Snow Storm

by Robert Parker

  Surely Edwards should have known that, mentioned it in the passing, or maybe he didn’t do small talk unless he had something to gain.

  Were they having another go at cornering the market in the capital? If so they were doing a grand job of flying under the radar. If they chopped up the Russian and then lost one of their own they were certainly making waves. So why hadn’t someone noticed? And now this was blowing up he had a suspicion he hadn’t seen the last of Edwards. Word had a habit of getting around.

  He opened his laptop and googled Russian prison tattoos. He should perhaps have googled Lithuanian prison tattoos but preferred to rely instead on the inherent albeit unknowing bigotry of the internet community. Wikipedia had its own thoughts on the matter, which its collective consciousness had seen fit to lump in with other tattoos, but it was a starter for ten. He scrolled down the list taking a look at the photos he’d sent through to his home email account. He didn’t particularly like viewing images of bloated former jailbirds and close ups of their warped tattoos in his living room. This was supposed to be a sanctuary, a bit of a bolt hole away from all this but needs must. Hell mend him if Rachel found out. He’d already had the lecture about protecting the baby from all this and not bringing his work home. That was probably the least of the kid’s worries with a father like him.

  The epaulette, the stars on his knees, the crucifix on his chest, the church with the onion domes, and the dagger in his neck and the drops of blood falling from it, they all meant something.

  But maybe the most telling of all were the two eyes concealed below the roll of flab hanging over where his waistline had once time been.

  All was not what it seemed with Oleg Karpov.

  ********************

  Giles hated fast driving, always had since a drunken accident with his father when he was twelve. He didn’t tolerate it from friends, family or business associates and especially not Sophie, his pseudo girlfriend, who had all the deft perception of a mole and worse coordination. She claimed the shouting made her worse, but he felt it was character building. It was the way his father had built him up.

  On this occasion he was rather enjoying being hurled around the back seat of the Ford S-Max as it accelerated, braked and was thrown into corners this way and that. Trust; that was the thing. You trusted hired, what was the word, mercenaries? Henchmen? He liked the idea of henchmen. Whatever, you trusted the fact they had certificates in shooting people in the face while being kicked in the legs, surviving ambushes and driving at the limit. It was entertaining watching a professional at work. Perhaps most of all this was because it was at his bidding. He was effectively running the show right now. He was capo-di-tutti-capo as the Italians would say, boss of all bosses. Admittedly this wouldn’t be for long, depending on how good he was at his job, and he was good at his job, but for now he had the wheel.

  Law, he reflected, had been a good choice; another good decision in a long line. Some may say it was easy when you had a head start in life but he’d happily counter that it did in fact largely come down to breeding. He was a subscriber to the theory of genetic memory and so in a roundabout way, he felt he should congratulate himself all the more. Not that he had blind faith in his abilities. That would be a tad remiss but a realistic belief in ones innate abilities and intellectual superiority in most situations wasn’t too much in the way of confidence.

  Looking at the two knuckleheads in the front he had to admit he’d be unlikely to last long if the clock suddenly went back to zero and they were all cavemen again. Physically they could undoubtedly wield a club with more finesse than he’d manage if it came down to it. He’d even concede that given such re-allotment of historical period he’d probably wind up being their bitch but then he’d probably also discover fire or the secret thereof thus turning the tables. His genes had lasted this long and it wasn’t for nothing. The ancestors must have had something going for them and now, at the turn of this new millennium, his genes were having their time. They were the master race. Love it or hate it, these Neanderthals had more or less had their time. Still, they were here to do his bidding. That was the crucial thing. He was in charge and the power was something.

  The booze was taking its time in wearing off and he knew he would have to sober up quickly. They sped down the track to the airfield. A small twin-engine Cessna was visible on the left, its navigation lights on, ready for the off, as they headed for the gate to the complex. He wasn’t fond of being in the actual buildings themselves. It brought everything home a bit too much, sent a shiver down the spine. Not that he was directly involved normally. He liked to keep a safe distance.

  As they entered the main gate, he thought better of it. “The plane’s over there. I’ll walk,” he said willing them to stop the car.

  From his position in the passenger seat, Alexei turned round, his menacing bulk intensified by a lack of hair. “There’s something else,” he said and Giles realised he was having problems with his T’s, and that he was now missing some of his front teeth, at least two, but he didn’t like to count too obviously.

  “Yes?” Giles replied in a tone reminding the goon who was in charge.

  The driver eyed Giles in the mirror with a look of trepidation. “We have a bit of a situation you might say.”

  18

  Burke sat at his desk, enjoying -if he could be enjoying anything this week- an early morning stare. There wasn’t much to look at through the window, only a wall in fact, but there was a certain joy to be had in just defocusing the eyes and letting them do whatever the hell they wanted.

