Snow Storm

11

Giles Herriot-Watt stood on the harbour admiring the craft before him, like a man in his position may have admired the form of a fine thoroughbred steed in centuries gone by. She was something to behold; the Brentwood Viking, sleek, long, light and yet most importantly in possession of brutal power. Her red haunches shone in the winter sun as the gathered hack photographers and assorted slack jawed yokels took in her magnificence.

Drink it in his inner voice declared. It’s more than you’ll ever afford.

They lowered her down the slipway into the mouth of the cold river to much applause. She was suddenly alive, snorting fire, as the two man crew waved to their enthusiastic audience. The publicity was important of course. It was imperative they were seen to be doing such things, adding a touch of glamour to the area, giving them something they’d never see the likes of again.

He cracked a bottle of Moet & Chandon; hardly Crystal but what did it matter on such an occasion. Not like anyone here would know the difference. He preferred to keep the Crystal he had expense accounted and use it to impress the ladies; the ones who knew the difference, the ones who knew what clothes to wear and were seen at the right functions, the ones with the right breeding. Again his mind turned to thoroughbreds. He appreciated the equine form, knew one end of the animal from the other. He could happily watch a race or three given the right quantities of the bubbly stuff and possibly some of the old marching powder. And polo; that was fine and obviously a decent social lubricant, but the horses didn’t like him. That was for sure.

He charged the glasses of the local provost and a reporter from the Galloway Advertiser he might think about getting the number of later and smiled as he took it all in, this spectacle he’d created. Brentwood Viking roared to life on top of a foam pillow and her nose lifted as she powered along the side of the harbour. The crew waved at some local kids as they ran along the wooden walkways in pursuit. They tucked themselves down into their respective cockpits as she howled higher still and powered out into the bay for the nautical dressage display.

“It’s a real boon for the area,” he heard the provost say and turned to say something along the lines of the firm being delighted but instead he couldn’t resist simply saying yes. The provost looked slightly wrong footed which of course had been his intention and Giles set about reeling her back in.

At times he couldn’t resist saying such things just for the hell of it, just to screw around with people’s minds and challenge his manipulation skills. “As, of course is the area to us. I mean let’s face it where better to test in secret than a place such as this?”

“True,” the reporter replied.

“And as an added bonus I get to enjoy some of its,” he looked at the reporter, made a point of doing so, “more natural beauties.”

She giggled slightly, covering her mouth in a modest gesture he heartily approved of. He knew what he would be doing for the rest of the week.

“Of course it would be good if we didn’t go into too much detail, as we agreed. We don’t want everyone to know exactly what we are doing now do we?”

“No,” she agreed, as the provost suddenly found she had somewhere else to be and Giles congratulated himself on being such a skilled manipulator of the press.

John Campbell was in his element. The building he had entered felt as if it should be home. If cop shops looked like they did on CSI, this would be home.

He announced his arrival with the receptionist who looked pissed off in that way people did when they truthfully didn’t give a flying fuck but wanted the world and his wife to think they did because, what? It made them a better person somehow? Hell no. Better to be honest than dish out conciliatory smiles that you could tell weren’t real anyway. The delicate turning up of the corners of the lips said concern but the eyes said “anyway moving swiftly on.”

She probably never even knew the Ruskie boy. He wondered what it took to get a girl like that. Receptionists; they always seemed so snooty in a way that had the effect of only making him more interested. Maybe he should come out of the closet as a fully-fledged masochist, get someone to strap him into something and kick the living hell out of him while he begged for mercy, begged for more or whatever would happen when he embraced the madness. Half the time he was like a man picking at a scab.

Another girl came out of one of the offices and greeted him with a smile and a visitors badge just as he’d settled on one of the cream leather couches and got his nose stuck in the latest copy of Heat magazine. He then had to do a bit of a manoeuvre whereby he put the magazine back down on the glass topped coffee table without her seeing, like it was a copy of Playboy and she was his mum. Truth be told he’d rather be caught with a copy of Playboy than Heat but he liked to keep abreast of the celeb situation. You never knew when that might come in handy if trying to salvage a conversation.

She led him through the wall of glass and blinds to a full-on open plan office. A big sign taking up the wall of the entrance declared that this was home to several companies all of which fell under the umbrella of BCC Industries as denoted by the three letters in red blue and green plastic over all other organisation names.

The PA who introduced herself as Laura, led him into an office at the back of the larger expanse. It was a fairly characterless room. The back wall was plate glass and looked out onto the water of Leith. A bland desk with a laptop sat in the corner, wires snaking off in every direction. He took a seat on a plastic Ikea number and waited. The water was fairly mesmerising. It must have been hard to get much done here. He turned as he heard the faint sound of footsteps on carpet.

A business-like woman, probably early thirties greeted him as she walked through the door and gestured for him to take a seat again. She too, Campbell was pleased to note, was hot. She introduced herself as Nicole Bannister, with a firm business like handshake that seemed to match her pin-stripe suit.

