It was a face Andy had seen pull only once before, and that had ended in tears.
8
The offices of the SCDEA were hardly in the most salubrious of locations. Opposite a branch of a car rental firm, they looked like an up-to-date version of Gayfield Square; a testament to the architect’s lack of imagination or the lack of available options maybe.
They announced their arrival at the front desk and waited. The waiting must have been Edwards making a point. It went on for about ten minutes while Burke checked his phone messages and Facebook updates, eyed some managerial looking portraits of senior officers in the lobby and finally settled on looking at a pamphlet for Crime Stoppers.
It was DC Wilson who finally arrived, looking gregarious as ever. She escorted them to the lift where they made way up to the second floor. The office had a constant hum about it, the noise of activity, several brains processing information; analysts and coppers engaged in a constant struggle to stay one step ahead, or probably more accurately no more than a step behind the criminal fraternity.
They made their way towards a glassed off room at the back of the office, eyed by a stressed looking figure in an office to the side Burke presumed was Edwards. The man spoke into his phone in an animated fashion, gesticulating redundantly with his right hand.
Wilson took coffee orders and went in search of some biscuits as they sat one end of a long conference table. A plasma screen complete with camera hung from the wall at one end of the room for conferencing. On the opposite wall a drop down screen was positioned to take projections from above their heads.
They could see Edwards as he made his way across the floor towards the conference room. He was tall, around 6’2, fair hair and looked as though he kept fit, probably mid 40s Burke thought. In stark contrast to himself, Edwards was what you might realistically expect a Detective Inspector to look like.
"I have to apologise for my lateness, duty calls and all that," he began, shaking Burke's hand with a grip which was surprisingly limp.
"Not at all," Burke lied, "we're grateful for your time," he lied again. “Nice offices.”
"Well, it keeps the rain off our heads," Edwards replied, "But I'm sure you didn't come here to appreciate the interior architecture."
"No, quite right," Burke confirmed. "Thought it'd be a good idea to call in person, seeing as I was through here anyway." Lie number three.
"Good, well I'm glad you could fit us in," Edwards grunted, through gritted whitened gnashers.
"Likewise."
"Obviously, this has caused a bit of a stir."
"Really?"
Edwards raised his eyebrows in a way that clearly said sarcy bastard. "Really."
Burke lowered his in a way that clearly communicated mock empathy, with just the right amount of ha ha fuck you thrown in for good measure. "Well I'm sure we all want to inconvenience each other as little as possible. So what have you got for us?"
"I'd like to say not a lot. It would mean we hadn't wasted hundreds of man-hours on this only for it to go straight down the swanny."
Burke noted the way he used the expression. There was a hint of the wrong vowel in the way he tailed off with the Y; suggested Edwards was not a man predisposed to using such expressions, would rarely do so socially and probably only did here in a misguided attempt to buy himself some kind of social currency. Not Paisley boy then, or at least not educated here.
"I'd appreciate it if you’d take care of this. I can't afford any more expensive losses."
"Of course." Burke replied.
"Good." Edwards said, in the manner of a teacher who has just reprimanded a slightly disruptive pupil. "So, Vlad the Inhaler, AKA Vladimir Petrovsky." He passed them a single paper copy of Vlad’s rap sheet. If it was possible, he looked even more unhealthy with the body attached, going on the evidence of his mug shots. Edwards fired up the projector and hooked in his laptop as Burke and DC Jones leafed through the deceased’s rap sheet and MO. Burke had accessed this already. That was the easy bit, a matter of public or at least police record and so readily available on the database. Edwards ran through the rap sheet as he flicked through the file the projector. Vlad’s bloodhound face looked down at them from the stat covered screen, like the world's most unlikely sportsman.
"He's been on our radar for the past ten years, which is when he appeared in the country. Lithuanian national, did some serious time back home after running a crew of thieving scumbags and trying to pull off a daring armed robbery. Who'd have thought there was anything worth robbing in the former Eastern Bloc? Turns out someone was storing diamonds in Vilnius. More fool them. Seems our boy got wind of it. Anyway, he went away for five years, got involved with a bad crowd, or maybe just a worse crowd. Know anything about Russian prison gangs Burke?" He asked this in a way that suggested it was a challenge.
"Not especially. Thought you said he was Lithuanian?"
"Okay, former Soviet Union prison gangs then. He’s ethnic Russian, hence the name. You get the picture. He got involved with those boys before coming out with more fingers just itching to get into more pies than most men would be capable of. You name it, our boy was into it. As I say, he appeared on these sunny shores some ten years back, by way of London. It looks like some of the brotherhood were already fully installed there, but ever the opportunist, Vlad stepped on more than a few toes. They dispatched him to the great undiscovered northern frontier. He settled in like the parasite he is, flitting between the two cities until he got a proper foothold in the capital. He started up with some light people trafficking taking advantage of your fair city’s lenient attitude to saunas slash massage parlours to cash in on his..." He coughed and pantomime fashion, "imports, before throwing in some extras for his clientele, mainly coke. Then about five years ago he got all technological and discovered the merits of internet fraud. This is the latest information we have on his activities." Edwards opened an Excel spreadsheet. There were different tabs for each of Vlad’s income streams and the names of various contacts, phone numbers and addresses.
