House of Dust (18 page)

Katharine was sitting up in bed, the blankets pulled up to her neck to fend off the chill in the unheated room. “Yes, well,” she said, her eyes off me, “I may have overreacted a bit.” Then she turned her head towards me in a rapid movement. “But violence is no solution, Quint. You of all people must know that.”

I sat down on the bed and started unlacing my boots. “Of course I bloody know that,” I said. “But the headbanger tried to—”

“It's okay, I understand.” Katharine stuck out a hand and rested it on my shoulder. “They don't know any better. The system's to blame, not the kids.”

“You'll get no argument from me on that count,” I said, standing up and preparing to jettison my clothes as quickly as I could to minimise my exposure to the chill in my bedroom.

“Aah!” Katharine gasped, pulling away. “You're freezing!”

“You'll soon warm me up,” I said, pressing against her.

“Stop it.” She turned her back on me. “Quint?” Her voice was serious. “I heard a story that Lewis Hamilton took a bullet. It isn't true, is it?”

“It's true all right,” I replied. The Council had decided to make no announcement about the guardian's death yet; there was a feeling that the city's lowlife might take it as a licence to wreck the joint. But Edinburgh's only heavy industry is its rumour factory and clearly it had been working overtime. “He was hit during the prison inauguration and died on the spot.”

“At the inauguration? That must have caused a stink.”

“You could say that.” I felt the warmth of her begin to spread slowly towards my feet.

“Are you in charge of the investigation?”

I nodded then stretched over and blew out the candle. “In charge for the time being at least – and having a lot of problems.”

“No one's ever shot a guardian,” Katharine said. “Not even Hamilton deserved that. Who do you think was behind it?”

Sleep was hovering over me like a shroud stretched out by a pair of undertakers.

“I'm working on that,” I mumbled, sinking fast. Before I slipped under it struck me that, despite the fact that she'd suffered badly under Lewis Hamilton, Katharine sounded sorry that he'd gone. I didn't know what to make of that. “Funeral's tomorrow morning,” I managed, then succumbed to exhaustion.

Warriston Crematorium is in the northern suburbs, about a mile west of the port at Leith. After independence it became the city's main gateway between life and death. The other crematoria had been torched during the drugs wars and the first Council banned burial in order to save space and to discourage religious ritual. So everyone, from long-serving guardian to humblest citizen, ends up in the furnace at Warriston. Not that the facility's major role in Edinburgh life has guaranteed it special status. It receives no more funding than any other service unit, so its walls are stained and pocked, its roof leaks and its gardens are maintained with much less diligence than the parks in the central tourist zone.

Davie picked us up in a guard vehicle at ten thirty, showing little enthusiasm for Katharine's presence. She'd insisted on attending the funeral without offering any explanation; Lewis Hamilton had been in charge of the Public Order Directorate when she'd been sent to the high-security prison on Cramond Island for three years for terrorist activities. Maybe her concern was just a blind and what she really wanted was a metaphorical dance on his grave.

“I thought this was supposed to be a restricted event.” I said as we swung into the crematorium drive.

There were long lines of guard vehicles on both sides and the road was clogged with auxiliaries in full dress uniform, medal ribbons on their grey tunics and maroon peaked caps rather than the normal berets under their arms.

Davie grunted. “It is.” He gave a warning blare of his horn and the guard personnel stepped aside when they saw him. “My colleagues are ignoring the Council directive. They want to give the chief a decent send-off.”

Katharine, her head high, made no comment. She'd been back to her flat and changed into a white blouse and cream trousers that definitely weren't standard issue – she must have run them up herself. The sun was out so the thin material of her dark blue jacket was probably just about sufficient.

Davie let us off at the gate and we walked through the throng of auxiliaries to the main building.

“Citizen Dalrymple. It's been some time since we've seen you here.” The thin citizen with yellow teeth attempted a welcoming smile but didn't make the grade.

“Hello, Haigh,” I said. “Still enjoying life with the dead?” I'd had several unpleasant experiences with the crematorium supervisor; he took a distinctly ghoulish pleasure in his work.