  It had been an eventful evening’s work and he had a good few nuggets of info to dispense to the team at this morning’s briefing. He could also pass some of this on to Gray. He was probably overdue for a good ear bending session about how much pressure the boss was under. At times Burke wished he was more the old school shouty superior officer, rather than one who like to nag and appeal to your better nature. His first headmaster had been a shouter and admittedly he got results, whereas his secondary head had been one of these modern types, and truth be told, merely got on everyone’s tits. It was hard to respect anyone who regularly told you about the hard time they were getting and that they hoped you would live up to the faith they’d put in you with doe eyes.

  He stared at the frost patterns on his window, the one no one had wanted so he’d accepted. Anything for a quiet life really. Not that he’d had much choice in the matter, he’d been the new boy when they were rearranging.

  And now they were rearranging again. Lothian and Borders Police was to become just a small cog in the larger machine called Police Scotland, rebranding, repackaging, consolidating power in one place. A government intent on independence and decentralisation of power centralising the police force and fire brigade. Decentralisation was all well and good, as long as it was flowing your way he supposed. Now there was a bit if nervousness about the whole place, people jostled for position, not wanting to get left behind, wanting to be part of this brave new world. Redundancies would follow he supposed, cuts in the smaller areas people didn’t think about. Now all the village bobbys were gone and the local cop shops were just cheap property for investors and first time buyers. No more knowing the name of your local beat cop. Not that he was a Luddite, he had no desire to see things stay the same. There was always room for improvement, just there was always room for someone to fuck it up too.

  His phone went off with a volume that nearly emptied his coffee over his leg as the surprise made him squeeze the plastic cup.

  “Good morning James,” he heard the confident tones of Mike Edwards chime. “Good to see you’re up and on the case so to speak.”

  “Always,” Burke replied in a way that suggested the opposite. He wasn’t really in the mood for Edwards this early on. He’d only met the man once and his forced enthusiasm was starting to grate. “What can I do for you?” He asked envisaging several scenarios whereby he did various things to him with an axe.

  “Oh I’m sure you k
now what I’m after.”

  He was stumped. “I’d suggest a big bust relating to the drug trade,” he replied, nothing like giving a deliberately vague answer on the off chance people thought you might actually know what you are talking about.

  “You don’t have a clue do you?” Edwards concluded.

  “None at all,” he confirmed.

  There was a pause at the end of the line as Edwards clearly enjoying this to some degree. He seemed the type. Smug bastard. “Should you have the time to check in your custody suite, you will find that you have residing in one of your room, one Victor Andreyevich.”

  “Really?”

  “Indeed, I’ll pretend you don’t know who he is to refresh your memory. Lithuanian business man, interests in several firms around the globe, many of them shell companies, others encompassing mining, construction, property, and more problematic we believe, pharmaceuticals of the type not approved for prescriptions or over the counter sales.

  “I see, and yet he’s in our cells for?”

  Another pause. “Assault, breach of the peace, probably several counts of attempted murder when it comes down to it. He decided it might be rather fun to take his frustrations out on a pub full of Wednesday night revellers and finished up overdoing it slightly.”

  “I see,” Burke replied.

  “This is a golden opportunity James.”

  “Really? And how does this relate to me?”

  “Well, he does rather tie up with one, or two, or now I hear three corpses you’ve been looking into.”

  “Really,” Burke asked, knowing that this was probably the point where Edwards reminded him he owed him one.

  ********************

  Andy found it hard to breathe. He’d never been a panicker but he was making up for it now. The balled up socks or rag or whatever it was they’d stuck in his mouth wedged his jaw unnaturally open. Saliva gathered at the back of his throat, forcing him to swallow every two seconds and that was difficult when he felt like he would choke on the contents of his mouth every time.

  This wasn’t an aspect of hostage life they covered in the movies; the sheer terror regarding basic bodily functions or the fact that inevitably there were no toilet breaks in this game. He’d tried holding it in for so long but eventually given in after remembering a horror story about the contents of the bladder being able to back up into the kidneys.

  Now he knew what it would be like to be old. He’d tried laughing at this but it hadn’t helped on a practical level. It was always a source of embarrassment, remembering something funny in public and struggling to stop yourself smirking or laughing out loud in case people thought you were a nutter. That was something he was used to, having that sense of humour, but he’d happily trade the public beamer for the snort of laughter that ended with him trying not to choke on a pair of socks. Or whatever it was. He hoped to god they were clean socks, couldn’t cope with the thought that he might get some kind of foot rot in his mouth or that his breath would forever more smell like some other bugger’s rancid hoof. He’d seen something on the Discovery Channel about things like that happening, something about a Japanese guy picking his nails with a chicken bone, breaking the skin and then having to cope with smelling of poultry for the rest of his days. Not a good way to spend your time, though it occurred to him that it might be a good idea to try out on Davie if he ever got out of here. This made him laugh again until he thought he was going to be sick which stopped him in his tracks. In this situation, that would be the end.

