The Complaints

by Ian Rankin

  ‘This isn’t happening,’ Breck said. ‘I’m being fast-tracked, everybody knows it. Another year and I’ll be a DI.’

  ‘That’s what your file seemed to say.’

  Breck nodded. ‘And that’s how you knew all about me - you’d seen it in my personnel file.’ His eyes fixed on Fox. ‘So why own up now, Malcolm?’

  Fox poured himself another glass of tap water. ‘You said it yourself, Jamie - I need somebody I can trust.’

  ‘And you think that’s me?’ Breck waited until Fox had nodded. ‘Well, thanks for that at least - or does it just mean I’m your very last hope?’

  ‘Thing is, Jamie, there’s a lot going on that I’m not even close to understanding. I think maybe you can help.’

  ‘What you’re saying is, me being a suspected paedophile is the least of your worries? And my girlfriend could come in useful along the way?’

  Fox managed a smile. ‘Something like that, yes.’

  Breck gave a snort as he smiled into his drink. ‘Well, at least we know where we stand. Is there any point in me contacting my credit card company? They must be able to trace the transaction back.’

  Fox offered a shrug. ‘Worth a try,’ he said.

  ‘Meantime I can run a check on SEIL Ents.’

  ‘A word of caution - the guy behind the site is a cop in Australia. They’re on to him but they definitely don’t want him to know that. If he finds out and shuts everything down . . .’

  ‘There’ll be some who might think I’d warned him off?’ Breck nodded slowly. ‘How near are they to nailing him?’

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘Can you find out?’

  Fox nodded.

  ‘And I’ll make sure Annabel keeps in touch with Billy Giles and all his doings - does that sound fair?’

  Fox gave another nod and watched Breck hold up a finger.

  ‘But I don’t want Annabel to know about this.’

  ‘She won’t hear it from me,’ Fox promised.

  ‘Does Stoddart know?’ Breck asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I don’t want to let her know that I know?’

  ‘That’s up to you, Jamie.’

  ‘They’d realise it was you who told me. And that would look even worse for us.’

  ‘True.’

  Breck had turned round, so that the small of his back rested against the edge of the black marble work surface. The glass was still in his hand, half an inch of liquid left in it.

  ‘Look at the pair of us,’ he said with another tired smile. And then, raising his glass in a toast: ‘But thanks for taking me into your trust, Malcolm - better late than never.’ He tipped the glass to his mouth, finishing the whisky and tossing the ice into the sink. ‘So,’ he said, smacking his lips, ‘do you have a particular plan of action in mind?’

  ‘I’m the one who thinks stuff just happens to us, remember? It’s you that thinks we control our destinies.’

  ‘Seems to me you’re in the process of changing.’

  ‘Speaking of changing . . .’ Fox lifted a card from his pocket and handed it over. ‘I’ve bought myself a new mobile phone.’

  ‘You think I should do the same?’ Breck studied the card. Fox’s old mobile number had been scored out and the new one written in biro. He looked up at Fox. ‘The Complaints can tap my phone?’

  ‘Not easily. But they can grab the records of any calls in or out.’

  ‘You said “they” rather than “we” ...’ Fox didn’t say anything to this, and Breck was thoughtful for a further few seconds. ‘Why am I being set up, Malcolm?’ he asked quietly. ‘Who’d do something like that? An Australian porn site?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘It will,’ Fox stated, straightening his shoulders. ‘We just need to work at it.’

  Tuesday 17 February 2009

  18

  Tuesday morning, Fox was waiting for Annie Inglis outside her tenement. Duncan appeared first, slouching his way to school under the weight of his backpack. Ten minutes later, it was Inglis’s turn. Fox, seated across the road in his car, sounded his horn and waved her across. Traffic was busy - people on their way to work or dropping their kids off at the school gates. A warden had paused his scooter beside Fox’s car, but had scuttled off again when he saw that the indicators were flashing and there was someone behind the steering wheel. Annie Inglis stood her ground for a moment, and when she did cross the road she didn’t get into the car. Instead, she leaned down so her face was at the passenger-side window. Fox slid the window down.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. He handed her a business card, on the back of which was written the number of his new mobile phone.

  ‘That’s in case you need to reach me,’ he explained. ‘But keep it to yourself.’ Then: ‘I need a favour, Annie.’

  ‘Look, Malcolm...’

  ‘It would be easier to talk if you got in. I can even give you a lift.’

  ‘I don’t need a lift.’ When he made no answer to this, she sighed and opened the door. He’d removed the sweet-wrappers from the passenger seat. There was a street map on the floor, which she handed to him. He tossed it into the back.

  ‘Is it to do with Jamie Breck?’ she asked.

