Snow Storm

29

Giles was not used to being ordered around like this. His superiors at the firm had always been respectful, to the lawyers at any rate. Those in polite society at least regarded professionals as having some kind of social standing, even in this dire age of waning formality, where everyone was required to address one another by first name only, lest anyone be allowed to get on in the world and be respected for it.

His client had said very little, made no attempt at thanking him for services rendered and the accompanying risk to the integrity of his bollocks which had been placed well and truly on the line. A substantial Christmas bonus was in order. He was being well rewarded for this, naturally. That was everything to these new money types. They hadn’t had time to acquire the necessary tastes or interests to spend it properly. He would concede that Andreyevich knew how to travel though. Not for him the driving three hours or catching the three trains and bus it would take to get to their final destination.

He’d wanted to head back to the flat in Morningside, the place he was now starting to think of as a second home. He wanted to climb into the shower and wash away the scummy residue the day’s events seemed to have left on him and then down half a bottle of Remy Martin and fall into a comatose state.

There had been no discussion on the subject. His presence was mandatory as far as the client was concerned. End of story. He’d been shown to the car outside the cop shop in Gayfield Square and driven to the airfield at high speed. He hadn’t felt the time to protest present itself. There was a time and a place to raise certain objections with clients, draw a line now and again but he was starting to doubt that was the case here. No one said no to Victor.

They sat at some kind of a cruising height in the Cessna now, four of the six seats filled by himself, his client and two heavies who looked like they meant business but said very little, certainly nothing to contradict the vibe their collective demeanour gave off. For his part, Andreyevich seemed to stick with a similar theme. He may have been like this all the time. How would Giles know after all? He’d only just met the man. Perhaps all of this; the meting out of casual brutal violence to unsuspecting members of the public, followed by bribery of witnesses, the hacking into Lothian and Borders Police servers to tamper with evidence and locate those witnesses and the owners of the premises, finding an employee willing to assist in the destruction of all CCTV footage and then ensuring the correct pressure was exerted at the correct level to secure his timely release after due consideration of all these facts, then flying off with what could only realistically be described as mercenaries to some God forsaken outpost to do God knew what that required the services of a frankly inexperienced lawyer, maybe all this was just mundane to him. Maybe this was just another day at the office.

At least the weather wasn’t as extreme as it had been on the way up. Clear skies it seemed, and so far no turbulence. How often did you get to fly like this?

He was just asking considering that when finally the client turned to him with a look of contemplation. “So maybe now you know quite a lot,” he said with a sigh.

Edwards had properly thrown the rattle out and made for the nearest exit. His two minions had hung around for a short time, seemingly none too sure what to do with themselves and probably more than a little embarrassed for their boss, like he was a slightly tipsy parent or a babbling older relative whose mental capacity they were starting to doubt. But then it seemed fitting, dressed as they were like overly preening teenagers most of the time.

“Something funny sir?” Wilson asked, before looking down, probably realising again that she was admonishing a senior officer.

“Nothing really,” he replied, enjoying her discomfort.

Sarah Armstrong worked for “a very particular department in Whitehall” she had said, with a knowing grin.

She could have been late forties, given her unhurried confidence, but he wouldn’t have put money on it. Burke considered himself a reasonable judge of character but all that went out the window when dealing with certain types of people, specifically the type that specialised in knowing all and telling nothing. This made her all the more intriguing.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, with the sense of trepidation you got from dealing with someone you knew could have you in a body bag with a phone call, legally, without having to bury you in the woods or explain themselves to the likes of him.

“I’d say in this case Detective Inspector, it’s more a case of what I can do for you.”

“Really?” he asked, wondering if he looked like he needed put down.

“Really,” she confirmed. “And don’t look so nervous. I’m not planning on having you fitted for concrete boots or anything.

“The thought hadn’t entered my head.”

She smiled her knowing smile once more and continued. “What do you know of Leon Williams?”

He let this sink in for a second, taking time to respond. How did GCHQ, MI5 or whoever else know what they were investigating?

“Not a great deal,” he said finally, deciding there wasn’t much to give away. “He is the subject of an ongoing murder investigation, given the fact he has a spot in our city morgue.”

“Quite, but what do you actually know about him?”

“I’m not sure where this is going. What is it you want to know? Is there a reason you’re investigating him?”

“In a sense yes,” she replied. She was probably a good poker player, Burke decided.

“In all honesty we don’t know a hell of a lot,” he admitted. “Ex-marine commando, injured in Afghanistan, seemingly got mixed up with the wrong people after he left the forces and wound up here. We’re not sure what he got mixed up in but it looks like some kind of drug war.”

The spook nodded slowly as he spoke and Burke knew he wasn’t telling her anything new.

“You’re right of course, in a sense. He did get mixed up with the wrong people,” she said with a sigh. “He was one of ours.”

He eventually summoned the energy to take a trip out into the cold. He took a skulking DC Jones who had been hanging around his peripheral vision since this afternoons visitor had presented herself, presumably wanting to know the script. She managed to skirt around the subject, all the way from Gayfield Square to Karpov’s palatial home in Bruntsfield. He wasn’t biting. She’d have to try harder than that.

