugh. Then I took the guardswoman's key and let myself in.

I checked the ground floor quickly, turning on as few lights as I could. The bar looked pristine, the seals intact on the bottles of whisky to the rear. The place was as quiet as a mausoleum and I found myself being drawn upwards, peering at the cupola that Agnes had been painting. I started running up the stairs, feeling the muscles in my legs tighten.

I got there with the breath rasping in my throat. I tried to avoid looking down into the cavernous gloom in the depths of the stairwell and wondered where the hell the Kennedy offspring were. The hostel's water tanks would be between the ceiling and roof. Maybe they were crawling around up there pouring nicotine into the supply. I dismissed the idea. You'd need a lot of poison to have an effect in such a large volume of water and I was pretty sure Allie didn't have that much left.

I went from room to room, checking under the newly made-up beds and behind the cheap wooden clothes cabinets. No sign of anyone. The sound of guard vehicles drifted up from the street in the hot night air. Allie and his sister were going to have to make their move soon if they wanted to get away. I squatted down in the hallway near the cupola and slapped my hand on the floor. It was beginning to look like I'd been wrong about the hostel after all.

Then I was caught in a web that a black widow would have killed for. I jerked round and only succeeded in tying myself up more securely. My arms were pinned against my torso and my legs, still bent at the knee, were knotted tightly together. I felt a blow against my side and toppled over on to the pungent pile of the recently laid carpet.

“Citizen Dalrymple,” my assailant said in a calm, deep voice. “You've got yourself in quite a bind.”

“It's over, Agnes,” I said, craning round to look up at her. “The place is surrounded. Where's your brother?”

She laughed. “Closer than you think.” Then she bent over me and brought her face down to mine. I was surprised to find that her breath was rank. “Allie's going to get you.”

She stood up and grabbed the straps of the painting harness she'd tied round my chest. Then she began to drag me bodily towards the railing around the stairwell. My stomach liquefied.

“No, Agnes, no!” I forced myself to stop squealing and tried to distract her by talking. “Your brother got you into this, didn't he? I can help you, Agnes.”

She let out a hollow laugh, panting from the exertion of dragging me.

“The Council will be lenient if you help me catch Allie,” I gasped, trying to wedge my feet against the skirting boards. My boots made a loud scraping noise as they ran along wood that Agnes had probably painted.

“You haven't got a clue, have you, citizen?” she said, smiling at me malevolently as she rammed me up against the railing.

I was vaguely aware of shouting from the ground floor and the thunder of auxiliary boots in the entrance hall. Then the noise faded altogether as my blood started rushing about my veins. Fuck, I'd been so blind. I'd been sold a gigantic dummy and bought it without a thought. Agnes was wearing the same clothes that she always wore – the work shirt and trousers dotted with paint, and the scarf. But I'd never seen her neck bare, never seen her in a skirt, never wondered about her unusually deep voice or the hair that she often touched like she was checking it was still in position. Jesus Christ, how cretinous can you get?