Water of Death (47 page)

“Don't!” I screamed as I was manoeuvred up the railing, the heart designs on the steel supports gouging my face and scalp. “Please, Allie! Don't!”

There was a pause in the movements and then a dark laugh. “Too late,” came a hoarse whisper. “It's all too late, citizen.”

I wriggled frantically as I was moved on to the banister and managed to grab a stanchion with my left hand. I heard Davie shouting my name from lower down and felt a crushing blow on my fingers. But I didn't let go.

“Don't!” Davie's voice was near now. “Don't do it!”

Then the weight of the body that had been on top of mine was suddenly gone. There was silence for a few moments, followed by a sickening crack. Heavy hands took hold of me and swung me back over the railing. I didn't let go of the ironwork for a long time.

Davie cut the harness from my limbs and torso then helped me to stand up straight. I looked down into what was now a blaze of light in the stairwell and took a deep breath. The body of my assailant lay spread-eagled on the tiles of the entrance hall, the pool of blood around the shattered head glistening like an obscene halo.

“Jesus,” Davie said, shaking his head. “She just jumped headfirst. No warning. I didn't have a chance to stop her.”

“Him, not her,” I said, kicking the remains of the harness away and thinking of Ray. There was some ironic justice in the way his killer had fallen to his death.

“What?” Davie was staring at me in amazement.

“That was Allie Kennedy,” I said, walking to the stairs unsteadily.

“Disguised as his sister?” Davie said, his voice faint. “Never.”

“A case of barracks malt on it, my friend.”

He looked at me doubtfully then nodded. “You're on, Quint. That blow on the head you got this morning must have been worse than I thought. Are you seriously telling me that Allie dressed up as his sister and took the piss out of us for the whole investigation?” He shook his head emphatically. “No way. I know a woman when I see one.”

“Not this time you didn't.” I pushed through the crowd of auxiliaries on the ground floor. They'd gathered in a ring around the body.

“What's going on here, Dalrymple?” Hamilton demanded, breaking through from the other side.

“Wait and see,” I said, kneeling down by the corpse's midriff. I took in the circle of faces then turned to what was on the ground. I was about to transgress scene-of-crime procedures but I didn't care. I rolled the limp body on to its back carefully, hearing gasps of astonishment from the guard personnel who'd dutifully read my manual. Then I heard them breathe in even more rapidly as I undid the trousers and pulled them down. Underneath were standard female citizen off-white knickers. Allie Kennedy had taken his cross-dressing seriously. I grasped them at the sides and jerked them down.

And got a surprise that knocked the confidence, stuffing, bravado and anything else you care to mention right out of me. There was no sign at all of male genitalia. No penis, no scrotum, no nothing. Just a V-shaped tangle of black pubic hair. I felt like a necrophiliac caught in the act.

The worst was yet to come.

“What do you think you're doing, citizen?” Sophia asked, her voice low but sharp as a dagger of ice. “Leave that woman alone and come to my vehicle. Immediately.”

I followed her through the gap opened up by the appalled auxiliaries, my cheeks on fire. Lewis Hamilton's were pretty scarlet too.

Even Davie looked horrified. Despite the fact that he'd just won a bet with me for the first time in his life.

Chapter Twenty

I didn't have a good time in Sophia's Land-Rover but I eventually managed to explain what I'd been doing.

“Why did Agnes Kennedy kill herself?” Sophia asked.

“Christ knows,” I replied. My hands were still shaking and the raw patches on my arms and scalp were stinging. “She saw she was cornered. I suppose she couldn't face a lifetime down the mines.”

“It's a great pity we didn't have the chance to interrogate her,” Sophia said, shaking her head in frustration. “Her brother is at large and we don't know what he's planning. I take it he's still the prime suspect?”

I nodded. “Oh yes. I'm not sure exactly how involved Agnes Kennedy was with the poisonings. She was at work here or with her mother in the flat for a lot of the investigation. She was obviously up to no good in the hostel tonight. Her brother's the guy we really want though.”

Sophia put her hand on the door then stopped. “Quint,” she said, turning towards me and moderating her chilly aloofness slightly. “We may as well face it. We're finished, aren't we?”

“Um  . . .” I looked ahead and saw Hamilton standing on the steps with an impatient look on his face. “This isn't a good time to talk, Sophia.”

“It's all right,” she said, freezing up again. “It was a rhetorical question.” She engaged the door handle and stepped down. She strode purposefully towards the public order guardian but I was pretty sure she was hurting inside. The question was, would she find some way to take it out on Katharine?

I got out and went over to them.

“The chief toxicologist is en route,” Hamilton said. “Obviously his people are going to have to check every bottle in the place.”

“Obviously,” I said, trying and failing to catch Sophia's eye. She must have suspected that she and I were history ever since Katharine came back, but the way she was taking it made me feel uneasy.

“The tourism guardian's on his way,” Lewis added, looking at us uncomfortably. Even he had spotted that something was going on. “He wants to know if he can go ahead with the opening of the hostel tomorrow.”

“Fucking hell,” I said, trying to shock Sophia into showing some emotion. “The building may contain the water of death and your colleague is dreaming of additional tourist income.”

That didn't even raise a blink from Sophia. “It will clearly be impractical to proceed with the inauguration of this facility,” she said in guardianspeak. “You are to maintain the search for citizen Alexander Kennedy. The Edlott inauguration will go ahead tomorrow.”

“I would recommend postponing the latter until the former is successful,” I said, dropping into her patois. “If Allie Kennedy finds out his sister's dead, who knows what might happen?”

“How do you imagine he will become party to that information?” Sophia asked.

That was enough linguistic torture. “Don't ask me,” I said, giving the pair of them a sardonic stare. “Maybe he's got friends in the guard.”

