Snow Burn: A thrilling detective mystery

by PT Reade

  I felt one of the sets of hands leave my shoulders as the guard went back the way he had come. He was replaced by the barrel of a machine gun pointed directly at my chest as armed Police swarmed the rooftop.

  THIRTEEN

  A moment of clarity.

  After about four hours of serious questioning by Police, Security, and two men I suspected were MI5, I was suddenly released sans firearm. I guess they’d believed my story, even the parts I wasn’t sure I believed myself.

  The snow had now reduced to a gentle evening sprinkle, although the ground held about two feet of powder, turning streets and walkways treacherous.

  Following a message from Remay, I made my way back to the coroner’s office, needing to voice some of what had just happened to see if it seemed as insane to anyone else as it did to me. Apparently the blizzard had silenced the morgue too. The place wasn’t exactly Grand Central station at the best of times, but now there wasn’t a single soul to be seen. Even big Gus had apparently gone home early.

  I made my way through hollow hallways and deserted offices, only stopping at a coffee machine in an effort to chase away the chill that had seemed to sink into me since the events at the top of the Parliament building.

  When I found it, Remay’s office was tiny and little more than a small corner desk, separated from the rest of the building by a scratched glass partition. I rounded the corner, expecting to find Nicole typing up notes or her face buried in an unintelligible medical text book, but the area was empty. I scanned around, wondering if she’d gone for a smoke, then I spotted a hand scrawled note pinned under her keyboard.

  “On the roof”

  It was curt, but the message was clear, and I suspected she’d found a new place to indulge her unhealthy habit. With brew in hand, I headed to the roof for the second time that day, hoping it would end better this time.

  ***

  I emerged from the service door, clutching my Styrofoam prize and carefully watched my footing as I trudged through crisp powder to the figure near the edge. Remay stood with her back to me, silhouetted against the vista, arms folded.

  “Surprise.” She said without looking around.

  I looked out across the cityscape, seeing what she meant. For the first time since I’d arrived in the country I saw, for the briefest of moments, a scene of beauty. As I stood on the rooftop, all of London was laid bare before me, a breathtaking grey and white panorama. A few shafts of moonlight speared through thinning clouds and illuminated the glistening capital, while somewhere below the raucous sounds of Christmas music and laughter could be heard rolling out of a pub.

  Life, death, and politics. I mused. None of it mattered to the people down there. Drunk, warm, content. It sounded like heaven.

  After a moment I moved to stand beside Remay. She gazed out across the dazzling view, absently chewing on a lollipop. Her lab coat fluttered in the cold air.

  “Hey Kojak,” I said.

  “Who?” – She replied, glancing sideways.

  “Never mind,” I said, deciding that the effort required explaining the reference would be wasted. “So, does it help with the smoking?” I asked, nodding at the stick rolling around her lips.

  “I’m not sure yet. But my dentist bills are going up.” She quipped.

  I chuckled and took a sip of steaming coffee as we discussed the events.

  “So,” Remay said, “Hargrave all but confessed to the fact that she was working for someone else huh?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You think there’s any chance that the guards heard her say it before they got to you?”

  “Doubtful,” I said. “And if they did, no one said anything about it. They seemed shocked when I told them what Hargrave told me.”

  “So walk me through it,” Remay said. She sounded like a student wanting to learn the lesson as she stood surveying the view.

  “Well, if all of my dots line up — and I think they do — it’s simple. Gremlin stumbled across the video of Ashburn by pure dumb luck. He’d probably hacked hundreds of people, lifting bank details and passwords, but when he found the contents of this one, he figured he’d hit payday. Problem is, the poor kid had no idea that he had lifted the video from some seriously pissed-off and well-connected characters, and they needed it back. So to plug the leak, they took out Gremlin at the club.”

  “Like who, the mafia?” Remay looked puzzled.

