Snow Storm

by Robert Parker

  “So, you wanted to know about Leon Williams?” he asked.

  “I do indeed,” she replied. “Obviously we got his name from University Hospitals Birmingham in relation to some reconstructive surgery he had done.”

  “Yes. Nasty business that,” Saville confirmed. “Don’t know the ins and outs of it myself if I’m totally honest. Can’t pretend I was out there in the thick of it so to speak, but by all accounts they were just going about their business. Routine journey and they had to stop for whatever reason. IED; that’s what got them. So often is of course.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, before realising she hadn’t a clue and only went by what she heard on the news. They could be battling wild turkeys for all she knew. It all depended on what the main stream media were fed or in some cases cared to divulge. “Not that I’d know,” she added swiftly, a slight twinge of guilt reflecting in her voice as she did.

  “You don’t want to either,” Saville said. “And really, nor do I. Not something I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with.”

  “Did you know Marine Williams, Captain Saville?” she asked, trying to move the conversation on before she put her foot in it again.

  “Not personally, no. Obviously I was aware of the incident when it happened. We’re a fairly tight unit. News does rather tend to travel fast and bad news really hits home when it comes.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Anyway, I’ve asked around and he does seem to have been very well liked. Apparently he did quite a lot to help those less fortunate than himself when he was a patient at UHB. Kept their morale up, that kind of thing. Not a talent to be underestimated I can tell you.”

  “Did he have any history of problems? Anything to do with drugs say?”

  “No, model of discipline as far as his record goes. That’s not to say he wasn’t involved with anything untoward. You can never really know what goes on off-base, but with random testing you’d have to be a bit of a fool. As far as I am aware though, he was a good egg both on and off-base.”

  “He didn’t leave under a cloud then?”

  “No, not at all. He was honourably discharged having done his service to Queen and country.”

  “Do you know where he went to next?”

  “I really couldn’t say but he certainly has family according to his record or he did five years ago. We’re sending his dental records. I suppose the hard part will be informing whoever he left behind, especially if he did go off the rails a bit.”

  “Yes well, all part and parcel of the job.”

  “I bet. Can’t be easy though. It can be very common as well, this sort of thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ex-servicemen losing their way somewhat, especially after the kind of things they can go through with modern warfare. You know we lost at least three men in that explosion? Another two badly injured, Williams and another chap who wasn’t quite so lucky, lost one leg just above the knee and the other just below. Not surprising some of our lads get PTSD. How are you supposed to readjust to normal life when you get a rude awakening to the fact that just sitting in a traffic jam can be the prelude to a bloody ambush? Part of one’s brain must always stay tuned in to that.”

  She thanked him for his time and he assured her that the dental, medical and any other relevant records would be with her shortly.

  Now all she had to do was tell Burke and hopefully manage to avoid the part where someone had to tell the family.

  ********************

  Simon Watson was not having a good day. In the dictionary definition of good day, assuming he slipped into a parallel universe where there were dictionaries that contained phrases, this would be the opposite of the definition, the anti-good day.

  First of all he was in here, surrounded by the joys of decay, disease and death. Maybe last night had been the tail end of the worst day and this was merely the aftermath, but it hadn’t started that way. They had been going for it, having handed in the final essay due before the Christmas holidays, one he’d spent literally ages on owing to the marks he’d received for that last one, presumably for contradicting that blasted hippy lecturer in a tutorial the week before. Bloody communist. Who was he to say he knew all about the ins and outs of Proust? He’d only tried to inject a bit of personality into the thing, and now he was getting a hard time for not giving a balanced enough viewpoint.

  Give it time, Simon would have a column in one of the broadsheets. They’d feel the full weight of his personality then. Where would the lecturer be when he was snorting his way round The Groucho Club of a Friday night? Fuck him. Jobsworth.

  The nurses weren’t much better. He’d thought he could at least while away some time by giving them some of his diamond chat, but real life, it seemed, was not like a carry-on film, even if one of the nurses was a dead ringer for Kenneth Williams.

  They’d been celebrating their arses off the previous afternoon. They’d all agreed to head to The Alexander Graham Bell to get some cheap Wetherspoons booze. He’d thrown up on arrival. He could remember that but everything else was a bit hazy. He remembered getting confused talking to a girl who said she was from Irvine but who he thought had said she was from Girvan, or was it the other way round?

  That was about the time the short chavy guy had started on Alistair. Had he done the gallant thing and stood in between them and the girl from Irvine? Was that why he was here? It seemed likely the more he thought about it, on the off chance she’d thought him chivalrous and wanted to take him home.

  Everything had escalated quickly after that. Punches were thrown and then the fat guy appeared, like some kind of Tasmanian devil, just whirling around, a ball of chaos catching everything in his path. He thought that was what had happened. He’d got sucked in by the gravity of that ball and now he was busy trying not to throw up or see everything in duplicate. Kenneth Williams had told him it would all be fine, before dishing out a breakfast that would have had most people checking out early possibly literally and metaphorically, regardless of their symptoms.

