Snow Storm (19 page)

It was a long
flight. The pre-ordered car at the airfield took him straight to
Gayfield Square. He’d never actually been in this situation. He
wasn’t that kind of lawyer. He was a corporate lawyer; a fixer and
facilitator. He enjoyed the challenge of setting things up;
contracts, trusts, loopholes, anything that circumvented or took
advantage of the rule of law, legal process or tax loss; that was
what appealed to him. It pushed his buttons and generally gave him
a good enough kick to get out of bed in the morning. He was not a
criminal lawyer. He wasn’t used to speaking to officers of the law
regarding clients’ attempts to bludgeon and kick their way through
busy bars.

He didn’t
have the street smarts or know the tricks. It was a lack of
practice more than anything. These guys were well versed in the to
and fro of interviewing suspects. He was not well versed in the
defending of said suspects.

He had not met Victor
Andreyevich before. He knew that he was his major client. However,
everything was done through the company. He preferred it that
way.

Andreyevich
did not disappoint. He had a natural air of authority afforded by
sheer physical bulk. Giles didn’t approve of the excessive
jewellery. All very well a signet ring that had been passed down
from the forefathers, but a collection of Christmas baubles
adorning ones fingers was just a bit nouveaux riche.

After some consultation
time, in which he was given some terse instructions they faced the
inquisition. The two detectives they encountered were higher ranked
than he was expecting. Was this due to his client’s high status or
did they genuinely think they had something on him other than the
obvious.

The taller one of the
two, Edwards, seemed intent on doing most of the talking. Giles
felt he recognised him from somewhere. Not school, he was too old
for that but maybe he had a brother or something. In any case, he
seemed to be going round in circles a bit, which Giles supposed was
to be expected, given that he and his client gave them no material
to work on.

Andreyevich’s
plan, or at least this part of it, had been spelled out. It was a
straight policy of saying nothing. He answered not a single
question. Throughout, he eyed Edwards in a nonchalant way that
seemed to imply he wasn’t particularly worried about this. The only
time he had to interject was when Edwards started banging on about
attempted murder. The charge seemed a little ambitious even for a
man who clearly set high targets for himself. The other one, Burke,
seemed a little disconnected, like he was observing from afar. He
didn’t look like a detective, more like someone who should be
trying to sell something he’d just invented on Dragon’s Den. He was
a bit of a quiet one compared to his sidekick who looked more like
the captain of the school rugby team.

The strict policy of
non-ball-playing meant the interview did not take long. There had
been one hair raising moment when Edwards started talking about a
murder or murders his client might be able to ‘shed some light on.’
He didn’t get the reference and was about to interject but his
client waved him away, laughed and shook his head. The lack of
concern was a boost, as at this point if Giles was totally honest
with himself, he was merely playing off the man’s reactions and had
just about zero knowledge of any use.

He thought
Burke might have been staring at him. He never actually caught him
but he was sure he looked away a couple of times to avoid his gaze.
Maybe it was a cop thing. Maybe they were always trying to
recognise someone they’d seen somewhere or other that had done them
or the general public some ill. Or maybe he just didn’t like the
cut of his jib. Whatever the case the feeling was mutual. The man
could at least have shaved for this morning’s interview.

Other than his mounting
paranoia at Burke’s staring and his nausea at Edwards constant
babble, he had to admit it was not the worst hangover he’d ever
had.

But leaving
his client in the holding cells, he had a feeling it might be about
to get a whole lot worse.

As Andy’s
eyes slowly opened he began to grow accustomed to the darkness
unfolding before him. His neck hurt from the awkward unnatural way
he’d been forced to sleep. At first he woke every time his chin hit
his chest, but eventually his body had given in as it had to when
in such dire need of sleep. Now the back of his neck ached in a way
that made him think his upper vertebrae were all out of line
permanently. This was probably the kind of thing that made you walk
around with your head tilted forward for the rest of your days,
turned you into a hunchback or something. He couldn’t imagine it
ever feeling normal again, or that it ever had.

His hands
were now numb and he found himself worrying about the possibility
of circulation loss and the inevitable consequences of this, namely
gangrene and the loss of limb.

But most of all though it
was the pain in his head that really registered. It wasn’t even
that sore. He’d had more pain in his limbs after a good work out.
It was more that everything was not as it should be. One side of
his head was swollen and even in this light his eyesight seemed to
have diminished although maybe that was down to the fact his eye
was bruised closed.

At first he’d thought it
was his captors who kept waking him up. Maybe they were about to
start the hard core water boarding or wire his nuts to a car
battery after a spot of light sleep deprivation. But then he’d
heard the soft female voice, talking to him in a soothing way in a
language not his own as the side of his head was gently massaged
and stroked with some kind of wet material.

The gag was gone. He
tried to speak but at first she just said ‘shhh,’ and then later
she seemed somehow different, voice at a slightly lower pitch
though still talking to him in a foreign tongue.

Slowly the light began to
stream through the crack between the big barn doors in front of
them and it seemed as though someone had hit the room with a
spotlight. He supposed it was all relative. He could now see there
were more than one or even two girls but maybe ten all sitting in
the dark like mushrooms or something.

“
What is
this?” he asked, as someone else took their turn at soothing his
pounding temple.

He was
shushed again. “You must keep quiet,” she told him in a whisper,
“Or they’ll hear you and you don’t want them in here, trust
me.”

She sounded
young, about his age anyway, pretty not that he could see clearly
but blonde, slight, Eastern European looking.