  ‘Gilchrist’s being obstructive.’

  ‘You’re suspended, Malcolm! It’s not his job to help you out.’

  ‘All the same...’

  She gave another heavy sigh. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘A contact at the Australian end - someone from the team there. Name, phone number, e-mail . . . anything at all, really.’

  ‘Do I get to ask why?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  She looked at him. Her work face differed from the one she wore at home - there was a little more make-up. It hardened her features.

  ‘They’re going to know it was me,’ she stated. She didn’t mean the cops in Australia; she meant Fettes.

  ‘I’ll say it wasn’t.’

  ‘That’s all right, then - after all, there’s no reason for them not to take you at your word, is there?’

  ‘No reason at all,’ he said with a smile.

  Annie Inglis opened her door and started to get out. She was still holding his business card. ‘What’s the matter with your old phone?’ she asked. Then: ‘No ... on second thoughts, I really don’t want to know.’ She closed the door after her and crossed the road again, unlocking her own car.

  It took Fox five minutes to drive to the café on Morningside Road, but another five to find a parking space. He put enough coins in the meter for an hour, and walked the short distance to his destination. Jamie Breck was already there, plugging his laptop into one of the power sockets next to the corner table he’d secured.

  ‘Just got here,’ he told Fox as the two men shook hands.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I didn’t get much sleep, thanks to your confession.’

  Fox’s mouth twitched at the word. He shrugged off his coat and asked what Breck wanted to drink.

  ‘Americano with a spot of milk.’

  Fox did the ordering, adding a cappuccino for himself. ‘Anything to eat?’ he asked Breck.

  ‘Maybe a croissant.’

  ‘Make that two,’ Fox told the assistant. By the time he got back to the table, Breck had angled the laptop so that the low sun wouldn’t hit the screen. Fox drew a chair round to Breck’s side of the table. This had been Fox’s idea, and looking around at the other customers he felt vindicated. Even if someone was outside in a surveillance van - and he’d taken a good look, spotting no obvious candidates - there were half a dozen people in the café logged on to the internet, courtesy of the free wi-fi. Most looked like students, the others business people. Naysmith had told him once how hard it was to untangle one user from another in such a cluster.

  ‘So what is it we’re looking for?’ Breck asked. He looked and sounded businesslike, the shock of the previous night assimilated and squeezed into a compartmen
t in his mind.

  ‘Something you said a while back,’ Fox began, leaning forward in his chair. ‘You’ve come across the PR company before.’

  Breck nodded. ‘Lovatt, Meikle, Meldrum have a lobbying arm.’ He got online and searched the firm’s name, coming up with the home page of their website. A further couple of clicks later, he was showing Fox a photographic portrait. The man was bald and bullet-headed and smiling. ‘Paul Meldrum - LMM’s political Mr Fixit. I was telling you about the local councillor - Paul here bent my ear about it. He said he was representing the council.’

  ‘Who was the councillor?’

  ‘Ernie Wishaw.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of him.’

  ‘He runs a lorry business out by the Gyle.’

  ‘What’s he supposed to have done?’

  ‘One of his drivers was delivering a few packages too many...’

  ‘Dope?’

  Breck nodded. ‘Drug Enforcement got him, and he’s due to serve five years. But they wondered how far up the ladder things went. Wishaw had a meeting at the Oliver with the driver’s brother-in-law. DEA reckoned maybe it was hush money to be given to the wife. If she was kept sweet, the driver wouldn’t go blabbing.’

  ‘How come you got involved?’

  ‘DEA wanted local knowledge. Their boss was tight with Billy Giles, so they got us.’

  Fox frowned. ‘Was Glen Heaton part of the team?’

  Breck nodded. ‘Up until then, I hadn’t really doubted him.’ ‘Something changed your mind?’

  Breck offered a shrug. ‘I think they were on to us from the start - don’t ask me why; it was just a feeling I got.’

  ‘So you weren’t surprised when there was nothing from the Oliver’s CCTV?’

  ‘No,’ Breck agreed.

  Fox took a sip of coffee. ‘How long ago did you say this was?’

  ‘Best part of six months.’

  ‘It never came up.’ Breck looked as if he didn’t quite understand. Fox enlightened him: ‘We’d been looking into Glen Heaton for nearly a year, and this is the first I’ve heard of it.’

  Breck shrugged again. ‘He didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘You could have voiced your suspicions.’

  ‘Seemed to me you were doing fine on your own. And like I say, I’d nothing to back them up.’ Breck reached for his own drink, then changed his mind and bit into a croissant instead, brushing crumbs from his trousers. Fox stared at the photo of Paul Meldrum.