"Of course, he got the name due to his love of the hard stuff. He obviously got bored of snorting coke and took up smoking crack. And that's when things really went nuts. Around a year ago he seems to have cleaned up his act. Edwards pulled out a dongle like object and plugged it into the side of his laptop. He opened the visualisation program and dumped all the data from the spreadsheet into it. As it updated, they were presented with a selection of graphics, structures that looked like snowflakes forming. Names linked to names, linked to addresses, linked to crimes. Vlad's life in one continuous all-encompassing graphic; this was what they had come for.
9
Victor checked into the Balmoral, where, as previously planned, Sacha and Boris were waiting for his arrival. It was good to see his sons, though he was wary of showing this too much. Odd that being the product of a useless bastard father, he should then be so standoffish with them, packing them off to the west for an expensive education on the quiet. The wife had been upset of course, but what did she know of the lives of men. The distance would toughen them up, give them skills that would be useful when the time came. She would wrap them in cotton wool, safe from the outside world but this was not realistic. This was not how the business worked.
Things changed however. Business evolved and moved on. They were learning how to network; indeed it could be said were ready networking with their future peers, ready to move things to the next level when their chance arrived.
Sacha had run towards him when he entered the suite, throwing his arms round him. Victor had patted the boy on the head. He wore his heart on his sleeve, the younger of his two sons. Boris was more composed, accepted his father’s hand with a manly grip and a confident expression. The west agreed with both. They had filled out with good food but kept trim on the rugby pitch.
“So what’s new boys?” he asked, unable to find a suitable opener. That was always a source of some awkwardness. They were, when all was said and done, from diffe
rent backgrounds, different worlds. At Boris’s age he had been in the gulag, working on some networking of his own. He was not well fed and did not look like a rugby player, or for that matter know what the game was. The way things had been back then, he would probably have eaten a rugby player.
“I’ve started doing Italian and I made it into the first team at fullback.” Sacha began, as his father nodded his approval while watching Boris in his peripheral vision as he shrugged his shoulders and went back to doing something with that tablet they were all so interested in these days.
“… and if you mix hydrogen and oxygen in the correct amount you can make it explode with the mother of all bangs.” Sacha was saying now. It wasn’t that Victor had no interest in what his son was saying, more just that he was content to listen to the boy’s voice. It gave him the sensation all was well, with this part of his world at least. They were out of harm’s way. At least for now.
The rage was there again at this thought. He knew this could be channelled, could be the very thing that ensured the status quo remained, but that his thoughts must be marshalled in such a way that they did not overtake him.
They ordered dinner and the boys watched the new Bond film on pay per view while he attempted to clear his mind of all obstructions. Soon this would all be resolved. And then, all being well it would all be his. All of it. Just keep one eye on the prize he told himself.
He looked again at the boys. They had no idea what they were to inherit.
********************
Sam Jones hadn’t really known what to expect through in Glasgow, at the hub of all things drug related. If she was honest, she hadn’t expected the home of the SCDEA to be quite such a hole in the ground. Maybe she’d expected too much, watched too many cop shows set in the good ole U S of A but a slightly more up market location and a building with a bit more presence wasn’t much to ask, was it? A carbuncle opposite a car hire depot on an industrial estate was hardly a shining beacon of law enforcement worthy of a forward thinking country was it?
To be fair, most of what she’d seen of Glasgow involved nights out in bars a sight trendier than the ones through in the Burgh, and Gayfield Square was a similar monstrosity. Glasgow did look a lot more city scape than Edinburgh but even so she hadn’t expected something straight off the set of Blade Runner which it turned out was just as well. It looked a lot like they’d taken over a contact centre. Hardly glamorous, which was a bit of a surprise considering the way these arseholes liked to strut about the place.
That Wilson one looked like someone had put vinegar in her coffee. Black, the small one with the big attitude needed a charisma transplant and Edwards, well, he was just sleaze incarnate. These two put Campbell to shame, although if ever anyone was deserving of a boot in the balls that one was. Ever since she’d given him the brush off at the Christmas night out it was like he was on a mission to expand the bounds of pedantry. Cock. She wondered if you could sue someone for sexual harassment on the grounds of looks and thought alone and then dismissed this idea as possibly a bit too 1984.
Edwards just seemed to take himself a level too seriously though. The way he ran his fingers through that clearly high-lit hair of his. He really did give her the dry boke.
She wasn’t sure how Burke remained so calm about the preening egos on display. Maybe he didn’t have much fight in him. Maybe he was just more of a middle manager than anything. He did look pretty pasty, spent too much time indoors you might say. Still, she’d have thought he’d have a little get up and go about him; all those stimulants he seemed to be on.
