Robert Parker - Snow Storm

The phone rang, disturbing Petr as he made coffee. He wasn’t one of life’s multi-taskers and resented the interruption to his routine. The boss must still be in the shower, unable to answer, no surprise given last night’s session and the fact he’d taken enough hard liquor to put a rocket in orbit.

The caller had an accent corrupted by time spent in the west and announced himself vaguely as Oleg. He didn’t try to keep abreast of the boss’s contacts, didn’t really care as long as the money kept rolling in and if he thought about it, didn’t really want to know.

The boss looked like a man with heavy cares these days. Just went to show, money wasn’t everything.

He climbed the marble staircase and made his way through the gold encrusted master suite, taking care to knock on the en-suites door and wait for the customary “yes!” that indicated his employer wasn’t in too compromising a state, and entered.

The boss stood in the middle of the tiled floor engulfed in steam, a normal size bath towel barely concealing vast rolls of flab. Petr had long suspected he would one day meet his end at the point of a harpoon.

The hooded bloodshot eyes glowered questioningly and Petr handed over the phone.

“Oleg” was all he said as the boss nodded in knowing appreciation.

As he exited he heard some mumblings followed by an almighty high-pitched crash. He turned to see the cause was the crystal bowl that normally housed the bath oils making sudden contact with the mirror and the glass sink below.

The boss looked at him and shrugged breathing heavily. “Clear this up if you would. Oh and pack a bag. I’m leaving for Edinburgh at noon.”

Petr sighed. It seemed nobody cared for his routine this morning.

Burke knocked on the DCI’s door and upon hearing the entry granted grunt made his way inside. DCI Gray sat at his institutional MDF desk surrounded by institutional MDF shelves containing his various institutional trinkets; the pictures of the kids, a golfing trophy, a suspiciously masonic looking plaque commending him for something or other and a photo of him with Teenie and Tynie the Hearts mascot tigers.

Gray focussed on the wide screen in front of him and motioned for Burke to take a seat, his eyes never leaving the display as he worked the mouse back and forth irritably. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this is a right royal pain in the arse Jim,” he said, finally giving him a cursory look in the eye before flitting his gaze back to the screen.

“No sir. Potential nightmare,” was all Burke could come up with.

“There’s nothing on any of the press sites so far but there have been phone calls and not just from the press.”

“I see.”

“Ah but you don’t. Obviously there is the fact this happened right under our noses, right outside headquarters and right next to two schools. That’s bad enough once it hits the press but the real kicker is the fact the Divisional Commander’s kids just happen to be Fettes students. Fan-fucking-tastic. So he’s undoubtedly getting grief from that lawyer missus of his who just happens to be on the board of governors and of course the kicks are getting fed back down the line.” He stopped, took off his thick framed specs and began rubbing his temples. “December: it’s bad enough I have to try and get my hands on this tablet my son wants that nobody seems to have. Have we got any leads?”

“None so far sir.”

“And the guy who found the head?”

“Looks like just a passer-by who got nosey. He was too freaked out to get a proper statement according to the guys on the ground at the time. I’ll try to speak to him later on today.”

“Ok.” Gray nodded to himself. “Going forward I want you to keep me in the loop as and when developments occur. I really feel like I’m fire-fighting here with the media and everything else. It’s important we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. Right?”

“Right,” Burke confirmed, wondering at the same time precisely what it was he’d agreed to.

He made his way back to his desk and found he had two missed calls, one from Rachel asking him to pick up some milk on the way home as she had acquired a craving for macaroni and cheese and another from Dr Brown asking him to call back.

He called Brown back first, telling himself not to hope too much. It rang out as it always seemed to when he thought about it too much so he picked up a copy of The Metro and had a quick look at the stories of the day. They predicted a big freeze which under further scrutiny wasn’t exactly all the story it was billed as, with the met office predicting temperatures may well drop as low as minus five. Strange that such a thing could happen in winter. Slow news day. Tomorrow wouldn’t be. He booted up his PC and had a look at the BBC and Sky News web sites. He went on the theory that somewhere in between these two lay the truth. Again, nothing eventful was happening in the world at large. He was just about to start a Sudoku puzzle when the phone rang. It wasn’t a number he recognised but it was an Edinburgh land line.

“Ah Jim.” It was Brown, instantaneously recognisable for being the only person Burke knew who seemed able to snore and talk at the same time.

“Doc, what’s the latest?” he asked holding his breath.

“Well it would appear it was actually a case of off with his head.”

“That doesn’t sound fun.”

“No, not my idea of a good time either but it doesn’t look like he’d have known much about it. There doesn’t seem to have been too much movement involved. Whoever did the chopping had a good go at it with a non-struggling target which it looks like they would have needed under the circumstances.”

“How so?”

“Well rather than cutting at the neck with a sharp blade hostage execution video style or using a chainsaw, they appear to have used something a bit heavier. Judging by the number of cuts and the thickness of the blade I’d say a machete rather than a cleaver, something longer, but rounder at the end so he couldn’t get a square cut and had to hack at the loose skin on the exit side of the neck several times.”

“Nice.”

“Indeed. Other than that I’d say between 45 and 50, probably obese judging by the subcutaneous fat levels on the jowls alone, heavy smoker and drinker going on the stained teeth, and the fatty build-up in the carotid arteries along with the broken veins around the face. He was also fond of cocaine it seems. His nose and in particular septum show signs of the kind of degeneration associated with that particular hobby.

“We’re looking at the missing persons register but obviously there are a few missing middle aged men, although none in the past three weeks. Doesn’t exactly sound like he was living rough or on the run though.”

“No. If anything I would say he was living a bit too well.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, there is one other point. Pink tooth.”

“Pink tooth?”

“Yes. It has been known to turn up in autopsies or in this case partial autopsies before, notably following the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. However in this case only one tooth was affected.”

“Interesting. Meaning?”

“It can happen as a result of an in injection of Arsenic Trioxide into the root pulp of a tooth prior to root canal surgery.”

Burke realised he was rubbing his jaw at this point, the memory of a recent root canal treatment still a bit too raw. “I suppose we’ll be cross referencing dental records anyway.”

“Ah yes, but in this case, should you draw a blank, they don’t use this procedure anymore. It had a tendency to cause Periodontal Tissue Necrosis and it was linked to Osteomyelitis.”