Robert Parker - Snow Storm

“Ok. Go back through it. Check for anything that takes a bit longer. Possibly something that comes in out of sequence if you see what I mean, a car maybe comes in in front of another and exits behind it, anything we can go on.”

Quinn started to scratch his nose either in nervousness or -more likely Burke thought- frustration as his cheeks turned slightly pink and he stared at his diary.

“Ok, the witness?”

“Nervous wreck boss, understandably,” DS McKay piped up, his voice a couple of octaves lower, doubtless from another night spent sinking a few. His eyes were heavily hooded under a mass of wrinkled bare scalp. “Seemed a harmless enough laddie, works as an accountant in Canonmills, walks through the park every morning to get there. He spotted it on Friday morning as you know and only checked it yesterday out of misguided curiosity.”

“Could have been worse though,” snorted DC Campbell from the other side of the table. “Could have been a kid that found it. Should be strung up, the bastards that did it.”

So Campbell was back too.

“Possibly,” McKay carried on as Campbell folded his arms and shook his head in over hammed moral outrage. “Anyway getting back to the facts boss, he really didn’t have anything useful to add.”

He then told them about the latest addition to their case load. A couple of them already knew. News travelled fast in the station. Murder still carried some currency despite the public perception of the crime levels sky rocketing in the city.

He put this out there and left it hanging, gauging their different reactions, letting them run with it.

Some thought nothing of it. “Coincidence” McKay said. “Sometimes you just get a rash of these things.”

“It’s a revenge killing boss,” Campbell announced. “You know yourself, these flats are full of immigrants, Eastern Europeans. One of theirs gets popped or in this case carved up and they decide to take matters into their own hands. It’s like the wild west down there.”

DC Jones snorted and shook her head.

“What?” Campbell asked.

“Been reading a bit too much Daily Mail again?”

“I’m only telling it like it is down there. It’s all very well you telling me what I can and can’t say just cos you’ve done a degree in under water basket weaving for lesbians but this is a murder investigation.” Campbell replied, folding his arms and staring at the table in an instant sulk.

“Ok, that’s the theory from the far right,” Burke interjected in an effort to dissolve the tension and get the discussion back on topic. “Any of you lily livered lefties want to throw something into the mix?”

They didn’t. McKay and Quinn looked particularly puzzled. More fool him to put them on the spot.

“In which case I vote we proceed as normal and treat these as two separate investigations and as mine is the casting vote, well, you get the picture. That said, as DC Campbell is so intent on chasing up his crack pipe theory…” He timed this so they would laugh. “I’ll indulge him in it for the rest of the morning. He can find out anything he can about garrottes and try to avoid going down the line of the Spanish Inquisition, much as I know he’d love it to be a Catholic conspiracy.” They laughed again at this and even Campbell grudgingly smiled, though Quinn and McKay still looked confused.

“Any other business? Well, back to the grindstone I guess.”

As the fourth generation to take the reins at the family firm, an old Etonian and recipient of The Law Award for Legal Personality of the Year 1992, Rupert James Farquhar the third always felt he knew a thing or two about duty. Responsibility for one’s position, the good name of the family and the firm was a heavy burden but one he and his forefathers had borne stoically through two world wars, a depression and a slow but steady erosion of the older better ways. Time was one knew one’s place in the world and accepted it with the good grace God or whoever ran the bigger picture intended.

But times were changing. His son for instance did not inhabit the same world much less share the same values or even the traditional family Christian name.

Sarah had of course insisted it was all old hat. No one was called Rupert anymore she had informed him. He’d wanted to insist, wanted to put his foot down but after 23 hours of labour he was just too tired to argue and relented. And so the boy was called James. It would prove to be the thin end of the wedge.

In truth if he was properly honest with himself, and at a time like this he may as well, it had all begun and ended the night he met her. Right there and then he had lost every skirmish they would ever engage in during the war of attrition that was their marriage.

It had been vanity all along he knew. He had ignored the advice of family and friends. He had allowed himself this error of judgement instead of listening to advice, his conscience or reason of any kind.

He remembered the conversation with his brother now, just before he went to buy the ring. Miles had sat him down and over a large glass of 21 year old Macallan, extolled the virtues of the Volvo.

“You see a Ferrari is a fine thing Rupe, no doubt about that. It looks good, dangerous curves and all that and it’ll give you a good kick when you’re seen out and about with it and you’ll feel like a hero when you’re getting to grips with it.” Miles gave his older brother a knowing look. It might have seemed strange to anyone else, taking advice from a younger brother but Miles was a man who seemed to have crammed more living into his 25 years than many did in 75 and so it was not uncommon. “Thing is, they’re not cheap to maintain. Matter of fact they can be outright dangerous in the wrong hands and there isn’t much room for anyone else. No, they’re a dammed liability Rupe. Now consider, if you will, the Volvo estate. I know. It’s hardly a glamorous statement. You didn’t have a poster of one on your wall as a nipper but at the same time it’ll look just grand down the golf club. It won’t break down every three weeks and your life will be a lot more comfortable. Got to think about these things Rupe.”

“So Sarah’s the Ferrari is she?” he’d asked.

“Eh? Good God no. Where did you get that from?” Miles had asked, winking over the top of his whiskey glass and lighting a roll up.

Three days later Miles was killed in a head on collision with a lorry. A month after that Rupert proposed, shortly before buying a Volvo.

She’d wanted everything, and so much of it. The problem was she didn’t have a clue as to the cost of anything. She was the daughter of a minor aristocrat; a failed artist who subscribed to the traditional theory that a gentleman does not know what is in his bank account and it seemed to be in the genes. She was incapable of any kind of pragmatism but he couldn’t ever give her up.

His son of course did not go to Eton but was instead despatched to Fettes College in order to avoid cutting those golden apron strings. James’s tastes were equally expensive and Rupert found himself getting further and further off course, paying debts with worse ones, mortgaging the family pile and then doing it again knowing full well that one day soon he would have to quite literally pay the price.

And then one day, staring into the abyss, on the brink of foreclosure and the end of everything he had ever known there it was; a shining beacon, the solution to all his problems.

Farquhar and Donaldson had acquired a new client, one of epic stature. His dreams had come true it seemed. But as time would prove, these included his nightmares.

As he walked through the woods on this December morning however, all seemed strangely well. The winter sun split the trees and the leaves crunched satisfyingly under his feet. The office would be opening up now and he would normally have been at his desk reading the times and drinking a Virgin Mary.