The Blood Tree by Paul Johnston Read Free Book Online

guardsman. “I never imagined you were a devotee of Keats, Dalrymple.”
    â€œKeats was the original blues poet, Lewis,” I said as we entered the granite building. “If he’d grown up in the American South in the first half of the last century, he’d have taken Robert Johnson to the cleaners, believe me.”
    â€œReally?” the guardian said, his mind already elsewhere. He led me up to his rooms on the second floor and gave the grey-suited female auxiliary in the outer office strict instructions to allow no one in. In his sanctum, he stood beside the conference table with his hands on his hips. “Right, let’s see what we’ve got.”
    â€œHold on,” I said, putting the folder down carefully and reaching into my pocket for my gloves. “We’ve got to check for any other traces.” I looked at the guardian. He was strangely nervous, he had been ever since I found the file. Did he know something I didn’t? I took the dark blue cardboard object out and ran my eyes over it again. Apart from the bloodstain I’d noticed in the archive, I couldn’t see any other residual evidence on the outside. Then something else struck me. “What about Davie?” I asked. “You told your secretary not to let anyone in.”
    â€œHume 253 does not need to be involved in this part of the investigation, Dalrymple,” the guardian said in a leaden voice. “Proceed.”
    I thought about insisting on Davie’s presence, but I knew that when Hamilton made his mind up only acts of god – or whatever the atheist Council describes them as – could deflect him. So I bent over the file and took a final look at the cover. It revealed nothing apart from the Scottish Parliament logo and crest, the “Guardian Eyes Only” stamp that had been applied later, and a laser-printed reference line – GEC/02/04/ATTS1–2.
    â€œDo you know what that means?” Hamilton asked. Something about the tone of his voice gave me the impression that he did.
    â€œI don’t know what the ‘G’ and the ‘E’ stand for,” I said, scratching the stubble on my chin. “But I’d guess the ‘C’ is committee.”
    The guardian nodded noncommittally.
    I scrabbled around in the recesses of my memory. I hadn’t seen any Scottish Parliament documents since the early years of the Enlightenment, before the Council locked them all up. A few shards of archival data came back to me.
    â€œThey used to record the year first then the month, didn’t they?” I said. “So this dates from April 2002.” I shook my head. “Bad time to be a member of the Scottish Parliament.” Rioting had begun to tear the country apart by then.
    â€œBad time to be a Scottish citizen,” Hamilton said darkly. “Go on.”
    I looked back at the reference line. “The last bit is presumably Attachments Numbers One and Two.”
    The guardian nodded. “That was how the abbreviations worked, yes.” His eyes were fixed on the folder now, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
    â€œAre you familiar with the contents of this file, Lewis?” I asked, moving closer to him. “Because if you are, you’d better tell me now.”
    He shook his head slowly. “No, I’m not. At least not in detail.” He glanced up and saw the suspicious look on my face. “Any more ideas about the letters ‘GE’?” he asked.
    â€œGeneral Excuses?” I suggested. “Now there’s an idea for the Council.”
    â€œNo,” he said, his voice suddenly less assured. “GEC was the parliamentary committee which regulated genetic engineering.”

Chapter Three

    I poured the last of the coffee into my cup. Lewis had ordered it at three a.m. and gone to the door himself to take the tray – he wasn’t letting anyone else even catch a glimpse of the files that were lying