Water of Death (15 page)

“I have to do something during your regular bloody visits to Hector.” He drove off through central Leith. Unlucky citizens with the Sunday morning shift were on their way to work, faces grim and clothes already soaked with sweat. At least for one morning in their lives they weren't being subjected to trial by headache. Unlike me.

“Hello, failure,” my father said, glancing up at me from the book of Latin poetry he'd propped up on the table in the communal dining room. “God almighty, lad, what's happened to you?”

“Essential Council business,” Davie said, pulling up a chair and helping himself to charred toast. “Whisky testing.”

“Weren't you keeping an eye on him, guardsman?” Hector demanded, the twitch at the corners of his mouth showing how serious the question was.

“He had to try every single one for himself.”

“All right, you two, that's enough,” I said, pouring out the stewed tea from the bottom of the pot. Eating was not a viable proposition. “Let's get out of here,” I said to the old man. The noise of his twenty-nine housemates clattering their false teeth and bickering over what the cook thought was porridge had got to me. I led him to a shaded part of the garden where there were a couple of tattered deck chairs.

“You should take better care of yourself, Quintilian. Excessive drinking destroys brain cells.”

“Spare me the lecture, old man. You're not in the university now. Anyway, we really have been testing the city's whisky stocks. Didn't you notice that your dram wasn't distributed yesterday?”

Hector finally finished lowering his tall frame into the chair. “Dram? We're lucky to see that more than twice a week. That bloody nurse  . . .”

“Have you seen her this morning?” I asked, suddenly realising that I hadn't noticed the auxiliary who was in charge of the home.

“Aye, she's around.” My father looked at me. “What's going on with the city's whisky, lad?”

I told him about the dead man and the Ultimate Usquebaugh.

He rubbed the stubble on his shrunken cheeks. “Sounds like you might be up against some real wise guys.” He grinned. “Isn't that what they call them in those appalling American crime novels you used to read when you were young?”

“How would you know?” I often suspected that Hector raided my bookshelves when I lived at home before the Enlightenment, but he'd never admit to it. “You don't remember any cases of poisoning when you were in the Council, do you?”

I wasn't sure why I was asking him. Hamilton had been a guardian from the beginning and he would have told me of any case dating from before I was in the directorate. But I'd got used to sharing my problems with my father and, for all his physical decrepitude, he could still get to the essence of things.

He was shaking his head. “No. In those days the drugs gangs were more inclined to use automatic weapons and high explosives than Agatha Christie's methods.”

I nodded then squeezed my eyes hard as the headache kicked in again. Time to hit Sophia for some pills.

“Look after yourself, old man,” I said, getting up painfully. “And don't drink any spirits till I give you the all clear.”

What must have been a seriously large bullfrog made its presence known from the trickle of the burn at the bottom of the garden.

“Brekekek-koax-koax,” my father said. “Excellent symbolism, don't you think?”

I looked at him unenthusiastically. “This
isn't
the time for a lesson in ancient Athenian satire.”

“At least you recognised my allusion to Aristophanes, laddie.” It seemed I'd made Hector's day. “
The Frogs
, of course. And where does most of the action of that play take place?”

I racked my brains, coming up with more pain but no answer.

“In the underworld,” Hector said, looking inordinately pleased with himself. “As I say, the symbolism really is excellent. For what is this city nowadays but hell on earth?”

I wished him joy of that observation and headed for the Land-Rover. As I got there, it struck me that what I told him about the poisoning had immediately made him think of the drugs gangs. It hadn't occurred to me to link poisoned whisky to the drug traffickers who would give an arm and a leg, if not a burned-out oesophagus, for access to the city. But my head was too dealt with to take that idea any further for the time being.

Before we got into the guard vehicle I put in a call to Hamilton and asked him to send an inspection team round to the Smoke on the Water club. The forensics squad hadn't reported any sign of grass or any other controlled drugs in Frankie Thomson's flat but maybe there was more going on at his place of work than met the eye.

“Where to?” Davie asked when I finished.

