The Complaints

by Ian Rankin

‘It’s a bad part of town.’

  Fox tried to focus on the man. He had to be in his seventies - cropped silver hair, liver-spotted skin... ‘You’re Jack Broughton.’

  The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘No.’

  Broughton stuffed his hands into his pockets and moved in until his face was a few inches from Fox’s. ‘Best keep it that way,’ he said. Then he turned to leave. ‘You might want to get yourself checked out,’ was his parting nugget of advice.

  Fox rested for a moment, then shuffled back towards the main road. He angled his watch towards a street lamp. Twelve forty. Could only have been out cold for a matter of minutes. He held on to some of the buildings for support as he made his way back along to Rondo. His back felt like fire whenever he inhaled. Pete Scott saw him coming and stiffened his stance, mistaking him for trouble. Fox held up a hand in greeting and Scott moved towards him.

  ‘Did you trip or something?’ he asked.

  ‘Have you seen anybody, Pete? Had to be a big guy...’

  ‘There’ve been a few,’ Scott conceded.

  ‘In the time since I saw you?’

  Scott nodded. ‘Some of them are inside.’

  Fox gestured towards the door. ‘I’m going to take a look,’ he said.

  ‘Be my guest...’

  The bar was rammed, with a sound system that could loosen fillings. The queue was three deep for drinks. Young men in short-sleeved shirts; women sipping cocktails through dayglo straws. Fox’s head took a fresh pummelling from the bass speakers as he squeezed his way through. In the back room, the stage was lit but no band was playing. More drinkers, more noise and strobing. Fox didn’t recognise anyone. He found the gents’ toilets and headed inside, gaining some respite from the din. There were paper towels strewn across the floor and none at all in the dispenser. He ran water over his hands and dabbed at his face, staring at his reflection in the smeared mirror. His chin was grazed and his cheek had swollen. The bruising would come soon enough. His palms stung where they’d connected with the ground, and one of his lapels had been ripped at the seam. He took off his coat and checked it for evidence of the force that had hurled itself at him, but there was nothing.

  His attacker hadn’t taken anything - credit cards, cash, both mobile phones, all accounted for. And once he was unconscious, it didn’t appear as if they’d continued the beating. He took a good look at his teeth and then manipulated his jaw with his hand.

  ‘You’re okay,’ he told his reflection. Then he noticed that one button was missing from his waistband. It would need replacing, or his braces wouldn’t sit right. He took a few deep breaths, ran the water over his hands again and dried himself off with his handkerchief. One of the drinkers from the bar came weaving in, paying him almost no attention as he headed for a urinal. Fox put his coat back on and left. Outside, he nodded towards the doorman. Pete Scott was busy talking to the same two women as before. They’d stepped out for a cigarette and were complaining about the lack of ‘hunks’. If Fox had been invisible to them before, he seemed more so now. Scott asked him if he was really okay, and Fox just nodded again, heading across the road to where his car waited. Someone had left the remains of a kebab on the Volvo’s bonnet. He gave it a swipe on to the roadway, unlocked the doors and got in.

  The journey home was slow, the lights against him at every junction. Taxis were touting for business, but most people seemed content to walk. Fox tuned his radio to Classic FM and decided that Jack Broughton had not recognised him. Why should he have? They had met for approximately ten seconds at the triplex penthouse. Broughton hadn’t known until some minutes later that the man waiting for the lift was a cop. Could Broughton himself have been the attacker? Doubtful - and why would he have hung around? Besides, his shoes had been brown brogues; not at all the same as the one Fox had watched connect with his chin.

  Pete Scott on the other hand ...Pete’s shoes had been black Doc Martens, and Pete was strong enough ... But Fox didn’t think so. Would Pete have deserted his post for a spot of small-minded revenge? Well, maybe he would, but Fox had him down as a ‘possible’ rather than a ‘probable’.

