Snow Storm (16 page)

He hadn’t actually known
where to go, given that he was not a native of the area, though
neither, he discovered, was she. “So what brings you here?” he
asked, interested to know why someone would give up on the chance
to write for The Herald or The Scotsman, assuming they were good
enough, in exchange for going to work for a local paper. He’d seen
them, only weeks ago, during research for today’s charade, running
a story about three sheep nearly being wiped out on the A75. He
thought the headline had been something like “Three sheep in daring
rescue from A75.”

“
It was,” she
confirmed. “I thought I used a more understated turn of phrase,
compared to the one my editor wanted to use.”

“
Which
was?”

“
Three sheep
in death road shock, or something along those lines.”

“
Sensationalist is he?”

She took a sip of her
wine and smiled. “Used to work for the tabloids until his wife made
him quit his job and take this one in aid of a quieter life.
Something to do with his blood pressure. I’d say he might be better
off drying out and quitting the fags if it came down to
it.”

“
Quite. Isn’t
that a hazard of the game you are in though?”

“
Isn’t being
a lying toe rag a hazard of the game you’re in?” She countered,
with a grin.

“
Touché.”

They were in
the Isle of Whithorn, not so much an isle as it was now firmly
joined to the mainland and more of a village, she explained. In
years gone by smuggling was rife on this coastline. Many of the
farmhouses had hideaways under staircases. Many outbuildings had
fake floors. One in particular had a limekiln which was movable in
order to stockpile rum, brandy, or whatever from the dreaded hands
of the excise man. “It was remote,” she explained. “Still is,” she
added with a grin.

Giles choked on his white
wine as it made a brief detour the wrong way and stared out at the
boats as he attempted to recover. They were in the Steam Packet,
its windows affording a view of the isle’s harbour, the church
seemingly built into the water and the houses on the shore
beyond.

“
There’s even
a rumour that one of the places involved, a farm near Monreith, has
a tunnel to the beach from the old abandoned farmhouse. The house
itself is in the wrong place. It sits on the far side of the farm,
rather than where it should be traditionally, in front of the farm
to stop intruders. I’d really love to get some aerial photos
taken.”

“
Google
Earth?” He suggested absent mindedly.

She laughed at this,
flicking her hair behind her ears. “I meant infrared photos of the
area. If your clients are allowing anyone to fly in and out of
Baldoon that might be interested in that kind of thing, you could
let me know.”

He felt a bit of a set up
at hand. Was this why she’d agreed to lunch?

He dropped her off back
in Wigtown and headed back to Kirroughtree and his salubrious digs.
The ancient hotel was empty this time of year and he
single-handedly kept the bar open for a while, before falling into
a fitful sleep.

He woke sharply at three
am as the phone blared in his left ear. His head pounded from the
effort of reading the display on the screen and answering it nearly
brought his stomach contents out along with his words, which in
this case were restricted to “Giles” followed by
“what!?”

He crawled out of bed and
staggered towards the bathroom, sticking his fingers forcefully
down his throat in order to get rid of the remaining alcohol. He
brushed his teeth, showered and made a cup of coffee, if he could
describe instant as such, before donning his best Saville Row suit
and doing a cursory check in the mirror. Perfect. Time to go to
work.

The people carrier waited
by the front door probably disturbing staff and whatever guests
were around.

The sheep would doubtless
return to the land of nod. Meanwhile, the important people had
things to do.

********************

Andy sat on top of a
wooden pallet, which in turn sat on top of another bearing an
industrial sized bag of lime. He might normally have been relaxing
sitting on something like this, probably somewhere in a field,
taking a break from spreading the same stuff as fertiliser. Not in
this case.

His feet were attached to
the pallet below with a cable tie and his hands were tied to the
one he sat on with another, close to the small of his back in the
most uncomfortable way possible. He couldn’t lean back in the way
he wanted to. They’d made sure of that. The only option was to
hunch forward like a broken man or try to sit straight. He chose
the latter.

This was taking things a
bit far surely, wasn’t it? All he’d done was a bit of sneaking
around. There was no law against that. On the other hand he was
pretty sure those were unlicensed Kalashnikovs and there most
definitely was a law against that.

They hadn’t actually done
anything to him, save for a bit of a cuff round the ear with the
butt of one of those guns when he’d demanded they let him go and
started to kick off. He’d got the message. They were serious but he
wasn’t sure why. This kind of crap didn’t wash round here. That was
what he’d been trying to tell them, but that didn’t seem to wash
with them.

He was in a
large warehouse with a lot of lime and not much else. He faced a
brick wall, cobwebbed probably from sometime around the Second
World War. It was quiet in here. The wind whistled and moaned
through the aging roof and the only other sound he heard was the
scurrying of something, probably rats. He hated rats. It was a
toss-up which was more intense; his hatred for rats or for the
adders you couldn’t walk a hundred yards without meeting on a sunny
day down on the farm. He’d give anything to have that problem
now.

The vastness of the
warehouse was behind him, so he couldn’t see what was going on but
he knew they were gone for now. In a place this big and this quiet
echoes travelled. Hitchcock couldn’t have thought up psychological
torture better.

The last time he’d felt
this petrified it had been his TB vaccination that caused the
upset. He’d missed it the first time and the boys at school had
taken great pleasure telling him about the long needle scraping the
bone as it went in too far. It had been a non-event in the end.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t spent days worrying about it, every time
the door opened and someone came into or left the classroom. Three
days they’d been in school, catching up with the victims they’d
missed and three days they’d kept him waiting: hell on earth. Ever
since he’d been very much a believer in getting things over and
done with quickly; pull the plaster off in one go before you even
feel the pain.

