Water of Death Read Free Page B

scribbled. “Millar Crescent. Number 14.”
    He headed down the main road, the Land-Rover’s bodywork juddering as he accelerated. Ahead of us, a thick layer of haze and dust obscured the Pentland Hills and the ravaged areas between us and them. What were once pretty respectable suburbs became the home of streetfighting man in the time leading up to independence. They had only been used again in the last couple of years and the part beyond the heavily fortified city line a few hundred yards further south was still an urban wasteland. It was haunted by black marketeers and the dissidents who’ve been trying and failing to overturn the Council since it came to power. On this side of the line, the Housing Directorate has settled a lot of the city’s problem families into flats that used to be occupied by Edinburgh’s blue-rinse and pearl-necklace brigade. The Southside Strollers were the tip of a very large iceberg.
    â€œTen minutes, Quint,” Davie said as he manoeuvred round the water tank and the citizens’ bicycle shed at the end of Millar Crescent. “That’s all I’m giving you.” Then his jaw dropped.
    I followed the direction of his gaze. A young woman was on her way into the street entrance of number 14. She was wearing a citizen-issue T-shirt and work trousers that were unusually well pressed despite the spatters of paint on them. She also had a mauve chiffon scarf round her neck which had never seen the inside of a Supply Directorate store. She had light brown hair bound up in a tight plait and a self-contained look on her face. Oh, and she was built like the Venus de Milo with a full complement of limbs.
    Davie already had his door open. “Well,” he said, “make it half an hour.”
    We climbed the unlit, airless stairs to the third floor. The name Kennedy had been carved very skilfully in three-inch-high letters on the surface of a blue door on the right side of the landing. The incisions in the wood looked recent.
    â€œThis is the place,” I said, raising my hand to knock.
    â€œWhere did she go?” Davie asked, looking up and down the stairwell.
    â€œWill you get a grip?” I thumped on the door. “Exert some auxiliary self-control.”
    â€œAh, but we’re supposed to come over like human beings these days,” he said with a grin.
    â€œExactly. Like human beings, guardsman. Not like dogs after a  . . .”
    Then the door opened very quickly. The woman we’d seen stood looking at us with her eyes wide open and a faint smile on her lips.
    â€œDogs after a  . . . ?” she asked in a deep voice, her dark brown eyes darting between us. A lot of citizens would have made the most of that canine reference in the presence of a guardsman, but there didn’t seem to be any irony in her tone.
    There was a silence that Davie and I found a lot more awkward than she did.
    â€œEm  . . . I’m looking for Citizen Kennedy,” I said, pulling out my notebook and trying to make out my scribble in the dim light. “Citizen Fordyce Kennedy.”
    â€œMy father,” she said simply.
    â€œAnd you are  . . . ?”
    She looked at me blankly for a couple of seconds then smiled, this time with a hint of mockery. “I’m his daughter.” She hesitated then shrugged. “Agnes is my name.”
    â€œRight,” I said. “So is he in?”
    â€œOf course he isn’t in,” she said, her voice hardening. “That’s why we called you.” She leaned forward on the balls of her feet and examined my clothes. I breathed in a chemical smell from her. “You are from the guard, aren’t you?” Then she turned her eyes on to Davie’s uniform. “I can see the big man is.”
    Something about the way she spoke the last words made Davie, who’s never been reticent with women, look away uncomfortably.
    â€œI’m Dalrymple, special