Snow Storm

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.

“Present; DI Edwards, DI Burke and Victor Andreyevich.”

He even noticed it on the news these days, MSPs referring to the Scoddish Parliament or the Scoddish Government or Scoddish independence. Whatever happened to a good old fashioned glottal stop or, heaven forbid, pronouncing your Ts properly.

The Lithuanian sat on the other side of the cheap table, seemingly trying to bore holes in Edwards’ eyes with his own. So far all communication had been of the non-verbal variety, save for his demand for a lawyer, though even then he had waived his right to delay the interview before one arrived, opting instead to get straight into the posturing contest.

The air was cold in the interview room and his breath could clearly be seen exiting via his nose in the form of steam. He looked like an angry bull. He returned his gaze to a point he’d picked on the table clearly feeling he had suitably berated Edwards for what Burke decided was likely to be bad pronunciation of his name. As he looked down his chins seemed to multiply. He looked more like a walrus now, only meaner, with a face hardened, no doubt, by seeing things no one should. He wore an expensive looking grey suit with a shirt whose main body was purple with a gold chalk stripe and collar was white. His chubby fingers swelled round various gold rings, some religious in nature, others merely expensive. His hair was almost too small in comparison like a top which could easily pop given the right amount of pressure.

“So Victor, can I call you Victor?” Edwards began in earnest.

No movement or acknowledgment was forthcoming.

Edwards raised his eyebrows in Burke’s general direction before readdressing his suspect. “I suppose you how much trouble you are in?” He continued.

Andreyevich let out a long drawn out sigh and leaned back in his chair. He folded his arms and regarded Edwards with a look of disappointed contempt and more than a hint of boredom. It was a look that said ‘I can do this all day.’

“Do you think he understands English?” Edwards asked Burke with mock sincerity.

“Enough to tell you my lawyer will be here in due course and that you’d be better advised to wait until that point.” Andreyevich answered coldly, before adding “Inspector,” as though this in itself was an insult.

“Alright, alright, you have it your way Victor. We’re only trying to help. I mean you’ve hospitalised how many? Three people?” Edwards looked at Burke conspiratorially, “Three people, possibly four, depending on your perspective. Other people might not be so kind after reviewing the CCTV footage we have, but let’s give you the benefit of the doubt, three people, hospitalised Victor, and they don’t seem to be getting out any time soon. Nope, and you know what that means don’t you?”

Victor concentrated on his finger nails which he was now more interested in than listening to Edwards. Burke couldn’t help noting that they were a bit too well manicured to require picking.

Edwards pressed on. “Should they be there for more than two days Victor, that changes things significantly.” He kept his gaze locked on the interviewee despite the lack of response. “Right now you’re looking at assault, a fairly serious one at that, but assault none the less. Maybe in this case worthy of say a year in the big house.”

Again Burke couldn’t help but notice Edwards using phrases which were clearly not his own. “But those stack up Victor. I’d say you’re looking at three years if it comes down to it.”

Andreyevich laughed at this.

“It’s not funny really, three years is a long time in there. Do you have a wife Victor?”

No response.

“A girlfriend then?”

Nothing again.

“Kids?”

At this, Andreyevich dished out an icy glare in Edwards direction before turning his attention to the palms of his hands.

“Kids eh? I’ve got kids. Have you got kids Inspector Burke?”

“No.” Burke replied. Technically he had one on the way of course, but something in him felt he didn’t want his unborn child involved in this in any way, like it was bad luck or might harm him or her. The protective instinct in him meant that he now visualised smashing Edwards’ face off the table. Not that he that would do any good. The table would probably crack and buckle if tested that way and he suspected that wasn’t one they did down at the Ikea engineering lab.

“It’s tough at the best of times,” Edwards continued, aiming his monologue at Burke. “Just working means you don’t get to see them as much as you’d like. You worry they’ll forget who you are, that you won’t perhaps be the influence or the steady hand they require in their formative years, that they might go off the rails or just start to resent you.”

