Robert Parker - Snow Storm

He had the number in his phone. Risky yes but some contacts were invaluable and there were some things you needed to get you through. In any case the number was stored under “Boots” on account of the supplier’s ready access to all things chemical and medicinal. He’d thought about putting it in as ICI but that might require more explaining if anyone went through his phone.

He made the call, took a cab to the foot of Leith Walk and walked along Great Junction Street until he saw her, standing outside the Tam O’ Shanter, smoking a Marlborough Light. She was out of context down here, dressed like a successful business woman in a long black coat and a trouser suit. She stood out here, but not in the places she frequented on a regular basis. Whatever her surroundings it was unlikely anyone knew that her brief case contained the various stimulants and sedatives she supplied to the great and the good, those with the money to pay a bit more for the sanitised well-mannered and well turned out version of the drug dealer.

“ What’s with the cloak and dagger stuff?” he asked, shooting her an intentionally wide grin as he walked towards her.

“ Walk,” she replied in an icy tone as she fell in step with him, continuing along the road.

“ Ok,” he said, doing as he was told but wondering where this was going. “Are you going to tell me where?”

She shoved him left, and he braced for what he thought was a wall but staggered instead into an alleyway, his senses swimming in booze. She launched at him again, pinning him to a bin and he struggled, pushing her away. She was deceptively strong. “Don’t you think I watch the news?” she demanded.

“ Wha…”

She lurched forward again, shoving her hands deep inside his suit jacket, frisking him for all he was worth. “Are you wearing a wire? Is that it?”

“ No. What? How long have we been doing business? We go back a long way.”

“ Not that long,” she replied. “I know all about entrapment you know.”

He held his hands up. “Ok, it’s a fair cop. So you know who I am. I like to keep that on the down low, that’s all. There’s nothing suspicious going on here. Just calm down.”

She looked at him angrily and he decided she could probably take him if it came to a fight, through sheer determination alone.

“ Now can I please purchase some of that fine produce of yours?” Campbell laughed nervously hating himself for it. “I can’t not have that stuff in my life.”

“ Forget it,” she said, throwing her arms in the air. “You’ve had that. How can I trust you now? You’re too big a risk. Do you know what they’d do to me?” Her eyes narrowed as she regarded him with utter contempt.

“ What who’d do to you?” he asked.

“ Nice try.”

“ Hey. Surely we can work this out.”

“ Not likely,” she scoffed, turning on her heels. “I’d rather not end up with my head in a bag.”

He watched her walk away, before pulling out his phone and deleting yet another number.

Burke sat in Gray’s office staring at his feet as he allowed his toes to do the fidgeting, unseen.

The DCI was holding forth on the importance of figures. “It’s a numbers game James, you know that.”

“Yes sir.”

“I mean we live and die by our clear up rate, which is why I’m only too happy for you to palm this one off to SCDEA. Let Edwards brush it under the carpet as he obviously intends to. Oh I know, I dare say at your age I would have been keen to get my teeth into it. Make no mistake about that, but you always have to keep one eye on the politics if you want to get on. And during these stark financial times, God knows everyone wants more bang for their buck.”

“Indeed.”

“These are just the realities you have to contend with in this game.”

That and mastering the dodgy handshakes, Burke thought as he watched Gray stare out of the window in a manner he probably thought conveyed a contemplative general surveying the field of battle, despite the fact the view was of a car park.

Why the DCI thought he had to sell him on this he had no clue, but he’d go along with the charade anyway, just to indulge him. It paid to look keen while silently chalking these things up to experience.

“You’re married, aren’t you Jim?”

“I am,” Burke replied. “Three years.”

“Early days,” Gray chuckled. “Tell me about it when it’s been 20.”

Burke reflected that he hadn’t in fact brought it up.

“You know, my brother-in-law’s in the car trade.”

“Really?”

“Yes, does all right out of it too. Not sure there hasn’t been the odd dodgy dealing and there at times if you know what I mean, and he’s picked up more than a few tricks along the way. In fact I think he could well put Derren Brown to shame.”

“I’m sure.”

“Once told me a story about a time he got a dodgy Triumph Stag from the auctions, just in the early days as he was starting out. He had a mechanic who looked the car over and discovered the suspension was shot. Well, then they decided the only thing they could do was to prop the whole thing up with bits of wood from an old pallet and punt the thing through an ad in one of the trade papers.” Gray chuckled to himself again. “Met the guy down a dark alley or in a layby somewhere so there were no comebacks, flogged it and legged it.” He laughed some more, taking a moment to bask in the glory of what he doubtless thought was a well told anecdote.

“Really,” Burke replied, in a manner he hoped was just the right side of sarcastic.

“Yes, really,” the DCI replied, remembering himself, before nervously clearing his throat and continuing. “Anyway, the thing he always says, and I mean always, at any given opportunity at pretty much every family gathering once he gets a few too many G&Ts into him, is that most cars are not sold to men.”

“I see.” Much as Burke appreciated the words of wisdom, he found it unlikely he would be selling Vauxhall Astras anytime soon.

“Ah but you don’t Jim.” Gray pressed on, “And you won’t until you reach a later stage of the syndrome. My brother in law rarely sells a car to a man, well not one that’s married or otherwise cohabiting at any rate. Even if it’s the husband looking and on the surface buying, you always sell the car to the wife. She makes the decisions everywhere, and I mean everywhere. That’s the point.”

“I hear that.” Burke said absent-mindedly.

“Sorry?”

“Imagine that.”

“You might well imagine it James. Clearly you still harbour some illusion of control, but that’ll fade once, Rachel is it?”

“Yes.”

“Once Rachel has worn you down.”

“Right.” Was Gray trying to justify something he had done at the bidding of his wife, some crime he was about to fess up to following his segue into the mind of the car buying and indeed it seemed general mind-set of the married man?

“Eventually you’ll know what it is to be beaten down.”

“Doubtless.”

“Anyway, that’s my point.”

“I see. Sorry…” Burke struggled to find his words and instead found himself merely squinting as though an altered visual field would allow some new light to shine on the situation as spelled out by his superior, giving some kind of grasp of the situation.

Gray let out a long sigh. “The divisional commander’s wife says we’re not allowed to pass this on to the SCDEA so you’re stuck with it.”

They sat round Davie’s kitchen table draining cups of tea which were swiftly refilled from a giant pot sitting on top of the Aga. Davie’s mum treated him well it had to be said. Legend had it he didn’t know how to make tea and didn’t even choose his own clothes in the morning; just turned up at the Aga where they were waiting, folded over the rail, primed for the boy wonder to fill them.