“I need the infirmary,” I mumbled, cradling my head. “The brain surgery unit and make it snappy.”

Sophia handed me a bottle of aspirins with a severely disapproving look. “I told you to cut down on that poison.” She shook her head in annoyance when she realised what she'd said.

I slumped against the wall, too knackered to argue.

“Oh, for goodness sake.” She glared at Davie as if it were his fault and raised her eyes at her assistant, who smirked at me. Then she led me into her private office and closed the door. “Was it necessary for you to carry out your own form of whisky testing? Didn't you consider the risks?”

At first I thought she was giving me an official reprimand, something that guardians normally form a queue to do. Then I noticed that her eyes were wide open and moist at the corners.

“Hey,” I said, going round unsteadily to her side of the desk, “I'll be okay.” I touched her shoulders. “At least we know the Fisheries Guard haven't come across the Ultimate Usquebaugh.”

Sophia shook my hands off. “You could just have asked them, Quint. You didn't have to show off like a wee boy.”

I couldn't think of much to say in response to that, so I swallowed the pills and washed them down with water from the bottle she gave me. A heap of folders marked “Senior Guardian's Eyes Only” was piled up in front of her.

“Are you coping all right?” I asked, putting a hand on the back of her neck. This time she let it stay.

“I can manage,” she said, looking up at me. “We have seminars to prepare us for the month as senior guardian.” Her light blue eyes were circled with black rings.

“Oh, seminars.” I risked a grin, which didn't do my head much good. “You'll be all right then.” I leaned over her and put my cheek against hers. “Didn't you sleep last night?”

She shook her head, looking embarrassed. “Not much. I went to your place when I finished at around one. When I couldn't raise you on your mobile, I went back to Moray Place. I  . . .” She pushed her chair back into me and got up, then went over to a filing cabinet and pretended to be looking for something.

“You  . . . ?” I said, following her over.

She slammed the drawer shut and turned into my arms. “Oh, stop it, Quint. I was worried about you.” She looked down. “I missed you, all right?”

I kissed her on the lips. “It's all right. I missed you too.”

Sophia's cheeks reddened. “I don't know what I think I'm playing at.”

“What do you mean?”

She glanced away awkwardly. “Oh, chasing you like a lovestruck teenager.” Her eyes came back towards me and flashed angrily. “You think I'm naive, don't you, Quint? I was celibate for years and now I'm like a nymphomaniac who throws herself at the first man she finds.”

“Thanks very much,” I said. I put my hand on her shoulder. It stayed there a couple of seconds before she shook it off. “I don't think you're naive, Sophia. There's very little evidence to support that conclusion.”

She let out an angry sob. “There's  . . . there's a lot going on at the moment, Quint,” she said, swallowing hard. “I just  . . . I just need some support.”

I held her tight, ignoring the heat that our bodies generated in close contact.

“It's okay, Sophia. There's nothing wrong with needing support. What the Council used to preach about self-reliance is bullshit.”

She rested her head against my shoulder for a few moments then pushed me away gently. “Come on, we have to work.” She went back to her desk and picked up a notebook. “So where have you got to?”

“Utopia.”

“What?”

“It means ‘nowhere' in Greek.”

“Indeed.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “Be more precise if you can, citizen.” She had suddenly turned back into the senior guardian.

The aspirins seemed to be having some effect. I sat down and looked at my own notes. “Right. I spoke to the guard command centre and the chief toxicologist on my way up here. No more bottles of poisoned whisky have been found. Checks are continuing in the bars and stores, and the chemists are still making tests.”

“Tests that will take days to cover all the city's whisky,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “We can't rely on random samples. Just because one batch of Spirit o' the Nor' Loch is clean doesn't mean that bottles from other batches haven't been poisoned. And whoever was behind the Ultimate Usquebaugh is probably capable of slipping bottles into the distribution chain even after testing.”

I nodded. “You want to maintain the ban on supplies to citizens and tourists, don't you?”

“As a health professional, what else can I do? Even one more death would be a terrible responsibility.”