Burke decided there were now two people in the room wishing Edwards would shut the fuck up.

“Of course that’s day to day life. We’re all busting a gut trying to get on, make our way in the world as it were, which I suppose is all any of us are trying to do. Only, how much harder must it be, how much of an impossibility is it all if you’re in prison in another country?”

He really was trying to string this out, milk it for all it was worth.

“Of course your children aren’t actually in another country are they Victor?”

Victor’s expression changed rapidly to one of an evolved predator about to pounce.

Even Edwards, despite his best efforts, showed the briefest hint of awkwardness, looking away towards Burke again. “No, they’re at Fettes College Jim, getting probably the best education this out of the way wee country has to offer, safely hidden away you might think, or maybe somebody did think.” He looked back to Andreyevich again, a renewed fire in his eyes. “What a coincidence eh? The day you happen to turn up in Edinburgh is the day your boys, Boris and Sacha I believe, the day their school happens to have a murder right on the doorstep a couple of hundred yards from where they sleep.”

Andreyevich regarded Burke and Edwards in turn, probably sizing them up for the kill.

“Or perhaps less obviously at first, on the day Vlad the Inhaler, aka Vladamir Petrovski, that name familiar to you Victor? On the day his head is left outside your sons’ school you happen to turn up in this fair city; coincidence? I’m not a great believer in coincidence Victor. That’s the problem I have. It’s the thing that keeps me awake at night. It’s the thing that makes me start digging around like I’m trying to scratch an itch or something and that’s how I find things out.”

Victor was now just staring straight through Edwards, like he’d picked a spot on his head and focused on that.

“That’s how I find out things like who people were in prison with.” Edwards carried on. “And we know which particular headless man you were in prison with, don’t we Victor?”

Now it was Burke’s turn to be angry. Nothing like being kept in the loop. He imagined the table smashing scenario again, only this time when the government bought tat disintegrated someone had accidentally left a big spike underneath it.

“Inspector Burke has an evil sense of humour Victor and that seems to have made him smile.”

Still no response from Andreyevich.

“I wonder what he might think about the fact that if any of these current hospital patients remain there for, say two days, just one more really, that would probably be grounds for considering these charges to be more like attempted murder.” He looked at Victor briefly again as he paused and sipped his coffee. “You may never see the light of day again. Oh I know you can do the time. I know you’ve got form. But can your kids?”

Andreyevich looked at him in disbelief. Was this a suggestion that they would be sent away? Was this country so corrupt?

“Oh not literally of course.” Edwards reassured him, “We wouldn’t send them to the salt mines or anything. We don’t do that here but we do deport people, back to wherever they came from, even if say, wherever they came from was like the wild fucking west. Without protection in sight, what with daddy dearest in the clink, I wonder how long a couple of posh school boys would last with everyone coming out of the woodwork to pick over the carcass of your…” Edwards scoffed, “Respectable business empire.”

Victor was now gripping the table firmly with both hands. His nose curled up in a sneer as he struggled to stay in some kind of control and retain a composed façade.

Edwards suspended the interview and stopped the tape before making to leave. “Of course, there are things we can do Victor. You really should give it some thought.”

He was, Burke decided like a man trying to close an insurance sale which made him want to hit Mike Edwards all the more.

Giles was not a well man. The booze alone he could probably have coped with, given his track record, but he was not the greatest flyer. It was one thing he tried to work on; a major bone of contention he had with himself. There was no point getting the jet set lifestyle together when you couldn’t get on a jet without feeling the urge to retch. The Cessna was not exactly an improvement. Everything had started off well enough. He’d been so keyed up by the violence preceding take off and at the same time subdued in part by the residual drink that he hadn’t really thought too hard about it. The familiar feel had returned in full force though. As he climbed into the cockpit and belted up he couldn’t help notice the shaking of his hands.

The pilot took one look at him and handed over a sick bag.