  When the suited and booted guy stood before him his task was much easier than expected. He introduced himself as Giles Herriot-Watt and at first Simon thought he must be taking the piss.

  26

  Jones put in a call to the Met. There was something inherently hard core sounding in the act, so much so that she had to resist telling anyone who would listen that was what she was about to do. It just sounded cool; like she was dealing with the big hitters, rather than simply making a call to London.

  Williams hadn’t been reported missing but his last known address had been in London. His record was surprisingly blank for a man supposedly involved in the drug game. Campbell’s theory was starting to look almost as thin as his hair, though she still found it curious that it all fitted together so well; the timing and the execution method as well as the seemingly tit for tat nature of Karpov’s demise following so soon. At least the fact that he was last known at his parents address in Dulwich meant that she wouldn’t have to break the bad news. That wasn’t conducive to a restful night’s sleep in her albeit limited experience.

  She got a call back from a DS Carter, who said he’d dispatched someone to tell the parents, who didn’t seem to think he’d been missing. As far as they’d been aware he was a civil servant and just worked a lot.

  Social media wasn’t being overly helpful either. He didn’t leave much of a footprint. No Linkedin profile, Facebook account, Twitter, Myspace or even Bebo, not that seemed to be for her Leon Williams anyway. There was an accountant, a key account manager (salesman), CEO (wannabe entrepreneur) and a film director (who for some reason appeared to be temporarily working as a data entry clerk these past five years.) Myspace revealed a musician, but one that was a bit too pasty faced and a bit too folky to be her Leon Williams.

  She could find no details on yell.com either. It seemed she was dealing with a ghost.

  “It all seems a bit spookish,” DS Carter said, having recounted the same information f
rom their end.

  “Surely you mean spooky.” Jones said.

  “Do I?” he asked.

  ********************

  Burke had almost given up. He was reaching the end of his rope on this one. The chances of Andreyevich falling on his knees and confessing to everything for the sake of any kind of deal ranged between slim and fuck all. Edwards had his eye on the bigger picture and that was only fair he supposed. If the guy wanted to head to a bigger hunting ground then he deserved a shot at it, if only for having the nerve to keep going in the face of what if he was honest looked like a case that was dead in the water.

  There was no way Andreyevich was giving anything up, on principle as much as anything. He could not be seen to be cooperating with authority, by his own conscience as much as anyone else. Whether through brainwashing or otherwise it was likely he’d fully embraced those principles in full. There was nothing half-arsed about him. He knew that now for sure. He’d needed something to convince him of the Lithuanian’s commitment to his chosen order, to silence the doubting voices in his own head and had gone to speak to him in the cells, have a heart to heart so to speak. The older man was not, it seemed up for playing ball.

  He had begun to wonder if Andreyevich in fact spoke any English other than the phase “no comment” but confirmed the opposite to be true when John McKay suggested as much in his own broad tones. The snarl from Andreyevich, the look of utter distaste and their ignorance of not only his own culture but his level of knowledge of others was barely suppressed.

  He’d brought the guy a coffee, even gone to Starbucks to get it as a peace offering. Maybe they could discuss things in a civilised way, like two grown men while Edwards was at this point ensconced in Burke’s office, where he continued to camp out with his two underlings and their various laptops. The place was starting to look like an anti tardis; full of gadgets sixties sci-fi writers could scarcely have imagined.

  He thought maybe he could extract something from Andreyevich, even if it was only something more than Edwards had. Had to be better than the square root of fuck all.

  As it turned out, Mr Andreyevich was still not receptive to conversation. His eyebrows did most if not all of the talking, both being raised as if to say nice try pal when Burke handed over the bucket of overpriced sugar syrup and milk, having guessed he was not a double decaf soya latte man. Looking at him, he was more a double chin mocha. He made several attempts at conversation all the while looking at The Times on his phone in a “we’re here for as long as it takes” type of gesture he was fairly certain only worked in films.

  “They say it’s to snow again.” That’s it get him talking about the weather. It’s not as if people who do talk to you can even be bothered with that Burke thought. “Of course, you’d be used to that I guess. I take it you get plenty of the white stuff out there in Vilnius? Probably deal with it more effectively than we do here too. The media do pretty well out of it though. They do pretty well out of all the different types of white stuff it would seem. My colleague, Detective Inspector Edwards, the one with the latest haircut and the taste for skiwear, you remember him, he’s the one who likes to talk a lot.”

  Another movement of the eyebrows.

  “Well he’s of the opinion, Victor, can I call you Victor? What the hell, I can call you Victor. We’re in a jail cell together. I suspect you’re next cell mate may be even more friendly than that. See what happens when you don’t answer? I just keep talking, anyway I’m sure you’re no stranger to being jail gay.”

  Andreyevich looked at him pitifully.