At first glance she’d put his age around 27-28. She’d been a bit dismissive of him when he introduced himself; thinking he was an overfamiliar colleague having a go at giving her the chat as soon as she walked through the door. The job could be a bit like that and she was fairly used to it anyway, mainly finding it annoying. It hadn’t helped that he’d introduced himself simply as Burke. It was two days before she figured out he was actually the boss, and only then because Campbell had gleefully filled her in while trying to introduce her to the more social side of the station as he put it. “Funny kettle of fish” was all he’d really been able to confide, before adding that “there were some rumours floating about” and changing the subject back to an offer of an after-hours drink in The Cask and Barrel. Again, she’d declined.
He drummed his hands on the wheel as they made their way down a slip road on to a mind numbingly gridlocked M8.
“Timing’s never been my strong point,” he told her, messing around with a radio that had now lost the station, struggling as it did with the difference between east and west coast. He gave up and chose the CD already in the machine instead, which sounded like Green Day on a rough day, before they’d sold out. “I don’t suppose you like stiff little fingers do you?”
“Sir?” was all she said in response.
“The band.” he replied, looking slightly alarmed.
“Oh.” she said, knowing full well. “No.”
He switched it off, looking slightly dejected. Maybe it was a dose of Seasonal Affective Disorder that made him this way. She was sure he hadn’t had those bags under his eyes six months ago.
“I suppose we should talk about the case then.”
“Yes sir.”
“Well?”
“Sir?”
“Every second word doesn’t have to be sir.” He said. “This isn’t Full Metal Jacket. What are your thoughts on the case so far? I’m genuinely interested. After all, detection is what I do, supposedly, when I’m not being condescended to of course. So feel free to enlighten me; do you for instance subscribe to the Campbell hypothesis, stating that all this is the result of a drug war raging between two rival scumbag factions? Oh screw it. I need to smoke this thing.” He began rummaging in the glove box while at the same time trying to keep the steering wheel steady. They didn’t teach that on the advanced driving course. He pulled out an e-cigarette and put it to his lips, inhaling and then breathing what looked like a huge sigh of relief, blowing water vapour against an already condensation covered window. “This isn’t an infringement of your human rights by the way. It’s perfectly legal.”
“Batter on.” She heard herself say.
“It’s just a tad embarrassing.” He confided. “Anyway, you were saying?”
“I was?”
“Well no, but you were about to be I’m sure. So what’s the story? Is Campbell right?”
“Honestly?”
He shrugged in response.
“I’d prefer you didn’t tell him this.”
“Goes without saying.”
“I do.”
Burke nodded his head slowly in what looked like contemplation, though for all she knew he could have been thinking nothing at all. Some people had mastered the art of merely looking thoughtful, much like her dad had mastered the art of looking as though he was listening when her mum rattled on about whatever DIY tasks she had in store for him on his holidays. “Assuming this is the case of course, it does imply that this might not exactly be the summit of the body pile.”
“True.” She agreed.
“In which case, I would imagine it’s only a matter of time before someone starts running a book on it.”
It was true. Campbell had already broached the subject this morning.
“What number should I put you down for?”
“I’d say another two anyway. Although, I’d prefer it didn’t happen.”
She nodded in agreement before remembering herself. These were, after all, human beings. It was far too easy to get caught up in looking at them as stats for clear up rates.
“Purely from a selfish point of view.” Burke admitted. “These sudden puddins are getting in the way of my day to day duties as defined by she who must be obeyed, AKA Mrs Burke.” He smiled. “Which reminds me, I’ve got to pick up a Christmas tree from Gorgie City Farm before I go home or there’ll be hell to pay. Anywhere I can drop you on the way?”
“Gorgie shou
ld be fine for me.”
“Really? Where are you headed anyway?”
“Marchmont. It’s a nice night for a walk.”
“If you sure.” He said. “Still living that student life eh?”
“I try.” She replied
It was dark by the time they pulled up on Gorgie Road and she hit the frosted pavement. It felt like the air was damper now, as though the cold would cling to you and sink into your bones.
She knew she was trapped in the student life, in a specific point in time, through her own choices.
10
Sudden puddin’ number three arrived or was discovered at least in a more timely fashion; conveniently around half nine as the office, if not Burke’s brain had already swung into action. At least this particular murderer had shown something like consideration. As it turned out it was the cleaner who had discovered the corpse of the former Oleg Karpov around an hour before CID got word of the situation. On arrival at work and being in possession of a spare key, she had found him in the hall or maybe more accurately all over the hall, such were the forces involved in the ballistics used by criminal elements these days. Presumably Mr Karpov’s assailant had disapproved of the more traditional paisley patterned décor and favoured a more Jackson Pollock inspired theme employing a natural palette.
He’d received the call in his office at least, far preferable to doing so while supposed to be in a state of slumber.
He’d despatched Campbell and Jones before leaving and they were already on scene, suited up along with the forensics team.
Burke donned a similar white overall and matching shoe covers and made his way across the Police line and up the driveway. His feet crunched on gravel, the reassuring sound of money.
Being on a corner afforded the house more room, its façade was imposing and slightly gothic in comparison to its neighbours which were more standard Georgian box style buildings.
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