“I’m Operations Director here. Oleg’s second in command if you like.” She frowned and then her face was blank for a second or two. “Or I was.”

“Were you close?” Campbell asked, pulling out his notepad.

She laughed as she adjusted a lock of stray hair, replacing firmly behind her ear.

“In as much as anyone was.”

“How so?”

“Well Oleg, wasn’t, well, wasn’t to say he wasn’t that kind of person.”

“In what way?” Campbell asked, wondering as he did what was wrong with a man who wasn’t close to her. Karpov clearly had more money than God. That must have carried some leverage.

“He didn’t seem to have anyone or anything much in his life outside work,” she replied.

“No family?”

“Not that I was ever aware of. He did have various connections back in Lithuania but I was always led to believe they were mainly business associates.”

“No friends?”

“None I ever met. He generally seemed to live for work, always here before I was and still hard at it when I left. I tried to keep up with him in the beginning but in the end, you know there’s just more to life.”

“So they tell me,” Campbell replied. “Girlfriends?”

“None I ever heard about. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a dead end all of this. None of us knew anything about him really. I just don’t think he cared for much other than work.”

“Surely a man of means, he can’t have been too short of offers,” Campbell mused.

“He wasn’t exactly George Clooney,” she replied, a small grin lighting up her face briefly, “but I suppose some people like that power thing. No one I know of though.”

“Did he have any dealings with anyone which may have resulted in ill will of any kind? Was there anyone who may have made threats of that kind?”

“Well he was in financial services not an industry known for its consideration of our fellow man. I dare say he’d crossed swords with a few people over the years, a deal gone wrong here or there, well, right for him and wrong for someone else, but that’s the way it works. Business men of Oleg’s calibre don’t tend to lose sleep over toes they’ve inadvertently trampled on, do they? And they also don’t tend to overreact and shoot each other. Not in my experience.”

“Depends what business they’re in.”

“I would imagine so. However, to my knowledge no, there was no one in the near past that bore Mr Karpov any serious ill will.”

“No threats then?”

“None.”

“Ok Miss Bannister, that should be all for now. Oh you don’t happen to know where Mr Karpov’s lap-top is?”

“No. At home I’d imagine. He’d be unlikely to leave it here. That might mean he didn’t have all the answers at his disposal for more than five minutes.”

“Bit of a control freak was he?”

“You might say that. Perhaps it would be more charitable to say that he had issues around letting go…”

“Of the reins,” Campbell replied before he could stop himself.

She smiled taking it in the humorous way he might have intended if he had actually meant to say it.

“Can I reach you here if I need to?” he asked.

She produced an expensive looking embossed card with her details and he briefly felt like he’d won the lottery, before telling himself no he mustn’t phone this one after a skin full. Not after what happened last time.

He thanked her for her time and made his way out of the office

He entered the toilet across the hall and finding it suitably empty, proceeded to chop out two lines of the finest product Columbia had to offer onto a granite sink top before rolling a twenty and snorting the whole lot in one u-shaped movement. Just a little pick me up. Who was going to stop him? New suppliers were easy to find, it seemed.

He had thought of mentioning what his previous one had said about the possibility of losing her head to Burke, but he wasn’t sure. The boss had a way of disapproving of these things, along with a curiosity about most things and it might be best to avoid complicating the situation. It was hardly important info anyway.

He looked at his ornate surroundings. The perks of executive life.

Who was he kidding? He tore up her card and threw it in the bin as he left the building. Best not to go down that road.

Victor sat in the office of his fallen comrade as he watched the police officer go. He pushed the balls on the desk toy back and forth watching them knock off each other, the two in the middle remaining static and the ones on the outside doing all the work. He could think of no better model for how the world of business worked.

Executive toys they used to call them, this and the miniature pool tables, an assortment of curiosities for the feeble minded. Executive toys. He preferred his yacht. Now there was an executive toy. One for an executive in the truest sense of the word when the occasion had required it. Oleg was not feeble minded. Of course not. He would not have been allowed to enter the brotherhood were it ever the case. He had merely gone to seed in this place, which looking around this office, it appeared to be easy to do in these God forsaken parts, barely a sane one among them. A few months in the salt mines would do them good. Let them starve for a while, see how quickly they turned against one another

He breathed a heavy sigh and returned to the view, catching a glimpse of his reflection as he did and briefly not recognising the old man that stood before him. Folds of skin had overtaken the youthfully sculpted jaw line and wisps of grey now flashed out of his eyebrows. The bags under his eyes sagged with the weight of the evil they’d seen and his hair hung limp and colourless across his wrinkled brow. His body was decaying. There was no fighting that. A nip and a tuck might stave off the visuals for a time, but underneath the foundations were beginning to perish.

He would live on in his legacy and in his sons.

Just a few more pieces had to fall into place. Some minor problems to be resolved and all would be well.

Perhaps he would live out his days by a river he considered, as he briefly lost himself again in the water of Leith’s foaming torrent before he bit his lip and forced himself back to reality.

Now was not the time. There was work to be done still.