Snow Storm by Robert Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

them into another context
he thought, before rebuking himself for the kind of lazy thinking
he hated seeing in anyone else. Sometimes he felt he was engaged in
a constant battle to see off the thought processes that signalled
the start of the inevitable decline. Fair play, he was half way to
seventy this year.
    The guy, who introduced
himself as DC Black, seemed almost shy, and yet there was something
about his manner, something just the wrong side of assertive;
probably just a sense of entitlement bestowed upon him by virtue of
the fact he was a member of the SCDEA, the institution the media
had taken great pains to describe as a Scottish equivalent of the
FBI. Or maybe it was the fact he was a small man with big hair, as
so many weegies seemed to be.
    He wore a
wedding ring which seemed out of place, given his age and wore a
leather bomber jacket, which Burke suspected was less ironic
fashion sense, more playing at being the big movie cop. He wondered
how long he’d spent practising the iron grip handshake: probably
bullied at school.
    The girl, DC
Wilson seemed pretty hard-nosed in the sense that she said very
little but had an unrelenting gaze and when she did speak it was
more of a grunting in acknowledgement kind of thing. He got the
sense she was busy taking everything in, mixing it with a healthy
sized pinch of disdain. He could tell she didn’t approve of him; an
old fogey wearing a suit and hiding out here rather than getting on
with the high flyers and busting the big criminals. She too was on
the small side. He wondered if they’d been paired up to make Black
feel more secure. She stood with folded arms, not in a way that
some people seemed to think gave away a sense of discomfort. She
wasn’t hugging herself. She was more intent on projecting the idea
that she couldn’t be bothered standing up straight with her arms by
her sides. This place wasn’t worthy of good posture or standing to
attention in any way. Her hair was scraped back in austere
utilitarian fashion and she chewed on her lip as she scanned the
room and tried to rein in the contempt. She wore a scarf tight
around her neck so that only her face was visible.
    This was just
a courtesy call of course; before they identified the Russian or
former Russian’s head officially, as they inevitably would, and
Edwards would put in a courtesy call to give him the soft soap,
tell him it was ok, they’d take the whole thing off his hands while
inwardly gritting his teeth and hoping those parochial Edinburgers
wouldn’t get possessive over a case and an operation they’d
blundered their way into by virtue of just working on the patch the
relevant part of the stiff had turned up on. How much better might
things have been for Edwards if one of the other body parts had
simply turned up elsewhere? A leg in Bishopbriggs perhaps, an arm
in East Kilbride, or maybe a foot in Falkirk could have been a foot
in the door.
    He caught up on the news
while he waited to hear the inevitable result. More snow was
predicted. They’d yet to see the results of the last batch other
than in the Yorkshire Dales and a few minor road closures in the
south east where everything seemed to happen.
    The phone rang on his
desk. Edwards already? What was the decision to be?
    It was
Rachel. Could he, per chance, collect a Christmas tree from Gorgie
City Farm on the way home? He agreed with a heavy sigh that slipped
out and then led to one of those conversations revolving round his
assertion that it was fine and he didn’t mind which they both knew
was not that case.
    He would let Edwards take
the case off his hands he had already decided, mainly because he
didn’t have the energy to bother fighting over it, or take it
higher up, much less a Scooby what was going on with the whole
thing. Of course they would weigh in anyway, with the argument that
this was getting in the way of their investigation into god knew
what and the bigger boys and girls upstairs would at least be happy
that