  ‘The drug-smuggling had nothing to do with the council,’ Fox stated. ‘How come LMM got involved?’

  ‘Good question.’

  ‘Did you ask it at the time?’

  ‘Ernie Wishaw had bought out a rival firm a few years earlier. It all got a bit ugly, and he used LMM to win round the media.’

  Both men looked up as a new customer entered the café. But she was pushing a baby buggy, so they dismissed her. When they made eye contact, they shared a smile. Better safe than sorry...

  ‘So they might have been working for him personally, rather than the council?’ Fox asked.

  Jamie Breck could only shrug once more. ‘Anyway, the whole thing ended up going nowhere. DEA dropped it and thanked us for our help.’

  Fox concentrated on his breakfast, until he thought of something else to say.

  ‘You’re not the only one who was under surveillance, Jamie. The Deputy Chief Constable let slip that I’d been watched all last week, but Vince’s body wasn’t found until Tuesday morning - it takes a bit of time to decide that a cop might be breaking the rules and you should put a watch on him.’

  ‘How long did it take till you decided I merited the van?’

  ‘Not long,’ Fox conceded. ‘But that’s beside the point. I was being watched before I started misbehaving.’

  ‘Then there’s something you’re obviously hiding from everybody. ’

  ‘I’m honest as the day is long, DS Breck.’

  ‘This is winter, Inspector Fox - the days are pretty short.’

  Fox ignored this. ‘In the interview room at Torphichen, when Traynor was spelling it all out and Billy Giles was trying hard not to do a little dance around the table, there was a look my boss gave me ...’

  ‘McEwan?’

  Fox nodded. ‘I don’t think he knew. I mean, he knew, but he hadn’t been in the loop for long. He was asking himself what was going on.’

  ‘Maybe he can find out for you.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You don’t trust him?’

  ‘Hard to know. But here’s the thing - the tail on me coincides with the new assignment I’d been given.’

  ‘By “assignment” you mean me?’

  ‘Yes.’ The caffeine was getting to Fox; he could feel it pounding through him. When his mobile started ringing, he didn’t recognise the tone. It was the first time someone had called him on his new phone.

  ‘Hello?’ he answered.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ Annie Inglis said. She was speaking so softly, he could hardly hear her. He held the phone more firmly to his ear, and pressed a finger into his other ear.

  ‘Is there anybody else there?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why are you whispering?’

  ‘Do you want this or not?’ she asked, sounding irritated. Then, without waiting for his answer, she reeled off a phone number.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said, scrabbling for a pen and brushing flakes of croissant from the paper napkin on his plate. While she repeated the number, Fox jotted it down.

  ‘Her name’s Dawlish. Cecilia Dawlish.’ Inglis ended the call before Fox could utter any form of thanks.

  ‘What’s the code for Australia?’ he asked Breck. It took Breck thirty seconds and a few keystrokes to come up with the answer.

  ‘Zero-zero-six-one,’ he said. ‘They’re eight to ten hours ahead of us.’

  Fox looked at his watch. ‘Meaning it’s evening there - and hellish expensive.’ He held up his new phone. ‘This is pay-as-you-go,’ he explained.

  ‘My treat,’ Breck responded, handing over his own Motorola.

  ‘They might be able to trace the number back to you,’ Fox warned him, but Breck just shrugged.

  ‘I’m not the one making the call, though, am I?’ he countered.

  It turned out that the number Inglis had given Fox was for a mobile. Dawlish was in her car when she answered.

  ‘It’s Detective Constable Gilchrist here,’ Fox explained, concentrating his attention on the world outside the café window.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘CEOP Edinburgh. You had us looking into a local officer called Breck?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is this a bad time to talk?’

  ‘I’m headed home, DC Gilchrist. What is it you need?’

  ‘I’ve been put in charge of the paperwork.’

  ‘Just bear in mind what we told you at the start - the more who know about this, the tougher it is to keep it quiet.’

  ‘Understood.’ Fox paused. ‘So you’ve not arrested him yet?’

  ‘We’ll let you know when that happens.’

  ‘Right,’ Fox said, turning his attention to the listening Breck. ‘So what is it you want us to do with Breck?’

  ‘Just get us anything you can. Now tell me about these bloody forms you’re filling in.’

  ‘Just wondered if it was okay to put you down as our main contact. ’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And this phone number?’

  ‘Seems to be the one you’ve got.’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’ Fox thought of something. ‘We managed to gain entry to Breck’s home.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘His computer was clean, but we took a look at his latest credit card bill - SEIL Ents.’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘What do the letters stand for?’

  ‘The bastard’s initials - Simeon Edward Ian Latham. Sim to his mates.’

  ‘The payment was in US dollars...�
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