The headlights shone on the dark hulk of a house now making it look as if it had been abandoned for years, aside from the scene of crime notices which were too bright to be anything but modern. They entered via the front door, disabling the alarm system and fumbling for the lights in the hallway. The place still reeked of carnage

Something moved to his left. He turned to see a figure emerge from the gloom before it knocked him sideways. They burst through the front door as he turned trying to follow but lost his footing. A crashing sound behind told him there was a second intruder. He turned again to see another figure in black run towards him. Jones tried to get in the way but only managed a glance blow to the side of the runner. The man let out a growl as he ran for Burke who stood his ground knowing he had a weight advantage. His heart lurched as he saw something glint in the black gloved hand. He held on for a second more before shifting his weight sideways as the man threw himself forwards, top heavy, swinging the blade. The knife caught his left hand as it moved outwards to counter the side-step and he let out a yelp as he swung the rest of his body back round, catching his assailant with a well-placed blow to the side of the head sending him staggering headfirst into the doorframe. The man’s head made a sickening thump before his body gave way beneath, collapsing into a tangled heap on the floor. He felt the sting in his hand and he was only prevented from aiming an angry kick at the slumped would be ninja by Jones, who got in the way in her efforts to get the bastard cuffed.

Once he was suitably restrained, they removed the balaclava from his head to reveal the face of what could not have been more than a teenager.

Andy woke again, hearing the commotion outside. Had another plane landed? He’d heard trucks come and go; feed trucks, oil tankers, the kind of thing that wouldn’t normally cause him to bat an eyelid down here but now everything seemed to have a double meaning. Every movement, noise, flicker of disrupted light through the slatted wall, it all seemed like a sign of something, and all of it gave cause for alarm.

His life was now an endless night punctuated by a succession of shocks and starts. He was no longer sure what he’d dreamt and what was real at points.

In his more lucid moments he’d begun to take stock. His life played out before him, not so much in a montage as they said it did before you died, more like a very deliberate purge of hard drives. Every misdemeanour, from the seemingly insignificant, like the time he broke his mum’s favourite vase, to the gut wrenching, like the time he slept with Davie’s ex and hadn’t had to blame anyone as it still lay buried in the back of his conscience, unattended, along with everything else. It wasn’t so much a closet full of skeletons as a bone collection, like that church in Prague he’d read about at school while he should have been studying for his higher history exam. That was what he enjoyed above all else, apart from the sex and the alcohol and the cheap thrills that were part of the human condition. If they were to tell him he never had to work again, that he’d won the lottery that was what he’d do, not for money but just the sheer pleasure of it. He’d research the things he was interested in; history, politics, world wars, the industrial revolution, communism, fascism, capitalism and socialism, the rise and fall of empires and everything else in between.

That was what they said, wasn’t it? Work out what you would do to while away the hours if money was no object. That was it. In between girls and beer he would most like to find out about stuff.

But money would never be no object, that was the point, and anyway it looked as though he was going to end his days here. He’d have thought someone might have missed him, but then the parents were still away and his sister was at Vet school during the week. He wondered where Davie and Colin thought he’d got to though. He’d have thought he could have counted on those two, feckless arseholes that they were. In the darkness and encroaching cold of the now nearly empty prison, he had made himself a promise. If he ever did make it out of here he would go and study history and politics. Not agriculture, as he was sure would have made more sense, not business, which might have given him a broader outlook career wise, but history and politics, for the love of it and for the fact he had another shot and would not waste it. Not in between beer and girls.

That had been hours ago, maybe days ago for all he knew and it had kept him going since. Planning, considering each possibility in depth. What if he became a lecturer or a professor or something? Then he could nothing but study the things that interested him for the rest of his days. Was that even doable for a country bumpkin? Surely he had to have a good knowledge of tweed jackets or speak in a certain way to get on in that world. Did it pay well? Did it matter? They would probably have to sell the farm anyway. His sister wasn’t planning on taking it on and there wasn’t the income for both of them. The possibilities though, they were something that he clung to.

The commotion got louder outside it sounded like the goon squad were trying to move something. It almost sounded like livestock, like a struggling sheep who didn’t fancy the idea of getting sheared or a cow that didn’t want to go down the race to get its injections. A boom echoed round the lifeless room as the ancient steel door came to life on its rusty wheels. The winter sun had long since departed and the room was flooded with white halogen light. Three silhouettes emerged from the blazing artificial glow and he knew in his heart his time had come.

He hunkered down as best he could with his hands tied, keeping his eyes closed. He would not give the bastards the satisfaction watching his terrified expression as he waited.

But with the intensity of the light he could still make out shapes and couldn’t resist looking again at the three awkward forms. The one in the middle, smaller than the other two seemed disjointed somehow, struggling almost. They came only so far before one of outer pair struck the middle one, knocking him to the ground. They then began their advance once more, dragging the dizzied reluctant member of their group to somewhere behind Andy. It was then he heard the familiar sound of tightening cable ties and realised, with a guilty sense of relief that he now had company.