“
What are you
doing here?” he asked.

“
Waiting,”
she answered.

“
What
for?”

She shrugged her
shoulders.

“
You don’t
know? How did you end up here?” he demanded, realising his voice
had escaped more loudly than intended. He could make out her eyes
glaring at him even in this light. “Where are you from?”

She replied something he
didn’t understand before adding, “You call it Georgia.”

“
Georgia? So
what are you doing here?”

“
Escaping,”
she said.

“
Looks like
you’re doing a grand job. Why are you locked up here?”

“
I don’t
know,” she replied. “It is not my place to know. I pay them money
to escape for a new life and now, we wait.”

“
You paid
them for this kind of accommodation?” he said, wishing that he
hadn’t as she took her wet cloth and moved away from him. “I’m
sorry,” he said, meaning it, unlike the majority of times he’d used
the word in his short life. “Do you know what they’ll do with me?”
he asked, knowing he probably didn’t want the response he was about
to get.

She shook her head
looking sad as far as he could tell. He could see that she was very
beautiful and instantly decided the worst was likely to happen to
her.

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

The address
was one in Gorgie; a one bedroom hidden up a backstreet, entered by
a distinctly rank smelling close. He buzzed and waited a good two
minutes before buzzing again and getting an angry response. “What?”
the voice on the intercom demanded.

“
Oleg’s
people sent me,” Giles volunteered. This was followed by a long
pause before the buzzer finally sounded and the outer door was
released.

Through the
door inside emerged a grotesquely overweight figure wearing a grey
tracksuit. He had lank greasy hair, spots and a beard that seemed
to exist mainly on his neck despite obviously being in his
thirties. “You don’t look like Oleg sent you,” the man mountain
challenged.

“
I am his
lawyer,” Giles replied, sticking out his hand. “John
Smith.”

The man laughed at this
but shook his hand with a clammy paw and ushered him inside.
“Jackie Chan. Best not to use our real names I suppose.”

The hall stank of damp
and unwashed clothes. It was dimly lit and there was stuff
everywhere; old computers, boxes of electrical items, seemingly
unopened parcels from Amazon and in one corner a massive pile of
train tickets. As they moved through to the living area which
consisted of a kitchenette that had been at its height of design
currency sometime around 1978 and more stuff surrounding a couch,
there was at least some light provided by a bank of screens. On one
screen there seemed to be various transactions in operation on
another a spreadsheet with what looked like card details. A bigger
screen ran rolling news bulletins and another showed a PlayStation
game paused mid action. There were various printers and blank
cards.

Jackie Chan saw him
looking. “You’re not a cop are you?”

“
No,” Giles
replied, a little too quickly for his liking.

“
Then what
exactly are you?” Chan demanded, “Because I know you weren’t sent
here by Oleg.”

“
And how do
you know that?” Giles replied, injecting as much indignation as he
felt he could properly pull off.

“
Well I
suppose my main reasoning would be based around the fact that he
bought the farm yesterday morning.”

“
Really?”

“
Really,
although it’s not common knowledge of course. But I would expect
you cops to know that.”

“
Listen,”
Giles began shakily. “I’m not a cop or anything like that. I work
for a man called…”

“
Victor
Andreyevich,” Chan interrupted.

“
Yes,” Giles
replied, relief flooding into his vocal chords and everywhere
else.

“
I knew
that,” Chan said. “I just wondered if you did.”

“
Pardon?”

“
Well,
everything’s so subdivided, partitioned off, it’s hard to know who
knows what.”

“
I
see.”

“
You might,
but not as much as those of us who know how to get in the back door
do.”

“
Eh?”

Chan motioned
to his technological pile. “With this you can know it all, not to
mention have it all.” He waved his arm round the room at all his
ill-gotten gains. “Your boss however, allows me access to certain
systems so that in return I provide him with a certain level of
income and the odd favour now and again.”

“
Of course,”
Giles confirmed. It was news to him as right now he was on the
Everest of learning curves, but no need to let the geek know what
his precise security clearance was.

“
Then you’ll
know why I’m anxious to protect my investment.”

“
Indeed.”

“
What do you
need?” the giant asked.

Giles did his
best to explain and when he was finished Chan shook his head and
laughed. “Childs play,” was all he said, which Giles was quite glad
about as anything more would have been beyond his
comprehension.

“
I would
offer you a cup of tea,” Chan said, gesturing towards the
kitchenette where a sink overflowed with festering dishes blending
almost seamlessly with used takeaway receptacles, “But we’re all
out.”

Giles found himself
wondering who the ‘we’ was and if it possibly included the bacteria
who were clearly a permanent fixture in the property. There was a
distinct possibility Chan’s clothes could actually walk him round
the flat and a similar likelihood that the morbidly obese boffin
would quite like that.

“
I think I’ll
leave you to it. Not like I’d be much use to be honest,” Giles
admitted. “If I can ehm….” He stumbled.

“
Ah yes. The
filthy lucre,” Chan confirmed. “I wouldn’t be embarrassed about
that Mr Smith. It is the stuff that keeps everything
flowing.”

“
It
is.”

Chan handed him a greasy
looking brown paper bag which at some point had played host to
doughnuts or something similar. Giles accepted it awkwardly. Chan
looked at him expectedly. “Well?”

“
Well?”

“
Aren’t you
going to count it?” He demanded.

“
Well, I…”
Giles stumbled again. This wasn’t his forte.