  They’d come for him around three. Probably. Not that he was wearing a watch anymore. What he wouldn’t give for a Bond watch right now, one with a laser beam, or a retro turning timer that doubled as a circular saw, like in The Spy Who Loved Me. He’d heard their footsteps echoing round the building, heard wheels rolling along behind him. He’d tried to look round but couldn’t quite stretch far enough and had a feeling they wouldn’t like that anyway so he’d given up and waited. The wheels grew nearer, rattling along with their increasing hollow metallic sound until everything moved with a jerk as he heard the clang of metal hitting the pallet he was sitting on, followed by a pumping sound as he was lifted, then pulled backwards with a force almost certainly designed to wake him up. The pallet swung round violently and he realised he was on a pallet truck, a miniature forklift, like some meat delivery at a supermarket.

  There were three of them. The operator of the pallet truck was the toothless one, who now stood, arms folded, in front of him, grinning regardless of the aesthetic this created. Another taller guy stood on the far left, standing at ease in the same way they’d taught Andy to in the Boy’s Brigade. He got the impression that wasn’t where this guy had learned it though, as he stood there with a puffed up chest, staring down the length of a broken nose and raised chin in Andy’s general direction. His eyes bulged out of his skull making him look fit to burst with ‘roid rage.

  These two were evidently just the goons. The big chief, or in this case emaciated looking chief, stood in the middle, head back in the style of goon number two, but more in a misguided attempt at posturing. Suited and booted to the max, this didn’t look like the manager of a livestock feed store. The hair alone probably had to be maintained on an hourly basis, just to keep the right air of importance. His eyes were nervous and red. He had the myxomatosis look usually displayed by the hung over. He looked around, unsure of himself for a few seconds, before looking Andy squarely in the eye, confidence replenished from somewhere. “So you’ve been sneaking around have you?” he asked, obviously attempting to make some kind of matey small talk or just buy enough time to think of something more to the point, considering they all knew the answer to that one anyway.

  “Yes,” Andy replied, wondering as he did if this boy was actually wanting an answer but at the same time realising too late that he’d said it like it was a question and finished up sounding sarcastic. He was happy with that but they definitely weren’t. The next sound he made was a squeal, as he felt the dull thud, followed by the sharp pain of an assault rifle hitting the side of his head. He’d only ever heard a dog make that sound; a sort of unconcealed helpless anguish when he’d accidentally trapped its paw in a door.

  He felt a tear roll down his left cheek as the anger and frustration came to the surface and he couldn’t help but look at his interrogator with a defiant sneer he knew he would come to regret as he bit his own tongue.

  The man looked to the floor, refusing to make eye contact and at the same time enjoying his captive’s discomfort. Perhaps he was composing his next brilliant question. “Any particular reason?” he eventually asked.

  “No,” Andy replied, “Seemed like a laugh, that’s all.”

  “Seemed like a laugh, that’s all?” he parroted. “You don’t seem to be laughing now do you?” The man looked at his two companions. Toothless boy wouldn’t return his gaze. In a way it was like being in the headmaster’s office, taking a bollocking and knowing that you weren’t entirely to blame but at the same time, dobbing in the school psychopath wasn’t going to do anyone any favours.

  Andy looked away as far as his head and eyeball mobility would allow, to the fertiliser bags piled high against the far wall. He wondered why they should need to stock quite that much of the stuff this time of year.

  “What do you know?” the suit demanded.

  “About what?” he replied, genuinely stumped and a little curious.

  This was the wrong answer again. The man nodded to goon number two who rewarded Andy with another blow to the side of his head for his trouble. He felt his pulse quicken and a pounding sensation, no doubt where his eardrum was. Something warm trickled down his neck and he tasted salt water again. He realised now that he may have thought it on occasion, but in reality, until this point, he’d never truly known hate.

  “I’m asking the questions,” the suit replied, trying to convey an air of calm and control but succeeding in giving off the exact opposite.

  “I don’t know what you mean or what
you want from me,” Andy spluttered.

  Again the crack of an AK47 butt against the side of his head.

  “Oh I think you know something,” the man replied.

  “I know it all looks a bit fucking suspicious,” he growled back, spitting tears as he did. “I know this isn’t a good way to keep your customers happy and I know you’re gonna get yours you wee prick.”

  With that, the suit laughed, shrugged to his goons and tilted his head towards Andy in a theatrical motion before walking away. The next thing he knew he was waking up where he now found himself, trying not to gag.

  He caught something moving in the peripheral vision on his right side and his heart lurched into his mouth as he realised he was not alone. He jumped again as something began to touch him on the damaged side of his head.

  He relaxed as he realised it was a gentle hand, before losing consciousness again.

  19

  “Interview room three, Thursday December thirteenth, two thousand twelve,” Edwards began, speaking into the tape recorder. Burke cringed and hoped it was noticed. He hated it when people pronounced things in an American way, clearly believing themselves to be in a film.