The Complaints

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Have you seen him recently?’ Kaye asked.

  ‘Who? Breck?’ Fox reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and started blowing his nose again, playing for time. The door swung open and Joe Naysmith walked in. He was carrying his notebook in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

  ‘Says here,’ he began, laying the paper on Fox’s desk, ‘that detectives are making progress.’

  The story was prominent on page three of The Scotsman. Not so surprising: Edinburgh wasn’t exactly a murder capital - maybe one a month on average, usually cleared up quickly. When they did occur, the local media were keen to react, usually at length. There was a large photo of the scene of crime with a grainy inset of a smiling Vince Faulkner, and a smaller shot of Billy Giles, looking no less fierce than in the flesh.

  ‘Eyes like lasers,’ Naysmith commented.

  ‘Where did the paper come from?’ Kaye was asking. ‘Thought you were a Guardian reader.’

  ‘Helen said she was finished with it.’

  ‘Helen?’

  ‘In HR . . . the desk nearest the door . . .’

  Kaye rolled his eyes. ‘We just about merit the time of day, and he’s on first-name terms with them.’ He wagged a finger at Naysmith. ‘Next you’ll be telling me Mrs Stephens shines your shoes while you’ve got your feet under her desk.’

  ‘She’s all right,’ Naysmith mumbled, making for the coffee machine. ‘They all are . . .’

  ‘Three sugars!’ Kaye called out.

  ‘He knows that by now,’ Fox stated.

  ‘Never makes it sweet enough.’ Kaye turned his attention to Fox. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Not much. Marooned gets a mention. They’re asking for people to come forward if they saw the victim elsewhere that weekend.’

  ‘Memories are short,’ Kaye commented. ‘What’s Marooned?’

  ‘A pub in Gorgie - Vince got into an argument with some Taffs.’ Fox scanned the story again. ‘They don’t say anything about the bus stop . . .’ He was talking to himself, but loud enough for Kaye to overhear.

  ‘What bus stop?’

  ‘After the rugby fans, Vince headed for Dalry Road. Looks like he was going to catch a bus but he ended up in a shouting match with some kids.’

  Kaye’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘He took a taxi instead,’ Fox finished.

  ‘And how have you come by this information, Inspector Fox?’

  Fox licked his lips. ‘I have my sources, Sergeant Kaye.’

  ‘Breck?’ Fox couldn’t deny it, so kept quiet instead. Kaye rolled his eyes once more. ‘What have we just been talking about? He’s dangling worms in front of you so you can’t see Giles hiding behind him with the hook!’

  ‘Nicely put,’ Naysmith called out.

  ‘Shut up, Joe,’ Kaye spat back. He was pressing the palms of his hands against Fox’s desk, leaning down over it. ‘Tell me you get that. Tell me you can see right through him.’

  ‘Sure,’ Fox stated, not really sure of very much any more. He bit down on the pen he was holding, felt the plastic casing crack.

  There was a health club just in front of the Asda on Chesser Avenue. Fox knew this because he’d had a trial membership when it first opened. He’d never been inside the supermarket, though, and was surprised by its size. He selected a hand basket and added a couple of items, then headed for the checkout. The woman in front of him in the queue pointed out that there was another checkout nearby where he wouldn’t have to wait to be served. She was emptying the extensive load from her trolley while her young son sucked a lollipop. He was seated inside the trolley, swinging his legs in repeated attempts to connect with Fox’s basket.

  ‘I’m not in a hurry,’ Fox told the woman. She looked at him strangely, then got on with the task of filling the conveyor belt. Transaction complete, she paid not with a credit card but with handfuls of notes from her purse. The checkout assistant counted these into the till and handed the woman a receipt like a length of ticker tape. She then smiled towards Fox and asked him how he was.

  ‘Not too bad, Sandra,’ he replied.

  Sandra Hendry had already finished running his items through the scanner. At mention of her name, she looked him in the face for the first time. ‘It’s you,’ she stated. Then: ‘Cooking Indian tonight?’

  Fox considered the items he’d bought: basmati rice, Madras sauce. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘How’s Jude?’ There was no one behind Fox, so Sandra reached under her till and, for want of any other job, started wiping down the conveyor belt with the cloth stored there.

  ‘She’s okay,’ Fox said.

  ‘I’m looking in on her later.’

  ‘She’ll appreciate that.’ Fox paused. ‘You know you said you sometimes went to the Oliver? I was just wondering if you and your husband were there on Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday?’ She considered this. ‘Saturday I was at my sister’s. Bunch of us had a night on the town.’

  ‘But not at the Oliver?’

  Sandra Hendry shook her head. ‘Too far from the centre for Maggie. George Street’s what she likes.’

  ‘Was your husband with you?’

  ‘Ronnie? On a girlie night?’ She gave a snort. ‘Joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘So he was at home then?’

  Having finished wiping, she fixed him with a stare. ‘What’s this all about?’

  Fox had his answer prepared. ‘We think Vince may have gone to the Oliver. Just wondering if he was on his own.’