  “Mobsters, organized gangs, maybe one of the eastern European Cartels. Hard to say. London is full of lovely people. Whoever they are, they were using Hargrave on the inside to put the squeeze on Ashburn.”

  “And,” Remay said, “If Hargrave was in on it, too, that would explain the car with government plates shooting at you.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “But no one counted on Ashburn’s sudden crisis of conscience. When he saw the leak and told Hargrave of his plan to come clean about all his dirty deals, it screwed up everyone’s plans. The video no longer mattered. The cartel couldn’t risk exposure so they tied things up the only way they know how. By taking Ashburn out.”

  “So, they had Hargrave deal with him and make it look like a bad overdose.”

  “Bingo,” I replied.

  “It does seem pretty simple,” Remay said. “Of course, you know as well as I do that something that goes this deep into Parliament likely won’t get a proper investigation. And even if it does, it won’t be made public.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m assuming. It’s like a sick joke. The only guy who tried to come clean in this whole mess ended up dead. I bet the other MP’s are already jockeying for his job.”

  “A politician is to be judged by the animosities that he excites among his opponents.” Remay looked distant as she spoke the words.

  I didn’t recognize the quote, but it was certainly fitting.

  “So who hired you in the first place?”

  “I don’t know. Chances are I’ll never find out either. Maybe Ashburn wanted the video back so he could come clean and release it himself, or maybe Hargrave wanted her leverage back. There’s no way I can ask either now. One lead dead, another took her secrets to the bottom of the river.”

  “Either way, Blume, this is another pretty big victory for you,” Remay said with that off-kilter smile of hers.

  “How so?”

  She crunched the last of her lollipop before dropping the stick on the roof. “I hear that Stoyanov character you left hanging in that warehouse spilled it all to the police. Broke down like a baby and confessed to a bunch of stuff they didn’t even know about. His involvement with several unsolved cases makes that a huge bust for them. And they wouldn’t have gotten him if you hadn’t placed that call.”

  Yeah, I’m a real hero. I thought, sarcastically.

  I tried to let this left my spirits, but I kept seeing Victoria Hargrave dropping through the air towards the Thames. Then nothing. It was haunting.

  “Good for them, then,” I said flatly.

  Remay turned toward me, and I again saw that softer expression in her eyes.

  “Hey, I’ve got something for you.” With that she pulled a manila file from under her coat and handed it to me. Before she even said anything, I knew what it was. It called to me, dangerous and promising all at once.

  The file on my family.

  “This is my end of the bargain,” she said. “There are several classified documents in there, including the original coroner’s report on your family. Unedited.”

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching out and tucking the folder under my arm. It took every ounce of will I had not to tear open the folder and go through it all right there in front of Remay. We stood for a moment before she finally seemed to notice my formal garb. I was still dressed in the dark suit and smart clothing from earlier. Not having had time to change.

  “You scrub up OK,” She remarked with a raised eyebrow.

  “OK for a washed up alcoholic with major anger management issues, maybe.”
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  “Ha, I’m serious.” She teased. “Plenty of single women could go for the rugged American in a suit. If you dressed like that every day you could be quite the heartbreaker. Much older hearts anyway.” She said with a grin.

  “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” I joked dryly. I knew there was an invitation hidden behind her humor. But I wasn’t ready to go down that road, not with the fate of my wife and son now resting in my hands.

  Motion caught my attention at the edge of vision. A Union Jack languidly flapped against its flagpole on the adjacent building, a reminder of ancient conquest and glory days passed. The journey of the British Empire. It seemed a strangely poignant reminder of my own journey.

  “I’m not a good man, Nicole,” I finally spoke. “Since my family…I’m barely a shadow of who I used to be. Lately, I don’t know, I’ve been in a dark place. I’ve done things I never thought possible.”

  The words hung in the air. We stood there then for a few minutes in silence, both unsure what to say. Just the whisper of winter winds and the occasional snowflake fluttering earthward. Remay finally spoke quietly as she reached into her jacket. “Well, we all have our demons, I guess.” She deftly pulled a cigarette from her pocket and placed it to her lips.