Hamilton's chest puffed out as he prepared to lay into me but Sophia saw what I was doing and put her hand on his arm.

“Meaning that you're guessing, citizen,” she said.

“Correct,” I muttered, heading towards Davie's vehicle.

“Citizen Dalrymple,” she called imperiously. “I was informed that you requested a nursing auxiliary to attend the suspect's mother. Under the circumstances I felt it advisable that the woman should spend the night under guard in the infirmary. You still intend to make use of her tomorrow, I hope.”

“I suppose so,” I replied, without much enthusiasm.

“I have also been told that your friend Kirkwood insisted on accompanying the woman,” Sophia said, her eyes flashing cold fire. “Kindly ensure that she leaves my directorate premises immediately.”

I raised my eyes to the warm blackness of the Edinburgh night sky. It was clear that Allie Kennedy didn't have a monopoly on poison.

I found Katharine and Hilda in a secure room in the depths of the infirmary, a guardsman outside the door. I flashed my authorisation. Before he let me in, I got him to call the nursing supervisor.

“Hello, Quint,” Katharine said in a low voice. She was sitting in a chair next to the bed. Hilda was lying on her side, fully dressed, her arms wrapped round her body. She looked shrunken and weak. When I approached them, Hilda began to whimper. She put out an unsteady hand and took hold of Katharine's arm.

“What's she saying?” I asked, unable to make out the older woman's babbled words.

“She keeps talking about Allie and Agnes,” Katharine replied. “What good children they are and how they're going to look after her.” She looked up at me helplessly. “She won't let me leave. They tried to throw me out when we arrived but she wouldn't let go of me.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Hold on,” I said. “I'll talk to the supervisor.”

The balding man outside had a clipboard in his hand. He kept his eyes on it as he addressed me impatiently. “Citizen Hilda Kennedy. Refuses to be examined, no apparent signs of physical injury, mental condition unstable, presence in infirmary authorised by medical guardian. What more do you need to know, Citizen Dalrymple?” He glanced up briefly then turned to go.

I grabbed the back of his green tunic collar. “Just a minute, pal.” I heard the guardsman swallow a snigger. “You're supposed to co-operate, not read me a fucking lecture.”

The auxiliary shook my hand off but the fight had already gone out of him. “I'm very busy, citizen,” he mumbled. “How can I help you?”

“Thank you,” I said, taking in his barracks number. “Simpson 177, why has Katharine Kirkwood been locked in with the patient?” I gave him a look which made it clear that bullshit was not a valid currency.

He went into reverse. “I  . . . I had no choice. Citizen Kennedy became uncontrollable when we tried to remove the other woman. I wanted to avoid any unnecessary injury to either of them.”

“All right.” I wondered what Sophia would say if she found out that Katharine was still in the infirmary. “Have you thought about sedating Hilda Kennedy?”

“We can try,” he said doubtfully.

“Do that.” I didn't want Katharine stuck in the hospital overnight.

When a nursing auxiliary arrived with a plastic cup containing some pills, I followed her in. Hilda took one look at us and started screeching like a terrified monkey. Then she pulled Katharine in front of her with surprising strength.

“Forget it!” Katharine said after a short bout of high-volume wrestling. “I don't mind staying with her. She doesn't have to take those pills if she doesn't want to.”

The nurse backed off. I let her go.

“Are you sure?” I asked, as Katharine detached Hilda's hands and gently helped her off the floor. The older woman collapsed on the bed, her energy reserves used up.

“It's only one night, Quint,” she said, breathing heavily. “I'll be fine.” She stroked Hilda's sweat-soaked brow. “Did you find the others?” she asked.

I bent over. “Agnes is dead,” I whispered. “Allie's still on the loose. I'll be back first thing in the morning. Will you be okay?”

Katharine nodded and smiled playfully. “You can pay me back tomorrow.”

“I'll look forward to that,” I said, laughing. As I got to the door, I heard Hilda's voice.

“Allie? Agnes?” she called. “Allie? Agnes? Where are you? Come to your mother. Allie! Agnes!” Then she started to weep wretchedly.

The idea of using her as bait was giving me serious grief.

I spent the night in the castle keeping an eye on developments. Such as they were. The toxicologists found traces of nicotine in several miniatures of whisky in the mini-bars in five of the hostel's rooms. I reckoned that Agnes would have poisoned a lot more bottles if I hadn't got to her when I did. The scene-of-crime squad found a bottle two-thirds full of the Ultimate Usquebaugh in one of the top-floor store cupboards. When the tourism guardian was advised that poisoned whisky had been located, he immediately tried to go ahead with the opening of the hostel. But Hamilton wasn't taking any chances. I smiled when I heard him tell his colleague what he could do with that idea.

Davie came up from the command centre at four a.m. and gave us the news that Allie Kennedy was keeping up his impression of a Platonic ideal form – all-present, all-defining, but impossible to put your finger on.

“No sightings of anyone answering the suspect's description by any of the barracks patrols,” he said, tossing the latest logs in front of me. “Of course, he could be dressed as a woman.” He gave me a derisive grin. “Then we'd never spot him.”

I raised the middle fingers of both hands at him.

Hamilton looked at us disapprovingly over a barrage of files. “It'll all come down to good old-fashioned Public Order Directorate security arrangements,” he said. “We'll nail the madman before he can do any more harm.”

I nodded my head slowly. If he believed that, he believed that organised conflict between rival tribes of football fans had nothing to do with the break-up of the United Kingdom in the early years of the century.

At seven the next morning, I turned down the corridor in the infirmary that led to the room containing Hilda and Katharine. In the dim overhead light I made out the sentry by the door and got a shock that made my heart go into overdrive. His back was propped against the wall and his legs were spread across the floor. I started to run towards him.