He checked his clipboard. “Yes, you're on the list.” He glanced up at Katharine and licked his lips. “Your barracks number or name, please?”

“She's with—” I broke off as I saw Katharine flash her “ask no questions”. That put a stop to his tongue.

We stepped into the chilly building and breathed in an atmosphere that had always made me queasy. Even though the rapid throughput means that bodies don't stay in the place for long, it still smelled of the ultimate corruption. Then I caught sight of the senior guardian and the recently promoted head of the Public Order Directorate. They didn't look like they were enjoying inhaling either.

“Morning,” I said, moving up on them unobserved. “You'll never get all of the City Guard in here.”

The senior guardian stopped in mid-sentence and turned to me. “They will pay for this insubordination, citizen, never fear. My colleague will see to that.”

The Mist gave me a humourless smile.

“What's wrong with people mourning their chief?” I asked. “You shouldn't have tried to hold the funeral in secret.”

“What do you think the youth gangs are getting up to as we speak?” the new public order guardian asked sharply. “With a minimal guard presence on the streets, the suburbs will explode.”

Katharine came closer. “They will not,” she said. “The youth gangs are nothing like as dangerous as you think. The guard taunts them and antagonises them. I think you'll find that there's less criminal behaviour than usual this morning.”

The Mist looked like she was about to throw Katharine out. Then Administrator Raphael and the Oxford delegation appeared, surrounded by a detail of tall guardsmen. Slick and his sidekick were off to greet them before I could count to one.

Katharine and I moved into what had once been called the chapel and was now known as the Meeting Hall; Haigh had wanted to call it the Last Meeting Hall but even the guardians had baulked at that. It was drab and cheerless, the only decoration a large maroon and white flag on the wall above the bier. Even in death the guardians were watching over you. In this case, even the occupant of the unadorned, recycled coffin was a guardian. Suddenly the reality of Lewis's passing struck me and I felt my stomach turn sour. I'd watched him die, but the trappings of death brought home how final and ineluctable the process was. At times like this, being an atheist wasn't the easy option.

The long room was almost full, the only vacant seats to the rear. A movement to the left caught my eye. Bloody hell, my father. I'd told him about Hamilton's death on the phone but he hadn't said anything about coming to the funeral. As a former guardian he was entitled to attend.

Hector didn't attempt to get up from the pew as we joined him. He was wrapped in a heavy, tattered raincoat, a scarf in the black and white Enlightenment tartan round his slack neck.

“Hello, old man,” I said, taking his arm and feeling how thin the flesh was.

“Hello, failure.” He looked beyond me. “Hello, Katharine.” Ever since he'd once confused Katharine with Caro he'd been fastidious about addressing her correctly.

They started conversing, so I got down to checking out the gathering. All the guardians apart from Sophia were on parade, though none of them looked exactly heartbroken. Among them at the front I saw Andrew Duart. The Glasgow headman was dressed in a dark suit that must have come from his city's finest designer – and Glasgow had become a major fashion centre. Yet again I found myself wondering about his presence in Edinburgh. He seemed to be on good terms with plenty of guardians and senior auxiliaries. Then the crowd parted and I caught sight of a hunched figure in a wheelchair. Billy Geddes, Edinburgh's financial genius. He'd never had much time for Lewis Hamilton, but that hadn't stopped him inveigling the old guardian into one of his schemes a couple of years back.

Then a hush spread across the packed room like a squall sweeping over a cornfield. Haigh, wearing a black sash over his ancient suit, led a procession towards the coffin. The senior guardian was immediately behind him, while he was followed by Raphael and her three academics. The Mist brought up the rear, resplendent – at least in her own mind – in a guardian-issue tweed jacket that was at least one size too large. (Interesting symbolism, I thought.) Edinburgh's de facto president, then a delegation from a foreign state, then the newest guardian: what did that say about the balance of power?