  Once home he stripped off his clothes and stood under a hot shower, training the water on to his back for a good nine or ten minutes. It hurt when he tried towelling himself dry, and he was able to get a look at himself in the bathroom mirror - no visible damage. Maybe it would be different in the morning. Slowly, he pulled on a pair of pyjamas and went downstairs to the kitchen, finding an unopened bag of garden peas in the freezer compartment, wrapping a tea towel around it and holding it to his jaw while he boiled the kettle for tea. There was a box of aspirin in one of the drawers, and he swallowed three tablets with a glass of water from the tap.

  It was nearly two o’clock by the time he settled himself at the table. After a few minutes of staring at the wall, he got up and went through to the dining room. His computer sat on a desk in the corner. He got it working and started a search of three names: Joanna Broughton, Charlie Brogan and Jack Broughton. There wasn’t much on the last of these - his heyday had been before the advent of the internet and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Fox hadn’t thought to ask him what he was doing in the Cowgate at that time of night. But then Jack Broughton was no ordinary seventy-one-year-old. Probably he still fancied his chances against the majority of the drunks and chancers.

  Fox couldn’t get properly comfortable. If he leaned forward, he ached; if he leaned back, the pain was greater. He was grateful for the lack of alcohol in the house - it stopped him reaching for that quickest of fixes. Instead, he held the bag of peas to his face and concentrated on Charlie Brogan, finding several interviews culled from magazines and the business pages of newspapers. One journalist had asked Brogan why he’d become a property developer.

  You’re creating monuments, Brogan had replied. You’re making a mark that’s going to outlast you.

  And that’s important to you?

  Everybody wants to change the world, don’t they? And yet most of us, all we leave behind is an obituary and maybe a few kids.

  You want people to remember you?

  I’d rather they noticed me while I’m here! I’m in the business of making an impression.

  Fox wondered to himself: an impression on who? Joanna Broughton? Or her successful dad, maybe? Didn’t men always want to prove themselves to their in-laws? Fox recalled that he’d been nervous when he’d met Elaine’s parents, even though he’d known them when he was a school-kid. He’d been to birthday parties at their house. But flash forward two decades and he was greeting them as their daughter’s boyfriend.

  ‘Elaine tells us you’re in the police,’ the mother had said. ‘I’d no idea you were that way inclined ...’ The tone of voice said it all: our lovely, talented daughter could have done so much better. So much better ...

  Fox could well imagine Brogan’s first encounter with Pa Broughton. Both sons were dead, meaning there was a lot for Joanna to prove. She’d left it late to get married. Fox reckoned her doting and protective father would have chased off many a previous suitor. But Charlie Brogan knew what he wanted - he wanted Joanna. She was glamorous and her family had money. More than that, her father had about him the whiff of power. When you got hitched to the daughter, you kept her father’s name in your pocket like a number for the emergency services. Anybody tried to turn you over, the name would be dropped into the conversation.

  Not that Fox could imagine Jack Broughton liking that.

  So when CBBJ started hitting the skids, there was no insurance policy. Maybe Brogan had approached the old boy on the quiet - definitely wouldn’t want Joanna knowing about it - but if he had, he’d given Jack the perfect opportunity to tell his son-in-law just how useless he’d always reckoned him. You say you lost all your money in the downturn? Well, Charlie, I didn’t know you were that way inclined.

  And by the way, my lovely talented daughter could have done so much better.

  ‘Poor sod,’ Fox said
to himself.

  Half an hour later, he was done with the three of them. He found a link to Quidnunc but couldn’t enter the game without the relevant software. Instead, he stared at the website’s home page with its colourful graphics. Some sort of monster was being dispatched by half a dozen muscle-men.