Take off wasn’t quite as bad as expected, mainly because he’d been expecting the worst case scenario, the one that ended in a fire ball. The view was quite something if he’d been into that kind of thing, if he hadn’t been in so much of a mess, hadn’t been thinking about not throwing up and hadn’t been trying to work out what to do with his biggest client.

As the bay disappeared behind them he began to toy with the idea of drifting off for half an hour. The Galloway hills had other ideas. The turbulence was a wakeup call. As things seemed to gain a modicum of calm they would drop what seemed like six feet without warning. It wasn’t easy keeping it together in the throws of a full on fight or flight fit when you couldn’t run anywhere and the only person available to fight was currently in charge of keeping you alive.

It was a long flight. The pre-ordered car at the airfield took him straight to Gayfield Square. He’d never actually been in this situation. He wasn’t that kind of lawyer. He was a corporate lawyer; a fixer and facilitator. He enjoyed the challenge of setting things up; contracts, trusts, loopholes, anything that circumvented or took advantage of the rule of law, legal process or tax loss; that was what appealed to him. It pushed his buttons and generally gave him a good enough kick to get out of bed in the morning. He was not a criminal lawyer. He wasn’t used to speaking to officers of the law regarding clients’ attempts to bludgeon and kick their way through busy bars.

He didn’t have the street smarts or know the tricks. It was a lack of practice more than anything. These guys were well versed in the to and fro of interviewing suspects. He was not well versed in the defending of said suspects.

He had not met Victor Andreyevich before. He knew that he was his major client. However, everything was done through the company. He preferred it that way.

Andreyevich did not disappoint. He had a natural air of authority afforded by sheer physical bulk. Giles didn’t approve of the excessive jewellery. All very well a signet ring that had been passed down from the forefathers, but a collection of Christmas baubles adorning ones fingers was just a bit nouveaux riche.

After some consultation time, in which he was given some terse instructions they faced the inquisition. The two detectives they encountered were higher ranked than he was expecting. Was this due to his client’s high status or did they genuinely think they had something on him other than the obvious.

The taller one of the two, Edwards, seemed intent on doing most of the talking. Giles felt he recognised him from somewhere. Not school, he was too old for that but maybe he had a brother or something. In any case, he seemed to be going round in circles a bit, which Giles supposed was to be expected, given that he and his client gave them no material to work on.

Andreyevich’s plan, or at least this part of it, had been spelled out. It was a straight policy of saying nothing. He answered not a single question. Throughout, he eyed Edwards in a nonchalant way that seemed to imply he wasn’t particularly worried about this. The only time he had to interject was when Edwards started banging on about attempted murder. The charge seemed a little ambitious even for a man who clearly set high targets for himself. The other one, Burke, seemed a little disconnected, like he was observing from afar. He didn’t look like a detective, more like someone who should be trying to sell something he’d just invented on Dragon’s Den. He was a bit of a quiet one compared to his sidekick who looked more like the captain of the school rugby team.

The strict policy of non-ball-playing meant the interview did not take long. There had been one hair raising moment when Edwards started talking about a murder or murders his client might be able to ‘shed some light on.’ He didn’t get the reference and was about to interject but his client waved him away, laughed and shook his head. The lack of concern was a boost, as at this point if Giles was totally honest with himself, he was merely playing off the man’s reactions and had just about zero knowledge of any use.

He thought Burke might have been staring at him. He never actually caught him but he was sure he looked away a couple of times to avoid his gaze. Maybe it was a cop thing. Maybe they were always trying to recognise someone they’d seen somewhere or other that had done them or the general public some ill. Or maybe he just didn’t like the cut of his jib. Whatever the case the feeling was mutual. The man could at least have shaved for this morning’s interview.

Other than his mounting paranoia at Burke’s staring and his nausea at Edwards constant babble, he had to admit it was not the worst hangover he’d ever had.

But leaving his client in the holding cells, he had a feeling it might be about to get a whole lot worse.