The squad car arrived ten minutes after the slicing of Burke’s hand and the subsequent admirably professional restraint of his assailant by Jones, who hadn’t used nearly as much unnecessary force as he would have liked. But then she hadn’t been stabbed in the hand, a factor that would have made all the difference.

There had been no blood for what seemed like a few seconds, though in reality it was unlikely to have been that long. He’d stared at the gaping white wound before being roused from his state of confusion by the distinctly red blood that began to flow rapidly, trickling down the palm of his hand and up the sleeve of his shirt as he held it aloft trying to unbutton the cuff. Multitasking had never been his forte.

Jones couldn’t help him, so he staggered through to the kitchen and began rummaging through drawers for a tea towel of some sort. A more sensible man might have gone looking for the kitchen roll but that was not his strong point either. More sensible still, a woman might have gone for the bathroom but he’d lost the energy, almost feeling it drain out of him. He hadn’t lost that much blood but realised there was maybe an element of shock in play. Eventually he found a bunch of clean towels in an airing cupboard and slumped against the worktop as he wrapped one around his hand and watched it change colour. This wasn’t his favourite jacket. That was something. In fact he was pretty sure Rachel would be glad to see the back of it though he was fairly certain she wouldn’t be happy about the stitches he was going to have to get.

He stood up and made his way through to the hallway and its collection of stuffed animals. A stag looked down on him, seemingly innocuous, giving away nothing of its true purpose in the two cameras it concealed, one infrared and one bog standard colour, allowing a view of both the surface of a person and what lay underneath. No secrets in this house, other than the ones kept by its owner.

They arrested the intruder. Assault on a police officer was enough, never mind whatever he might be doing in the house of a murder victim. He had no ID and when asked his name, replied “your mother.” They sent him on his way back to the station for arrangement of a duty solicitor and all the other boxes that had to be ticked before they could begin the grilling process.

“Are you ready for this?” Burke asked her when they were alone together in the hallway.

“Of course,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m not sure what you are getting so excited about.”

“That’s because you don’t watch enough Bond films.”

“I don’t watch any Bond films.”

“Exactly.” He reached out to the bear’s head that now resided on a wall plaque and turned it forcefully so that it now leaned to the left at a jaunty angle. From inside the wood panelled wall there was a clunk and as he reached across part of the wall gave way with the slightest push, opening onto a dimly lit staircase.

“Really?” He asked, raising both eyebrows, “Secret passageways don’t in the least bit interest you?”

“It interests me from the point of view that it may or may not lead to this case being solved of course, but no, otherwise, in the outside world it’s just a door that opens slightly differently.”

“Then you have no soul,” Burke replied, as he began cautiously down the steps.

The light was faint, like security lighting almost and he had to be careful not to trip on what looked like very old steps. They weren’t old in the way the steps in his tenement close were, those were more of a normal shape and it was the faded mid-section that gave them away, countless footsteps having eroded them over time. These hidden stairs were older but relatively unused. The depth of them and the type of stone seemed to suggest they predated the house. In a town this old anything was possible.

“Careful. There might be more stabby teenagers down there,” Jones told him with more than a vague hint of wishful thinking.

“I’ll send them your way if there are,” he replied, “As you were kind enough to do last time.”

“I tried to stop him,” she protested. “Made an attempt at a rugby tackle.”

“I noticed that. Where did you learn to play rugby? At a netball lesson?”

“Queen Margaret Uni actually. Had quite a good women’s rugby team. I was quite a handy wing forward.”

“You don’t look big enough to be a flanker.”

“Not anymore,” she replied with a sense of triumph.

“Did you forget that for a second when you tried to take down your mother, or was it my mother?”

“I may have done,” she admitted.

The stair ran along the wall before turning sharply to the right. Brick merged with stone in a mish-mash that displayed a good couple of centuries of architectural reorganisation. The corner didn’t go far and the emerged at a heavy wooden door that looked like it belonged to a church rather than one of Bruntsfields Victorian Villas.

He keyed a code into the pad in front of him, 9-10-49, Karpov’s birthday. As the lock clicked releasing the door he kicked it open, standing back ready for any possible onslaught. A vast room emerged before them. There was a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, massive couches and what looked like a home cinema at the other end.

They walked through the room taking in the scene. The place was still lit up like a cathedral. Champagne flutes lay discarded with traces of white powder on a large glass coffee table, a bar was littered with snacks and at one end a home cinema still seemed to be showing the main feature.

“We’ll get DNA swabs from those glasses and maybe something off the food.” Burke said, as he turned to see the biggest plasma screen he’d ever seen, still on and still showing the image of the hallway, just as Douglas had said. “Most important thing is finding out what that thing connects to. Otherwise, glove up and make sure that you don’t touch too much. I’m thinking the SOC team need to see this pretty quick.”