Robert Parker: Snow Storm

Firstly I’d like to thank my wife Caroline, who not only puts up with me on a daily basis but managed to see me through the writing of this novel. Why she does all this, I’ll never know, but I’m quietly grateful.

I’d like to thank my mum for at different times nagging, cajoling and persuading me into getting on with it. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I’d also like to thank Monica for the same, and for editing and proofreading this, without which, it’s doubtful anyone would be able to make sense of it.

Thank you to my friends and family and to my esteemed colleagues, the fraud crew, without whose ridicule and bad chat on a daily basis I might get ideas above my station.

It feels good to cross the finish line.

“ You must have known this couldn’t go on forever.”

It was true. Deep down the feeling had been there all along; the knowing that all good runs must come to an end. But not like this. Even in his worst imaginings he hadn’t pictured this, hadn’t accepted the possibility if he was honest, not even now.

“ Did you think I would just let this go on? Let you carry on with your games, let you desecrate what was mine?”

He had.

“ It’s all about one of the fundamental laws of the universe you see. Every action, no matter how small, has an equal and opposite reaction. That’s how it works, and yet you somehow thought you could, what, circumvent physics, avoid paying the piper? Thought you could just keep taking without giving back? It doesn’t work like that.” The figure glowed in the firelight, a demonic presence, taunting him, the grin turning up at one corner of the mouth more than the other. Twisted. Sneering. The features flickered as the flames rose. If only it was just an apparition, a hallucination, some kind of nightmare he could wake from.

He saw the glint before he realised what it was, considered it with only child like curiosity before it dawned on him with its full consequences.

“ You are the devil,” he said, without realising.

His captor laughed manically, throwing his head back. “No, not quite,” he said as he approached, the sneer returning to his face, “but you can say hello to him for me.”

The pain did not register at first. Not until he knew what was happening. And then, it was all there was.

They were having the discussion they normally did on a Monday morning, despite this being Friday; the one about avoiding the bumps on the road. It didn’t help that his head hurt more whenever she drove over one of the many potholes Edinburgh City Council had seen fit to nurture while ploughing their resources into their bottomless money pit of a tram system. It was the discussion that revolved around the consequences of hitting every drain cover and blemish on the road, the damage to the cars tracking, the resulting tyre wear and the unshakeable feeling he had regarding the likelihood the bottom was about to fall out of the world while they simultaneously expired in a ball of fire.

He was a defeatist. He’d long since given in to that.

They bounced and chicaned their way down the hill and onto Carrington Road, pulling in between the Lothian and Borders Police Headquarters, the Hogwarts-esque Fettes College and the determinedly modern Broughton High School.

“Ah well, time for my morning exercise” he groaned, as he prepared to exit for his hike across the park to work. He kissed her on the cheek to avoid the lip balms stickiness and she laughed and pretended to fan away last night’s alcohol fumes.

He opened the door and caught site of a plastic sports bag hanging by its strings from a lamp post.

“Do you think there’s a head in there?” he asked her.

“You’re a sick man” she replied and shook her head again as he walked away.

By Monday morning it was still there. By Tuesday his curiosity got the better of him and he had to have a look.

He would spend years wishing he hadn’t.

Burke got the call just after eight, after a fitful night’s sleep on account of Rachel’s tossing and turning with the bump. He was in the middle of a delicate operation, trying to extricate some toast from the toaster using a butter knife. If the toaster wiped him out she would simply view it as an acceptable loss in the larger picture, which at this stage was dominated by a craving she had for sardines on toast. Pregnancy had exposed her ruthless streak.

At first he thought the dispatcher was joking. Then he remembered the time of year. Of course, the festive season could always be relied upon to bring out a nutter with a chip on their shoulder or just a desperate need for attention.

He made Rachel’s breakfast then headed across town to the scene of crime.

Uniform had already cordoned off Carrington Road and both schools staff were in the process of sending any early arriving kids home. A tent had been set up around the lamp post where a nosey passer-by had discovered the contents of the bag and subsequently dropped them unceremoniously on the pavement making a bit of a mess. For this reason he’d opted to wear his second favourite boots.

The SOC team, along with some lucky officers had been drafted in and were combing the area for evidence.

Burke showed his warrant card to the uniformed foetus standing by the tent and entered, rousing Dr Brown from his intense scowling at the battered looking somewhat smelly decapitated head of a middle aged man which had come to a halt face down on the pavement. Various fluids seemed to ooze from what looked a lot like an Edinburgh Marathon finishers’ goodie bag.

“Jim,” was all the coroner said, before resuming his contemplative pose, like a craggy faced Scottish version of Rodin’s Thinker with less hair, more gut and a redness of face only a love of good wine could provide.

“Any idea as to the cause of death?” Burke asked.

“Well the milder weather of the last couple of days and the resulting thaw meant that he was in a bag of his own decomposing bodily fluids so drowning is a possibility,” came the reply. “Though in all seriousness it looks like he was probably dead before they hacked him up. We’ll know more once I’ve had a closer look back on the slab.”

“Look familiar in any way? Anything you’ve seen like this before?”

“Nope. Clearly a statement if ever I saw one though.”

“Any ideas as to the time of death?” Burke asked feeling like it was a long shot.

“Well the change in weather allows for more of a margin of error but a head in this condition, temperature below zero, four days,” Brown replied without batting an eyelid.

“How do you know that?” Burke scoffed.

“There are body parts in body farms in the most unlikely places just decomposing away and all so I can tell you it’s been four days. You don’t automatically end up in a lecture theatre when you donate yourself these days Jim.”

“Noted,” Burke replied, suppressing the urge the farmer’s son in him had to ask if there were diversification grants available for that sort of thing.

He made his way to the station in Gayfield Square, succumbing to the urge to pick up a triple espresso and a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. After destroying that, he fired up the e-cigarette Rachel had given him -or rather forced on him- inhaling the clinically clean vapours and the accompanying sense of hollow disappointment at the lack of burning in the back of his throat. Then he polished off a crème egg. Nothing was ever enough anymore.

This development was frustrating. He could feel a migraine starting to take shape at the corner of his left eye.