Robert Parker - Snow Storm

The girl, DC Wilson seemed pretty hard-nosed in the sense that she said very little but had an unrelenting gaze and when she did speak it was more of a grunting in acknowledgement kind of thing. He got the sense she was busy taking everything in, mixing it with a healthy sized pinch of disdain. He could tell she didn’t approve of him; an old fogey wearing a suit and hiding out here rather than getting on with the high flyers and busting the big criminals. She too was on the small side. He wondered if they’d been paired up to make Black feel more secure. She stood with folded arms, not in a way that some people seemed to think gave away a sense of discomfort. She wasn’t hugging herself. She was more intent on projecting the idea that she couldn’t be bothered standing up straight with her arms by her sides. This place wasn’t worthy of good posture or standing to attention in any way. Her hair was scraped back in austere utilitarian fashion and she chewed on her lip as she scanned the room and tried to rein in the contempt. She wore a scarf tight around her neck so that only her face was visible.

This was just a courtesy call of course; before they identified the Russian or former Russian’s head officially, as they inevitably would, and Edwards would put in a courtesy call to give him the soft soap, tell him it was ok, they’d take the whole thing off his hands while inwardly gritting his teeth and hoping those parochial Edinburgers wouldn’t get possessive over a case and an operation they’d blundered their way into by virtue of just working on the patch the relevant part of the stiff had turned up on. How much better might things have been for Edwards if one of the other body parts had simply turned up elsewhere? A leg in Bishopbriggs perhaps, an arm in East Kilbride, or maybe a foot in Falkirk could have been a foot in the door.

He caught up on the news while he waited to hear the inevitable result. More snow was predicted. They’d yet to see the results of the last batch other than in the Yorkshire Dales and a few minor road closures in the south east where everything seemed to happen.

The phone rang on his desk. Edwards already? What was the decision to be?

It was Rachel. Could he, per chance, collect a Christmas tree from Gorgie City Farm on the way home? He agreed with a heavy sigh that slipped out and then led to one of those conversations revolving round his assertion that it was fine and he didn’t mind which they both knew was not that case.

He would let Edwards take the case off his hands he had already decided, mainly because he didn’t have the energy to bother fighting over it, or take it higher up, much less a Scooby what was going on with the whole thing. Of course they would weigh in anyway, with the argument that this was getting in the way of their investigation into god knew what and the bigger boys and girls upstairs would at least be happy that these were potentially unsolved cases off their books. Clear up rates would be unaffected and so on and so forth. It was all about the politics.

So when the phone rang again he was more than ready for Edwards’ Oscar winning performance.

Victor had wasted no time in setting up camp. It seemed the two idiots were intending to act as his body guards, which would have perhaps been funny if he were a laughing man. In any case, it wouldn’t do to be seen laughing in the company of these imbeciles. The underdeveloped one clearly thought of himself as the brains. No one else would be likely to make that mistake, though looking at the overgrown one, clearly typecast as the goon, he supposed it was all relative.

The small one had repeatedly tried to make conversation, seemingly impervious to Victor’s lack of acknowledgement or reply. “Ye been tae Embra before like?” he’d asked and then, realising Victor wasn’t totally sure what this meant, repeated the same question twice, each time in a language closer to what Victor guessed passed for English round here. On the third and final attempt, though Victor admired the runt’s persistence, he looked him squarely in the eye, saying nothing, until the effect caused him to wither, his confidence seemingly draining like someone had let the air out of his tyres. The car journey had been somewhat more pleasant after that.

They’d arrived at the offices after around forty five minutes. After being shown into Oleg’s private suite, Victor resolved to make it is own for the time being. “Where did you get these?” he asked, tilting his head towards his escorts.

“Saughton,” the large one said in a squeaky voice as the small one kicked him in what was obviously intended to be a subtle gesture.

“I did not ask you,” he replied putting the large one in a state of unease. Victor guessed he was not used to being spoken to this way, given his size; probably a gentle giant prone to the weakness of loyalty. Not that loyalty was necessarily a weakness in the right circumstances but this was not the brotherhood. This was loyalty to his sidekick, or the weasel like man who it seemed considered him the sidekick.

“What is Saughton?” he fired at Oleg in their native tongue.

“Local prison,” he replied. “They did some time with an associate.”

Victor nodded. He knew something of this kind of association. “Nonetheless, you should have at least sent some of our people,” he replied in English, knowing reprimanding Oleg in front of his goons was a loss of face to the man; unorthodox to say the least.

“I thought you would have wanted our people with Sacha and Boris.”

Victor nodded again. He was inclined to agree. “It is not your place to presume to know what I want,” was all he said.

“Of course,” Oleg replied.

“And stop sweating.”

“Right away.”

“You may go,” he informed the two body guards, and they awkwardly made their exit, shuffling and nodding deferentially.

“You’ve let yourself go old friend,” he told Oleg as he helped himself to a whiskey from a well-rounded minibar. Something he did know of this country was the 25 year old Glenlivet in his glass. Oleg made some good decisions.

He took in the older man’s appearance. He’d grown fat and redder of face. His hair stuck matted to his head, held in place by stress and sweat. “If it isn’t bad booze I can only assume it’s bad food.”

“You can say that again,” he agreed, pouring himself a large measure.

The scotch grounded him, biting the back of his throat and warming everything on the way down, focussing him fully on the here and now for the first time in hours. He was now very aware of the plate glass wall behind him. A river meandered past the building; the banks and everything on them seasonally cold and dead, a husk of what they had been a short time ago.

“So,” he began, recovering his train of thought, “What do we know?”

Campbell had sunk one too many now. Earlier, with Sam and the boss, it had all been fine, just a social thing, a morale booster, but now he’d crossed a line, gone via pleasantly inebriated to drunk and he needed a pick me up.

The bar maid, Sophie, had given him her number after a campaign he’d waged ceaselessly. She probably had to endure idiots giving her bad chat all the time, so he’d seen it as a challenge. He’d circumvented her defences by not being that guy, by just talking in a non-look-at-me way to the point of sympathising when other punters who were that guy made their drunken approaches. He’d played the nice guy and now he had her number.

He deleted it from his phone, adding it to the countless numbers he’d deleted and thrown away before.

His supply was running out. It had been good stuff. He wasn’t sure where this stuff was coming from but it was pretty potent. They hadn’t been too stingy when they cut it.