“On the other hand, citizens might riot outside Supply Directorate stores and end up dead if the supplies aren't restored.” I caught her eyes. “Remember what happened during the drugs wars.”

Sophia bit her lower lip so hard that I thought blood would appear. Then she let it go and breathed in deeply. “Do you really think the citizen body will take to the streets over whisky?”

“What else have they got to look forward to after a day sweating their guts out at work? An hour standing in line outside the swimming-baths, a few pints of watery beer, an evening class on Plato's philosophy of education? Whisky's all that keeps a lot of them going, Sophia.”

Her back stiffened and her gaze became truly glacial. Now she was the Ice Queen again, Big Heat or no Big Heat. “I cannot accept that analysis of Edinburgh society,” she said. Not even my mother in her most reginal manifestation as senior guardian managed such a tone. “The Council has provided many benefits for citizens – housing, health, full employment, lifelong learning  . . .”

“No cars, no television, no cigarettes,” I continued. “No drugs, no music that the Council hasn't approved, no travel outside the city borders, no free will, not even the option of suicide  . . .”

Sophia banged her hands down on the files in front of her. “Enough, Quint,” she shouted. “Are you seriously telling me that applying sanctions against the families of people who attempt suicide is a bad thing?”

I gave up. Either you get the point about personal freedoms or you don't. Guardians have always subjugated the individual to the collective whole.

“Forget it, Sophia, okay? Just keep the chemists testing round the clock and then release stocks that have been fully tested. I reckon you've got another day before the pressure really starts building up.”

She looked at me with an expression that suggested she might possibly follow my advice – if the Council went along with it, of course. “What about you, Quint? What are you going to do now?”

I emptied her waterbottle. “I'm going to interview the dead man's neighbours again. In the castle dungeons. Some of them may be holding out on us. If I find out anything I'll pass it on to Hamilton. He can brief the Council at the meeting.”

Sophia looked up from her papers after I emptied the bottle. “And later?” she said in a small, shy voice.

“And later, senior guardian, I shall see you at my place. Eleven p.m.?”

She gave a nod so rapid that I almost missed it, then looked down again.

“Quint?” she said as I reached the door.

“Dearest?”

She went into freezer mode again. “If you turn your mobile off again during this investigation, I'll personally implant it in your alimentary canal.”

I blew her a kiss and departed at speed.

Davie was getting on very well with the female auxiliary in the outer office. He was pissed off that we had to leave but brightened up when I told him we had a day of heavy-duty interrogation ahead. Unfortunately things went downhill from then on. Although some of the residents of Bell Place were definitely not keen on the Council and its works, they opened up when Davie and his pals gave them what the guard call “anti-citizen verbals”. The problem was it really did seem that none of them had seen or heard anything around the time of Frankie Thomson's death. Even the storeman Drem stuck to his story. So Frankie T.'s neighbour Mary McMurray, who I didn't send to the dungeons, was the only one who'd caught a glimpse of the man outside his flat. After a long hot afternoon in the cells we turned the rest of them loose. Another seventeen citizens who would happily spit on the Council's mass grave – and mine.

We ate some revolting stew in the castle mess, checked on the progress of the whisky tests – still no more poisoned bottles – and pulled in the staff from the Smoke on the Water club. The inspection I'd asked for had come up with no drugs in excess of those legitimately in stock. The auxiliaries who worked there were all clean as well, even the Prostitution Services Department lapdancers. In fact, they were cleaner than anyone else since they have rigorous monthly health checks. We reported to the public order guardian and wandered down the corridor from his office.

“What now?” Davie asked, yawning immensely. “It's half ten and I want my bed.”

I'd just finished making a list of the accommodation occupied by all the Smoke on the Water people. I'd been considering asking Hamilton to put tails on them, but the idea of surveillance on auxiliaries wouldn't exactly have made him jump for joy. I reckoned I'd leave that for the time being. There was also the question of Napier Barracks personnel who knew Frankie Thomson before his demotion. Also postponed. My body and brain revolted at the idea of more work.