The service turned out to be nothing but preparation and build-up, a funerary version of all mouth and no trousers. Haigh announced the name, rank and date of birth of the deceased, as he did for everyone in the city. Then the senior guardian got up, a look of mild distaste on his youthful features, and told us why we should celebrate the life of Lewis Hamilton. Except he missed out all the laudable parts – his commitment to the Enlightenment Party in the dark days before independence, his doggedness in eradicating the drugs gangs over a decade of extreme violence – and concentrated on his loyalty to the Council. In recent months that had probably been Lewis's most dubious claim to fame.

I could feel my old man fidgeting throughout the address. Eventually he couldn't hold himself back any longer.

“Sanctimonious bullshit,” he said in a stage whisper which caused several scandalised senior auxiliaries to look round. “When's he going to say something about the man himself?”

I nudged him to shut him up. Not that I had a problem with his line of questioning. Lewis could be a bone-headed, stubborn old bugger when he was in the mood. Hector had fallen out with him so badly that he'd resigned from the Council years back, and I'd been on the rough side of Hamilton's tongue often enough myself. But at least, to the end, he'd possessed a grudging faith in humanity – which is more than can be said for a lot of guardians.

Slick ran out of words soon afterwards. After an awkward pause, a guard piper stepped forward and played a pibroch. The notes of his instrument were piercing in the enclosed space but no one had the nerve to head for the exit. I looked to the right and watched Administrator Raphael as she stood motionless, her face rigid and her eyes staring straight ahead. What was it about the woman? I wouldn't class myself as anything approaching an expert on her gender, but even I sensed that she was unusual in the extreme. Although she was stern and unemotional like your average Edinburgh guardian (Sophia excepted, occasionally) there was more to her than that: hidden depths, repressed feelings, some inner conflict that she was only just managing to contain. Then she leaned forward slightly, the upper half of her body at an angle to the lower for a few seconds and I had a flash of déjà vu.

Suddenly I was back in the exercise yard at the New Bridewell, the seagulls crying in the clear blue sky as the inauguration got under way. Little Maisie was dashing forwards, tripping; Hamilton and Raphael were lunging to reach her. Hamilton and Raphael. Her reactions had been quicker than his, she'd dived to the gravel ahead of him. Bloody hell. Lewis had been left behind, closer to perpendicular – exactly between the administrator and the shooting position on the top of the Skin Zone. Bloody hell. I saw it now. The shot had been meant for her. That went a long way towards explaining her unease about the bullet and its provenance, as well as her nervousness before the ceremony.

“Quint?” Katharine's elbow was in my ribs. “What is it?” she whispered. “You look like you've seen a ghost?”

I turned my eyes towards the coffin and watched as it disappeared from sight behind the black curtain in the front wall. Lewis was making the last journey, his journey to the fire. Soon he would be nothing but ashes, a scattering of dust over the fields of a city farm.

“A ghost?” I said hoarsely as the funeral party began to break up. I shook my head. “I don't believe in them.” I looked into Katharine's bright green eyes. “What we've got to be frightened of is one hundred per cent human.”

After the committal we stood around in groups outside, heads bowed and conversation muted as is the way at funerals. Everyone was keen to be away, but the crush of guard personnel heading back to their posts was blocking the gate.

“Davie will get you back to the home, old man,” I said, holding Hector's arm.

“Aye, well,” he said, nodding slowly, “it won't be long before I go same way as poor Lewis.”

I glanced at Katharine.

She stepped closer and took my father's other arm. “What are you saying, Hector?” she said with a smile. “You've got plenty more years with your books to come.”

He looked at her with rheumy eyes then moved them over the crowd of guardians and senior auxiliaries. “To be honest with you, lass, I hope I haven't. These idiots have buggered the city up irreparably.”

I'd never known the old man to be wrong about affairs of state.

“Interesting,” Davie said, poring over the detailed central zone map we'd spread over the table in the small room near the command centre. Katharine had gone back to her work. “I think you might have something, Quint. Are you sure about the positioning of their bodies?”

I held up the sketches I'd drawn of Lewis Hamilton and Raphael. “That's the way they were,” I said. “I've got a clear picture in my mind of how they moved.”