The outskirts of Edinburgh came into view like a medieval city morphing into a modern one. But it was an incomplete transformation that left the ghost of six centuries lying between the steel and glass in faded colors of stone and brick.
Sanguineus abandoned A1 at the Meadowlark soccer field in favor of Queen's Drive through the park, past a loch glimmering cheerfully in the sun, the remnants of an ancient monastery watching them with dead dark eyes, and on to Holyrood Gait.
He was taking the short way to Stone Bridge Road that angled down to Nicolson Street, to the Scoopz ice cream parlor that Tanya mentioned at every other breath. It was her means of keeping her anger under control.
She had not stopped talking about Anthony D'Arc. Sanguineus at first thought it was cathartic for her to get it off her chest. But as the asphalted miles swept under the Dart he began to see that, far from seeking a happy medium for her emotions, she was building up a reservoir of cold blood.
Sanguineus had to keep his mind on the road now that the traffic congestion of the city was rising up to them like a flood, so he did not try to register everything about D'Arc that Tanya growled at him when she wasn't snorting smoke out the passenger side window and extolling the wonders of caramel swirl.
Sanguineus had never encountered D'Arc in the flesh. He would have forgotten the name and the Vizconde episode entirely, had not Rolgo spoke to him at the Switzerland ski resort, not long ago, about D'Arc being one of the gunmen out to get him. [NOTE: this references the story 'Hell Hath A Sister.']
So far as Sanguineus knew, the French American, native to New Orleans, was still active in the French underworld, having blood ties to the Napolitano crime family. What little Sanguineus picked up from Tanya's blistering critique of the man led him to the conclusion that Anthony D'Arc had a private sideline. He was a sadist, the worst sort of malignant narcissist, who, if Tanya's ordeal was his M.O., abducted young women and systematically broke them to his will through psychological and physical torture. He did not have sex with them. Tanya guessed he was a neuter of sorts, whose sexual gratification came not from intercourse, but from the most fiendish inquisition.
"What has Valentina told you about him?" he asked, stopped at a traffic signal. "She hired us to pop him. I don't remember the reasons in writing, but she may have gone through something like your own experience. Has she talked to you about it?"
"No," Tanya said shortly. She squirmed in her seat. "I can hardly believe what you've said about her. It doesn't sound like her at all. And how would D'Arc ever come across a Scottish lass when his little world is in southern Europe? I met him through that fucker Benz, in Paris, after the Whitestone shit. He must've tracked my movements."
"To Scotland," Sanguineus said pointedly, cruising down Stone Bridge, glancing at her cold stiff profile, "where we must assume Valentina was. Since she knew him from a number of years earlier, when she wanted him dead, he might have looked her up to get even, before abducting you. Where, here? In the city?"
Tanya exploded. "In the goddamn motherfucking Parliament building! In a goddamn motherfucking secret room, and don't laugh you bastard, I've got PROOF of it! Goddammit, shit, ha... fuck...where's that ice cream shop... ?"
It was 1pm when Sanguineus came to the Presbyterian College, parking in a visitor stall in front of the administration building. The sky had cleared and the sun felt hot.
He had dropped Tanya off at his room in the Holyrood, where he called room service and ordered a big heaping helping of haggis, with cheese and tatties, and a bottle of barley wine.
He had said, "I'll explain the hit when I get back, but let me ask you, do you know a Professor Maggie Donegal?"
Tanya gaped at him. "What, you're killing her?"
"Relax. She's the client. The target is another professor. Gerard MacGalt... Hello? Are you all right?"
She had pulled off her sweater, but before she could pull her arms out from the sleeves she sat down heavily in the desk chair, looking up at him and at his pondering smile.
He said to her, "That night in Central Park you said you were afraid of everything except me. You're not an assassin anymore, with a clear eye and a steady aim. Now you're a confused young woman."
"I'm not confused," she responded listlessly, slumping her shoulders, her sweater a bulky wad on her lap. "I just see life a different way now. A little scary now, maybe."
"I give you six months, and then you'll be pounding on Red Rum's door. You've got a bug that you picked up on your escape from... a secret dungeon in the Scottish parliament, or whatever. And maybe your bug's contagious, because I feel a need to know why the client wants MacGalt dead, who by all accounts is a swell guy. Would you agree?"
Tanya shrugged, picking at the fuzz on the sweater's collar. "I won't be much help to you this time around. I've got my head full of madness. I'm afraid it's an uncontrollable madness. And that ain't good, is it?"
She smiled up at him. "Take me to bed tonight. Maybe that'll vaccinate me or something."
"How well do you know the client and the target?"
"Pffft. You're the most romantic of bastards. Well, Donegal was my architectural teacher. I know MacGalt by sight, and reputation, but that's it."
"When did you last see Valentina Vizconde?"
"Fuck... Years ago."
Sanguineus did not linger. He felt that Tanya needed some time alone in a comfortable and safe environment, a long hot bath, a nice meal, an amusing flick on the plasma screen in the corner, and a slightly drunken sleep.
He went into the admin office, to the desk beneath a sign that said 'Visitors.'
Three minutes later he left with the disappointing knowledge that Maggie Donegal had the day off. Was it probable that Estelle would know where The Soothsayer's client was likely to be on her holiday?
Valentina came to the college plaza through the spruce grove that divided the Mind Science department from the Arts Center. She was carrying her trench coat over a shoulder and walking with a spring in her step.
There was a contented smile on her face that was not adversely affected by the surprising sight of an assassin unlocking his car in the admin parking lot.
She watched him get behind the wheel as her store of memories brought up the series of photos that Francois Benz had shown her at their table at the Palais Maillot dance club in Paris, months earlier, a lifetime ago.
"Have you ever seen this man?" he had asked her, the red candle jar dyeing his pudgy face a devilish color while the crowded room burst in silent spectrums and the band on stage screamed for her attention.
"No," she had said, feigning a polite sorrow. "But if I ever do..."
"I would not wish that on you," Benz remarked, "la femme, ah, la femme."
He took her hand, raised it to his plump lips and kissed it. "My dear Tanya."
Valentina's smile hung in the air like the Cheshire Cat's when she walked off across the plaza, to the offices, to call a shuttle bus.
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