Robert Parker - Snow Storm

This all seemed to be leading down one road. If it was even possible.

Burke called by the flat on the way back to the station. He had a fair idea Rachel might have something to stem the flow of the bleeding, which stubbornly refused to let up.

“Oh I have,” she said with a knowing look. “Some advice. Go to A and E.”

“I haven’t got time,” he pleaded.

“No,” was all she said, before digging out a collection of cotton wool, sticking plasters and a bottle of Dettol.

He gritted his teeth as she applied an antiseptic soaked pad to the gaping wound on his hand and the pain shot up to his elbow. By rights, he felt it ought to have cauterised the wound, given the searing nature of the sting. No matter. It would offer some kind of protection for the time being.

He turned to thank her and noticed the bags piled high in the bedroom door.

“It’s what you wanted isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, knowing that it was the only answer. “It’s not…”

“No, I know,” she said. It never is. “You’ve got to do what needs to be done.”

“But…”

“I’ve seen the letters James.”

“Letters?”

“Did you think they’d only sent one? Oh no. There have been a few now,” she said, smiling coldly.

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Do you need a lift to the station?” he asked, searching for something, anything to say.

“There’s a taxi on the way,” she said, folding her arms tight across the top of her substantial bump, as though bracing against a cold wind. “We’ll talk later.”

He made his way back to the car where Jones was waiting, arguing with someone on the phone by the looks of it. Was this a common theme in their line?

“Other half?” he asked, reading her pensive expression.

“For now,” came the response.

He dumped a bag at her feet. “There’s food in there if you’re desperate,” he said feeling guilty that he should allow anyone else to eat the pasta his wife had made for him only a couple of days before, when everything had seemed so much more normal.

Jones must have got the hint as she seemed to steer around his dinner, settling instead on another package in the bag. “What’s this?” she asked, pulling out a rolled up newspaper. It was bound in brown paper and hand addressed with the requisite amount of stamps on the other side.

“Local rag from back home. My gran sends it to me once a week, thinks it keeps me grounded up here in the big smoke.”

“It’s good to stay grounded I suppose.”

On arrival at the station it turned out “Your Mother” had secured legal representation in the jelly like form of Dougie Jamieson, the duty solicitor who was on call to the criminals of the parish at the most inconvenient of hours. Burke often wondered what Jamieson had done to deserve such a fate, something sinister? Or perhaps some kind of faux pas at a law society dinner that now saw him reduced to the rank of social leper for the rest of his days. Or maybe it was just the fact that he was a fat tub of lard with chronic BO, a suit that was so cheap it crackled with static when he walked and all the social skills of a sewer rat.

His attacker was technically called Stuart McColm, according to his birth certificate and ID. Although there being no law of deed poll in Scotland he could be addressed as whatever he liked.

Interview room two was cold and Burke thought it was best to leave the lardy lawyer and the teenage cat burglar to relax and acclimatise to the conditions for a while. The cold would doubtless make them both that bit more jumpy, though Jamieson was considerably better insulated than the sylph like McColm. Having checked his record, the kid had form; a caution for possession of cannabis and a fine for breach of the peace a year before. Nothing serious on the surface but reading a bit further he discovered the breach of the peace was related to his occupation of the time, that of rent boy and suspected drug pusher.

Burke cut straight to the chase. “Who was with you?” he demanded, only to be rebuffed with an uncooperative response. No one liked a grass, especially those of a more professional criminal persuasion. “I suppose they had the laptop,” he continued.

“I don’t know fuck all about the laptop,” the boy answered wrinkling his brow and folding his arms, succeeding only in looking more teenage.

“But there was a laptop. You don’t deny that,”

“No, well maybe, so what. I’m telling you nothing piggy.”

“There’s no need to be like that,” Jones cut in as Burke tried his best to look offended. “You sliced Inspector Burke’s hand open. It’s doubtful he’ll ever be able to knit again.”

McColm looked confused for a second and then let out a snigger.

“He’s been pretty understanding about this all Stuart. It isn’t like we want much in return.”

Stuart looked at his fingernails which were in need of a good clean, before shifting his gaze to Jones who gave him her best I’m a reasonable woman look back. “What’s gonna happen to me?” he asked in a voice that had a pitch to match his whingey demeanour.

His ginger hair dyed blonde and his tango tan did nothing to detract from the effect. It was no wonder he’d felt the need to wear a mask. He might have glowed in the dark otherwise. Burke got the sense he hadn’t been forgiven for the blow to the side of the head. He was an authority figure, one in a long line this kid had undoubtedly come up against in his nineteen years, starting with the drunken waster father who had beaten him and his mother black and blue on a regular basis before buggering off and leaving them to fend for themselves in Sighthill. Sure, there were decent members of society everywhere but there were forgotten people out there too, people that didn’t play by the same rules as the general population, and it was hard to know right from wrong when you’d been beaten regardless of what you did from a young age.

Jones had a way of softening up witnesses. He had to hand it to her. She worked them like some kind of prize fighter, softening them up with a few body blows before continuing with the full on cranial assault just to finish the job. Timing was everything. She had him talking now, about how he’d left home at a young age, wasn’t much worse than the flat in Sighthill anyway freedom to be who you really were, that was the thing.

“It isn’t you we’re after, is it? That’s what you’ve got to remember,” she said.

He nodded his head.

“I mean you didn’t kill Oleg Karpov did you?”

He shook his head.

“For the benefit of the tape please Stuart.”

The boy grunted in the negative, before looking like he was going to cry.

“You were there though. And my guess is, you know who did.”

His head dropped onto the table and he cradled it in his arms, letting out a sigh that seemed to go on for longer than lung capacity should have allowed. “I was there,” he said, an air of desperation in his voice, “but I really don’t know who did it.”

“What did you see?”

“Everything, but nothing that can help,” he said rubbing his hair nervously before covering his face with his elbows. “They were wearing masks.”

“Like the kind of masks you were wearing tonight?”

“Yes. No. It wasn’t us, I swear.” He looked pleadingly into her eyes.

“Who is us Stuart?”

“Me and a friend. It’s not important. He knows nothing I don’t.”

“Why don’t you tell us and we can interview him? Then at least we can find out for ourselves. It’s important we find out what happened.” She paused for a second. “Why did you go back for the laptop?”

“I don’t know.”

“But your friend did? Does that tell us something about how much more he knew than you? Or maybe you thought the CCTV footage on a laptop shows more than you can have out there in the big wide world. Maybe there’s something there to incriminate you.”