  She considered this and nodded slowly, accepting the explanation as being reasonable.

  ‘Did he know anyone else who frequented the casino?’ Fox asked.

  ‘No idea.’ The tone she used, he knew he was losing her - too many questions. In her eyes, he’d stopped being Jude’s brother and turned back into a cop.

  ‘Times you went there with him, he didn’t bump into people he knew?’

  She shrugged, straightening up as a new customer approached and started emptying his trolley. The man was unkempt and unshaven, eyes bloodshot. He was buying enough booze to kickstart Hogmanay. Sandra Hendry wrinkled her nose as she made eye contact with Fox. Her meaning was clear: one of her regulars, but by no means a favourite.

  ‘Is Ronnie at work just now?’ Fox asked her quickly.

  ‘Unless they’ve laid him off . . . Nobody’s safe these days.’

  Fox nodded his agreement, picked up his shopping, and thanked her for everything.

  When Fox had driven into the Asda car park, a black Vauxhall Astra had been thirty yards behind him. Now, driving away, he caught the same car in his rearview mirror. It wasn’t close enough for him to make out the licence plate. He kept to a crawl of ten miles an hour as he headed towards the main road, but the Astra never came any closer. His phone rang and he answered it.

  ‘Where are you?’ Tony Kaye asked.

  ‘Keeping busy,’ Fox replied.

  ‘Want to hear some news?’

  ‘Good or bad?’

  ‘Vince Faulkner did indeed take a cab. Driver remembers interrupting the rammy and his cab taking a dunt in the process.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘You’re not the only one with sources - and there aren’t that many cab outfits in Edinburgh. Giles’s boys got hold of the info about an hour before I did.’

  ‘Does the cabbie remember where he dropped Vince?’

  ‘The casino near Ocean Terminal. Driver got out to inspect the damage.’

  ‘He saw Vince go into the Oliver?’

  ‘You sound like you already know all this . . .’

  ‘I had an inkling, but the confirmation is greatly appreciated.’ Fox said his goodbyes and ended the call, rewarding himself with a little smile. He didn’t know why he’d come up with the Oliver as Vince’s probable destination, but he’d been proved right. He’d never been the type to rely on gut instinct - at every step, he worked from the evidence presented. He liked to think this was one reason the Complaints had maintained their near-pe
rfect record. But maybe instinct had its place.

  As he neared the city centre, he lost sight of the Astra. Could be it had turned off. The area around Haymarket was as bad as ever. A sandwich board outside a newsagent’s informed him that the day’s Evening News was leading with a dispute between the local council and the German company behind the construction of the tram system. The Germans wanted more money, because of sterling’s weakened exchange rate.

  ‘The best of British luck to you,’ Fox muttered, awaiting his turn through the contraflow. He was wondering if he should have taken another route - cut straight across the south of the city maybe. But then there were delays there too. It really did feel as if the whole city - with the blessing of those empowered to manage and nurture it - was grinding to a halt. For want of anything better to do, he lifted his phone from the passenger seat and punched in the number for Jamie Breck’s mobile. Listening to it ring, he happened to glance in the rearview mirror again. A familiar-looking black Astra was three cars behind him.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jamie, it’s Malcolm Fox.’

  ‘Morning, Malcolm. Thanks again for playing chauffeur last night.’

  ‘No problem. I was just wondering if there was any news.’

  ‘Taxi driver remembers Vince Faulkner. Dropped him outside the Oliver.’

  ‘So you’ll be talking to the staff?’

  ‘Somebody on the team will. I’m a bit busy elsewhere just at the minute.’

  ‘I’m interrupting you?’

  ‘No, but I can’t talk for long. Was there anything else?’

  Fox realised there probably wasn’t - all he’d wanted to know was whether Breck would share with him about the taxi, and Breck had passed that test. Besides, traffic had eased and Fox wasn’t far from his destination. The Astra seemed to have taken a turning, but now Fox was wondering about the green Ford Ka - it was a couple of cars back, and how long had it been there?

  ‘Nothing else,’ Fox said in answer to Breck’s question. He ended the call and took a right turn at the next set of lights, pulling over to the kerb and stopping. He watched in his rearview as the Ka went straight ahead at the junction instead of following him. ‘Just because you’re paranoid, Malcolm,’ he muttered to himself, not bothering to complete the sentence.

  There were plenty of signposts showing potential buyers the way to Salamander Point. A few blocks were already finished - curtains and blinds in some of the windows; plants sitting in pots on the corner balconies. But it was a huge site, and foundations were under way on a further four high-rise constructions. Large billboards attached to the fence around the site showed an approximation of the finished ‘city within the city by the sea’. There were capitalised buzz-words such as EASE and QUALITY and SPACE drifting into the blue-painted sky, below which the artist had depicted smiling people walking past a café, outside which other shiny people sat at tables with their espressos and cappuccinos. This was their LIFESTYLE, but the present reality was somewhat different. The occupants of Salamander Point were living in the middle of a building site that resembled, to Fox’s eye, a World War One battlefield, all mud and trench-digging, noise and diesel fumes. A corner of the site had been turned into an encampment for the workforce - ten or twelve Portakabins were stacked at double height, fronted by scaffolding and ladders. Men in high-visibility jackets and yellow hard hats scanned blueprints as they pointed with their fingers. Diggers were digging, cranes lowering pipes and slabs of concrete into place. The single extent of finished pavement led to the door of a temporary sales office. Behind the windows, Fox could see a young woman seated at her desk. She had no customers to deal with, and her phone didn’t seem to require answering. The glazed look on her face indicated to him that this had probably become her daily routine.

