They had served together in Helmand, in the Royal Marines. Leon Williams was a serving Marine and Edwards his commanding officer. Williams probably recognised Edwards, more likely than vice versa. Maybe he’d confronted him, maybe not but his old CO had clearly offed him in time honoured special-forces style.
The Lithuanian, Vlad, had come to a well-orchestrated end, and that was the thing that made Burke feel slightly arrogant and slightly insulted. Edwards knew about the shooting. He’d done his research. He’d staged this on his patch, partly due to circumstance but at least partly knowing he would join the dots, work out the significance of the machete and come to the right conclusion. But the cheeky bastard thought he could fool him, get him to draw the picture he wanted. That was the bit that stuck in his guts.
It had worked to an extent though. Edwards had drawn Andreyevich out of his hideaway, leaving the head of an associate outside his kids’ school. That would make anyone lose their cool.
Then Andreyevich had gone on to kill Karpov. That must have confused the hell out of Edwards. But the fact that it was an AK47 had given it away to an extent. The ultimate mark of respect for a fellow member of the brotherhood.
He supposed they would put it all down to Andreyevich now though, now there was no suggestion of anything to the contrary.
He should have kept his cool really, Edwards. They might never have found the murder weapon anyway. Paranoia - that was his undoing. He’d gone and overthought it and in the process proved himself guilty. Burke had called off the search for murder weapons in his house and car. No one would ever know. What good would it do? The family would receive all honours and cash due for a death in the line of duty. The kids would be proud of their father. All pomp and circumstance would be observed.
Burke knew the truth, which was fine. Because that was the big thing for him, the one thing that made any sense. Now he could see the bigger picture. Now he could see all the angles, how it all fitted together, a clean equation, a balanced calculation in a world that was anything but.
He looked at the horizon as the Campsies came into view and checked his phone.
His stomach tightened when he saw the text. “Is there any way you could get me near the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital?” He asked the pilot.
He hadn’t made it. Not for the actual conscious bit, the bit where she actually needed him.
She was in theatre when he arrived and was ushered through after being draped in scrubs.
And as he saw his son being brought into the outside world, wrenched from the womb and hauled into the bright lights of the sterile theatre, he swore that he would change. They deserved better, his family, and he could be better surely.
As he held the child in his arms he hoped he meant it for all their sakes.
When she woke she was blunt. Not in a way that meant she’d get over it. It wasn’t the anaesthetic or the hormones or any of the million other things he could happily have blamed it on while deep down knowing better. This was real, as real as it got.
There was no softness in her tone, only a cold hard ultimatum. “Them or us.”
He sat now looking at the sunset as the snow began to fall, a Glenfiddich Havana Reserve in one hand, a burning Montecristo in the other. As the smoke climbed, a tear fell.
The familiar jangling clang of a Fender Jagstang echoed along with one man’s voice singing another’s words.
35
He sat in the shrink’s office again, having summarised the week’s events as best he could, to the same unemotional conditioned responses as always. Nothing was ever committal from her side. She would never give anything away about how she personally felt in relation to the events and feelings as they were described by the subject in front of her.
He often wondered what she really thought. Was there a level of disgust at it all? Did she even have any personal feelings on the subject, other than a professional enthusiasm for an unusual case?
“You’ve had a busy week,” she said, in conclusion, drawing a line under it in an effort to move things on.
He knew it was coming. He knew the drill, but that didn’t stop the sense of dread, like knowing he had to get out of bed on a cold morning.
“And are we alone today?” she asked, finally.
“Yes,” he answered, like a kid who’d been asked if he’d done his homework. He hated this.
“You’re sure?”
“Quite.”
She waited, letting him calm a little. “And where are Jones and Campbell?”
“Gone,” he replied, before adding “for now at least.”
She nodded, looking at the window to her left. “You know they were gone over a year ago James?” she asked.
“Of course,” he confirmed.
“They were shot and killed. You were there.”
“I’m quite aware of that,” he snapped, taking a deep breath. Did they have to go through this every time? He felt bad enough without it.
“I know you are,” she agreed. “If I didn’t…” she stopped herself.
“If you didn’t you’d have me in a padded cell. I’m quite aware of that too,” he growled.
“My only concern is that you know who is there and who isn’t, and of course who you are and who you aren’t. If you feel you can manage that then you’re not…”
“A danger to myself and everyone else. You’ve said.”
She smiled, putting her pen down. “Until next time then.”