The Blood Tree Read Free Page B

who survive the initial onslaught frequently recover.”
    I lunged forward. “And that makes your negligence acceptable, does it, you—”
    I broke off as a faint sound came from the old man. His eyes were half open and it seemed that he gave a shake of his head.
    There was the sound of a siren in the street below, quickly followed by the pounding of auxiliary-issue boots on the stairs. Hector was placed on a stretcher and moved out of his room with consummate skill.
    I stood there for a couple of seconds and looked at the books on the desk, wondering if my father would ever open them again.
    Then I turned and followed the stretcher out of the retirement home.
    There wasn’t room for me in the clapped-out ambulance so Davie took me in the Land-Rover. We didn’t talk as we drove towards the central zone then up the Mound to the infirmary. It was only as we pulled up outside the city’s main hospital with its château-like towers and dark grey stonework that Davie broke the silence.
    â€œHe’ll get the very best treatment, Quint. I told them to inform the medical guardian.”
    â€œThanks, my friend,” I said. I’ve never been one for queue-jumping but I wouldn’t have had any compunction in doing all I could for Hector. I was glad that Davie felt the same way.
    We got out and headed for the main entrance. There was a light drizzle falling, just enough to blur the lights of the infirmary and give the nineteenth-century pile the look of a fairy-tale castle. That impression lasted as long as it took me to push open the door and walk into the chilly reception hall. It wasn’t drizzling inside, but the breath of citizens waiting for treatment even though it was after nine o’clock had made the place steam up like a surrealist’s version of a sauna – one from which the heat-source had been omitted.
    I accompanied the auxiliaries with the stretcher down the wide passageway that led to the intensive care unit. At one junction I forgot what I was doing and turned towards the morgue. I’d attended more post-mortems than I cared to remember in the infirmary. The way that I headed automatically for the autopsy room didn’t make me feel any better.
    A figure of medium height with white-blonde hair was standing at the door of the ICU. Despite the loose surgical robes she was wearing, the bulge in the medical guardian’s midriff was clearly visible.
    â€œQuint,” she said, smiling faintly. “I’m very sorry. I’ve asked the chief cardiologist to attend.”
    â€œThanks, Sophia.” I went into the unit after her. Through a glass partition I could see a group of green-clad medics working on the old man.
    â€œAccording to the ambulance-men your father’s in a stable condition.” The medical guardian was at my side, a file in her hands. “The next few hours will be critical.”
    I nodded, glancing at her. Her expression was cold, as befitted someone whose nickname throughout the city was the Ice Queen, but her voice conveyed some emotion. Which had nothing to do with the fact that we’d had a relationship back in 2025, I was sure. All that survived of that was her letting me address her by her first name, a privilege she allowed no one else.
    â€œHow have you been?” I asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep my eyes away from the bump in her otherwise slim figure.
    Sophia looked at me blankly then caught the direction of my gaze. “I’m not ill, Quint,” she snapped. “Pregnancy’s a perfectly normal state for a woman.”
    â€œNot for guardians, it isn’t,” I replied. Until a couple of years back, guardians were still expected to be strictly celibate. That was changed at the same time that their names were first published in the Edinburgh Guardian – in a belated attempt to make the city’s leaders more human. The idea of a guardian getting pregnant was still pretty hard to cope