  Nobody was buying.

  In a moment, he would walk up the path and she would see him, and there would be a momentary lifting of her spirits, dashed when he introduced himself and asked to see the gaffer. But first he locked his car, leaving it by the kerb. A truck rumbled past, kicking up a mini dust storm. Fox held his hands over his eyes and mouth until everything had settled, then headed up the path. When his phone started ringing, he answered it.

  ‘Fox,’ he stated.

  ‘Anything you want to tell me, Malcolm?’ It was Breck’s voice.

  ‘How do you mean, Jamie?’

  ‘Take a look to your left, over by the Portakabins.’

  With the phone still held to his ear, Fox turned his head, knowing what he would see. Breck was standing on the scaffolding. There was a hard hat on his head and another on the man standing next to him. Breck waved and spoke into his phone. A split second later, his words reached Fox.

  ‘Come on over, then . . .’

  As he moved away, Fox caught sight of the saleswoman. She had risen from her desk, ready to greet him. He offered a shrug and a sheepish smile, and began picking his way across the treacherous terrain towards the site office. At the top of the ladder, Breck introduced him to Howard Bailey.

  ‘This is Mr Bailey’s show,’ Breck explained, stretching out an arm towards the expanse of the site. Then, turning to Bailey: ‘Could you give me a minute with my colleague?’

  ‘I should really fetch him a hard hat.’

  ‘He won’t be staying.’

  Bailey nodded and headed for the door at the far end of the platform. Breck slid his hands into his pockets and stared at Fox.

  ‘Has that given you enough time to come up with a plausible story?’ he asked.

  ‘You know why I’m here - same reason you are.’

  ‘Not quite, Malcolm. I’m here because I’m part of the inquiry team. You, on the other hand, are here to stick your oar in.’

  ‘I was just hoping for a quiet word with Vince’s friend Ronnie.’

  ‘That’ll be Ronnie Hendry - Vince’s foreman. Mr Bailey was telling me the two of them were friends off-site as well as on.’

  ‘You’re going to speak to him?’

  Breck nodded slowly. ‘And ask him the same questions you probably would.’ After a moment’s pause, Breck gave a sigh and looked down at his muddied shoes. ‘What if it had been Billy Giles waiting here instead of me? He’d have had you on report - not the sort of thing I’d imagine your boss would be thrilled with.’

  ‘My sister’s lost her partner. I’m just after a word with that partner’s best friend. Could be I want to discuss the funeral arrangements . . . ask Ronnie to be a pall-bearer.’

  ‘You really think Giles would fall for that?’

  Fox shrugged. ‘I’m not really that worried about Billy Giles.’

  ‘You should be - and you know it.’

  Fox turned and rested his hands against one of the scaffolding poles. The warehouses across the street were going to be redeveloped too, by the look of things. Their windows had been boarded up, and a small tree was doing its best to grow from the edge of the mossy roof. A car was driving past - a black Astra.

  ‘You’re not having me tailed by any chance?’ Fox asked Breck.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could Billy Giles be doing it without you knowing?’

  ‘I doubt we’ve got men to spare. And why would he want you tailed?’

  ‘A black Vauxhall Astra? Green Ford Ka?’

  Breck shook his head. ‘Odd thing, though . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After I’d walked home last night, there was a van parked outside. Just after I got into bed, I heard it leave.’

  ‘So?’ Fox was still pretending to be taking in the view. His grip on the pole had tightened.

  Breck had taken off his hard hat to rub a hand through his hair. ‘We’re all getting a bit twitchy,’ he decided. Below them, a man had come into sight. He was dressed for work, his spattered denims tucked into thick grey woollen socks and those socks emerging from steel-toed boots. He wore his hard hat cocked high on his head, and under his high-visibility jacket was a denim one, not unlike Breck’s from the previous night. Fox
knew it had to be Ronnie Hendry. He turned to face Breck.

  ‘Let me sit in,’ he said.

  Breck stared back at him. Hendry had reached the foot of the ladder and was starting to climb.

  ‘Please,’ Fox said.

  ‘You don’t say anything,’ Breck warned him. ‘Not one word. Has he met you before?’

  Fox shook his head.

  ‘You’ve said it yourself,’ Breck went on, ‘he’ll see you at the funeral if not before. He’ll know then that he’s seen you somewhere . . .’ He rubbed a finger down his nose, obviously in a quandary. Then, as Hendry’s head appeared through the gap in the flooring, he uttered the one word Fox wanted to hear.