  “Yeah,” I said, as I looked across the city. I brought my hip flask up from under my coat and tipped a generous amount into my coffee. “We do.”

  EPILOGUE

  An hour and a half later, Amir stood alone in the dim evening light of his bedroom. His eyes were bloodshot, and he felt the weight of the device in his hand. Finally he punched in the numbers and put it to his ear. It rang only once. The man on the other end had been expecting his call.

  “Mazra?” the man said.

  “Yes, it’s me.” Amir replied flatly.

  “Any news?”

  “Blume left the coroner’s office about an hour and a half ago. I tailed him back to his apartment and from what I can tell, he’s asleep.”

  “Good.”

  “Is there anything else you need from me?” Amir asked.

  There was a pause, and then the man responded with a velvety malice that was almost serene in its subtly. “Amir, my good man… I’m pleased to say that my promotion to Home Secretary is imminent now, and as of fifteen minutes ago, this whole unfortunate distraction with Ashburn’s death has been buried. The investigation will stall and then disappear into the vast Parliament records as another tragically unsolved mystery, like so many before it. I made all of that happen with two phone calls that took less time than my dinner. You do understand where I’m going with this, yes?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hyde.”

  “That’s Lord Hyde for your information, and I will not tolerate failure again”.

  The line was quiet for a moment, and Amir wondered if his puppet master expected him to speak or remain silent. Finally the man spoke.

  “Lord Gordon Hyde, Home Secretary,” The man said thoughtfully. “It sounds as if it was meant to be, don’t you think? Rolls right off the tongue. Anyway, Amir, I say these things not through hubris, I am beyond such things, but to wake you up. I was able to bury this scandal in under ten minutes. Yet you seem to be having a lot of trouble containing one washed-up detective.”

  “I did my best to work on him,” Amir said. “But with Blume, it’s not so easy. You have to be careful. If I tried any sort of trick, he’d be on to it. He’s smart.”

  “He’s a fly in the ointment, that’s what he is,” Hyde said. “Mr. Mazra…I paid you to derail Blume. The case with that freak Billy Bennett a few months ago…that couldn’t be helped. Blind luck. But what did you do to prevent him from digging deeper into this Ashburn case?”

  “I tried, Sir. I just didn’t know how important it was until it was too late.”

  “This is Strike One for you. I had plans for Blume, and I am paying you a generous sum to keep him out of my affairs. But since you can’t seem to do that, maybe I just need to save myself the time and money and just have him…well, taken care of.”

  “Sir, I don’t think—,”

  “It’s too late,” Hyde said. “You see, I’ve already set it in motion. You have proven that you can’t stop him. Maybe he is smart, but so was Ashburn. And now look where he is.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In the meantime, make sure Blume sticks to what he’s good at; being a drunk deadbeat. I may call on you again in the coming days,” Hyde said. “Keep your schedule open.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Hyde hung up the phone without a goodbye, leaving Amir listening to the silence of a dead line. Fury flowed through him. Anger and frustration for being used. Self-hatred for deceiving a friend.

  He eventually powered down the phone, took a deep breath, and stared out of his window across the horizon to the coming night. From elsewhere in the house, he heard his family milling about. Showers turning on, squabbles in the kitchen, a kettle boiling; the sounds of life.

  Where did it all go so wrong?

  Looking out across the snow-muted city, he thought of his friend and wondered where, along the course of the last year or so, had he allowed things to get so serious with Hyde? He needed the money, sure…but was he really willing to be a cog in the machine that might kill Thomas Blume? Could he betray the man to whom he owed so much?

  He wasn’t sure.

  And that’s what frightened him the most.

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  COPYRIGHT

  This publication (and any by this author) may not be copied or reproduced in any format, by any means - electronic or otherwise - without prior consent from the copyright owner or publisher.

  All content Copyright © P.T. Reade 2016

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.