  “As of course your friend Oleg was. His tattoos gave that much away and I’d be willing to guess his boyfriend will give a whole lot more away when he comes in Victor.”

  Victor stood up quickly, too quickly, given the fact he was holding a cup of hot coffee Burke had made extra hot by microwaving until it bubbled. The syrupy liquid doused his sleeve sticking it to his arm and he let out a yelp like a wounded animal. He tore of his shirt to reveal his own life story in pretty prison pictures and Burke paid attention, looking for specifics and finding what he needed.

  ********************

  Douglas looked tense on arrival in the interview with brief in tow, tense in the way that suggested he’d spent time on his own getting wound up about this. His eyes implied he may also have tried to do counter the effects with whatever chemicals his occupation granted him access to. The bags underneath were grey in contrast with the eyeballs themselves which had pinkened since their last meeting. His skin was an off white, a shade Rachel would doubtless be able to name at a glance. She’d spent time considering the colours most conducive to the calmness and safe emotional and mental development of their soon to be sprogg. But Burke doubted this was one she’d ever choose to paint a nursery, certainly not with the infusion of veins as sported here. In the end she’d settled for buttermilk, a shade of off white he suspected Douglas’s eyes might soon turn if he insisted on self-medicating for any length of time.

  Burke presented the pair with coffees extracted from a nasty vending machine this time, rather than the Starbucks diabetes in a cup he’d used to undress Andreyevich. Douglas looked grateful in a despondent sort of way and Burke caught a whiff of what he knew through hard won experience was vodka. Of course, the choice of the drinker who didn’t want anyone to know he’d been drinking.

  He set up the tape and sat back Campbell accompanied him on this occasion. He’d have preferred Jones if he was honest, more sympathetic perhaps. A woman’s more attuned soft skills might be the order of the day when dealing with such delicate matters. She’d gone AWOL for some reason. He’d catch up with her later but for now he was stuck with the second choice of minion who was doubtless busy sneering at the man on the other side of the table. Not that it mattered. They were here to get information, regardless of hurting anyone’s feelings.

  “So?” He asked. The ultimate open question.

  Douglas looked at his brief for some kind of reassurance and got a look in return that seemed to say get on with it. The lawyer knew he could phone this one in. It wasn’t as if they were really going to do Douglas for drug taking and the use of prostitutes, not in a city where the former happened everyday much as it did everywhere else and the latter was unofficially condoned by the city council in the form of saunas or massage parlours.

  “Well,” Douglas began fitfully, “I, well that is, we,” he looked at the brief again who urged him on. “I take it we can come to some kind of deal?”

  The brief gave him another prod with his eyes, causing Douglas to look more stressed, obviously feeling that he was taking the heat from two sides now.

  Burke looked at him without saying anything. Really he should give Dr Carr some kind of commission for upping his interrogation game with minimal effort, not that it earned him much in the way of results, or actual money.

  “What my client wants to know is,” the lawyer began, hesitating slightly, “you’re not likely to charge him with anything are you? He is of course fully prepared to cooperate with this investigation but he is also very concerned about his reputation as a professional. I have advised him he is under no obligation to say anything.”

  “Of course. And I am not concerned with the fact that he clearly likes to indulge in cocaine and rent boys.”

  Douglas’s head fell at this.

  “However, I am rather concerned with the fact he is clearly not being forthcoming. He is hindering a police investigation. Also, I must ask myself questions in relation to just how deeply your client was involved with Mr Karpov, concerning his business activities, particularly with respect to his involvement in serious organised crime. How involved are you with the Russian Mafia Dr Douglas?”

  Douglas’s eyes widened briefly and he looked as though he might throw up on the table. His face disappeared behind his hands as he tried to rub away the stress from his brow. He at least had access to Botox, Burke thought.

  The lawyer looked at Douglas pitifully, like he wanted to
wash his hands of the whole affair. Clearly this wasn’t his bag at all. Give him a drink driver or a sleazy divorce case and he would be as happy as a pig in someone else’s mud but this was not looking good for his client all of a sudden. Not that Burke believed for one minute that Douglas was guilty of anything other than being a twat with a spine that didn’t seem to be doing its job properly. He put Burke in mind of a kid at school who’d been caught keying someone’s car or something equally juvenile and denied it when it came to court, which would have been fine if he hadn’t actually been standing next to an officer of the law when he’d done it. Too spineless to stand up and admit to something even when he’d been caught fair and square, far too keen on pleading mitigating circumstances. While Douglas hadn’t been caught doing anything wrong and had admitted to other things, he knew things that could be valuable and yet was unwilling to help unless he was saving his own skin.

  For a minute Burke thought he may have overplayed it. Maybe his threats or implied ones had actually caused the surgeon to clam up and sent him further towards the catatonic state he seemed destined for.

  “I don’t know anything about that Inspector,” he eventually said. “We never discussed work. I told you that. It wasn’t like I actually could talk about what I did. Doctor patient privilege you know. I’m not allowed to discuss anything, legally.