He’d be very grateful if
they’d just give him a kicking and send him on his way.

Burke had been unable to
get any shuteye. Images of spirograph generated crime networks
floated in his head, along with dead soldiers, both criminal and
actual.

He didn’t like loose
ends, not that there were any tied ones yet, but it was
increasingly looking like a many splintered thing, an equation that
took in too many factors to allow him to sleep the sleep of the
just.

He wouldn’t
tell Rachel he’d decided. There were certain types of information
he could impart when it came to his job and certain types he
couldn’t. He’d learned that through hard won experience. She’d only
freak out, and that couldn’t be good for her or the
baby.

As ill as it made him
feel he doubted the threats were grounded in reality. No one could
be that ruthless, could they?

“
I’ve been
busy a lot, haven’t I,” he said as they sat in front of the TV
before going to bed.

“
I’m glad you
noticed,” she replied. Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but
his wife had turned it into an art form. She did it better than
anyone he’d ever met.

“
I’ve had a
lot on,” he said defensively, before reminding himself where this
was actually going.

“
I know,” she
said. “It’s becoming a theme with you these days.”

“
It is, and
that was why I wondered if it might be worthwhile you spending some
time with your mum.” He could see the expression leave her face and
knew this wasn’t a good sign. It meant she was trying not to give
away her true feelings, which meant she had probably taken offence.
“It’s just I’m worried I’m not around when you go into labour or if
something goes wrong. Surely if you went away while I’m busy you’d
be in better hands.”

“
It is the 21
^st
century James.
People’s employers do make allowances for paternity leave, that
kind of thing.”

“
I know,” he
said, now stuck for words. “I just.”

“
Ok,” was all
she said.

And he couldn’t help but
feel that nothing was.

He sipped on
a coffee. Some people drank it to wake them up in the morning. He
would probably confess he needed it to sleep at night. The TV
chattered in the background, having been robbed of any significant
volume, owing to his cautionary approach to anything that might
disturb Rachel’s sleep. He paced the living room letting his mind
wander, images of the past converging with images of the present.
Pattern recognition; that was what he strived for. He’d always
suffered from a pictographic memory but it came in handy for some
things, namely his job, the one thing he was vaguely good
at.

So, who was body number
two? Were there yardies in Edinburgh now? His manner of dress and
the manner of his killing, being bumped off execution style,
suggested there were.

He’d quizzed Edwards
about it, even phoned him at home, out of hours, if there was such
a thing in this job.

“
Not aware of
anyone operating in this area,” he’d said. Something didn’t add up
about it though. He remembered what had happened ten or so years
ago, back when he’d been a fresh detective, nowhere near drugs or
organised crime admittedly but he knew a bit about it. Surely
Edwards must. They’d arrived from Birmingham with intentions to
boldly where no Brum gangsters had gone before. They’d heard about
the city’s, by now legendary, heroin habit. In truth, they were a
bit far behind. Anyone who saw Trainspotting knew about that and it
was mid-nineties, based on an epidemic in the eighties. Even so,
the yardies, seeing an opportunity among the city’s fabled
smack-heads, had made for the Scottish capital in an effort to try
their hands at conversion selling or perhaps upselling depending on
the customer’s viewpoint. Their grand plan had been to convert some
keen smack-heads into born again crack-heads, which seemed a
logical move. The problem was they hadn’t counted on the brand
loyalty of Edinburgh’s skag connoisseurs. They were unable to gain
a foothold and having eventually caught the attention of Lothian
and Borders Police they’d decided it might be a good move to bow
out and head for the green, green grass of home.

Surely Edwards should
have known that, mentioned it in the passing, or maybe he didn’t do
small talk unless he had something to gain.

Were they having another
go at cornering the market in the capital? If so they were doing a
grand job of flying under the radar. If they chopped up the Russian
and then lost one of their own they were certainly making waves. So
why hadn’t someone noticed? And now this was blowing up he had a
suspicion he hadn’t seen the last of Edwards. Word had a habit of
getting around.

He opened his
laptop and googled Russian prison tattoos. He should perhaps have
googled Lithuanian prison tattoos but preferred to rely instead on
the inherent albeit unknowing bigotry of the internet community.
Wikipedia had its own thoughts on the matter, which its collective
consciousness had seen fit to lump in with other tattoos, but it
was a starter for ten. He scrolled down the list taking a look at
the photos he’d sent through to his home email account. He didn’t
particularly like viewing images of bloated former jailbirds and
close ups of their warped tattoos in his living room. This was
supposed to be a sanctuary, a bit of a bolt hole away from all this
but needs must. Hell mend him if Rachel found out. He’d already had
the lecture about protecting the baby from all this and not
bringing his work home. That was probably the least of the kid’s
worries with a father like him.

The epaulette, the stars
on his knees, the crucifix on his chest, the church with the onion
domes, and the dagger in his neck and the drops of blood falling
from it, they all meant something.

But maybe the most
telling of all were the two eyes concealed below the roll of flab
hanging over where his waistline had once time been.

All was not what it
seemed with Oleg Karpov.

********************

Giles hated
fast driving, always had since a drunken accident with his father
when he was twelve. He didn’t tolerate it from friends, family or
business associates and especially not Sophie, his pseudo
girlfriend, who had all the deft perception of a mole and worse
coordination. She claimed the shouting made her worse, but he felt
it was character building. It was the way his father had built him
up.