  ‘The Warrior Is In You’ ran the strapline. Fox thought of Jamie Breck. He hadn’t been much of a warrior in Billy Giles’s office. Breck: losing himself in this fiction while a real life with Annabel was kept on pause. Fox wondered what sort of role he himself had played throughout his life. Had he used alcohol the same way Breck used the online game - sinking into a virtual world as an escape from the real thing? He wondered, too, whether he really did trust Jamie Breck. He thought he did, but then again, Breck had said it himself: does it just mean I’m your very last hope? Failing to come up with an answer, he set the computer to ‘sleep’ mode and headed for bed. He lay on his side, the only way he could rest without pain. The curtains were illuminated by the sodium glare of a street lamp. The peas were defrosting in their bag. Birdsong was playing on the radio...

  Wednesday 18 February 2009

  21

  At seven next morning, his mobile phone - his old one, rather than the pay-and-go - chirruped to let him know he had a message. It was from DI Caroline Stoddart. She wanted him at Fettes at nine for another interview. Fox texted back: unwell, sorry - can we postpone?

  Did ‘unwell’ cover it, though? He’d had colds and flu and ear-ache and migraines, but never anything like this. Had he just gone three rounds with a grizzly bear? It took him over a minute to cross from his bed to the bathroom. Face nicely swollen and chin scabbed over but stinging when touched. And from what he could see of his back, bruising either side of his spine in the perfectly legible shape of two human paws. After twenty minutes in the shower, he found another text waiting for him in the bedroom. It was from Stoddart.

  Tomorrow then, it said.

  Fox decided he would stay at home the rest of the day. He had milk and bread, enough food to see him through. By nine he was lying along the sofa nursing his second mug of coffee and with the BBC’s news channel on the television. When his doorbell sounded, he considered not answering. Maybe it was Stoddart, checking his story. But curiosity got the better of him and he crossed to the window. Jamie Breck had taken a couple of steps back from the door and was staring straight at him. He lifted a grocery bag and gave a smile. Fox went to let him in.

  ‘I got croissants from the supermarket,’ Breck was saying. But then he got his first close-up of Fox’s damaged face. ‘Christ! What happened to you?’

  Fox led the way back into the house. He was still in his pyjamas with his dressing gown wrapped around him. ‘Somebody jumped me,’ he explained.

  ‘Last night? Between Hunters Tryst and here?’ Breck sounded incredulous.

  ‘The Cowgate,’ Fox corrected him. He’d switched the kettle on and found a clean mug for his visitor. ‘Coffee or tea?’ he asked.

  ‘Because Vince took a taxi there?’ Breck was nodding to himself. ‘After Hunters Tryst you headed down for a recce? So who was it gave you the doing?’

  ‘They came at me from behind; I didn’t see anything. But when I woke up, Jack Broughton was standing over me.’

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘You heard the first time. Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea’s fine. What was Jack Broughton doing there?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Was he the one who...?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ The two men stood in silence for a minute or so as the kettle came to the boil. When the tea was made, they headed through to the living room. Fox brought a plate for each of them, and they shared the croissants. Breck sat on the very edge of his chair, leaning well forward.

  ‘I just thought we’d have a quiet breakfast.’

  ‘We still can.’

  ‘You doing a spot of spring-cleaning?’ Breck gestured towards the piles of books.

  ‘Anything takes your fancy, it’s yours.’ Fox lifted his plate from the table, trying not to hiss in pain as he stretched. ‘Something I wanted to ask you...’ He bit into the croissant.

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Why don’t you want Annabel to know?’

  Breck chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. ‘You mean about SEIL Ents and my credit card? I’m still weighing up the pros and cons.’

  ‘If she finds out the hard way, she’s not going to be too happy,’ Fox said. ‘And we really need her on our team...’

  ‘So you’re not just thinking of my best interests?’

  ‘Perish the thought.’

  Breck picked crumbs from the knees of his trousers. ‘She keeps asking, though, why I’ve not gone to the Federation to ask them for a lawyer.’

  ‘It’s a fair question - why haven’t you?’

  Breck decided not to answer. Instead, he had a question of his own. ‘What in God’s name did you hope to find in the Cowgate?’

  ‘Torphichen had been along, handing out flyers.’

  ‘So at least you know they’re doing their job. Where were you when you got thumped?’

  ‘There’s an alley with a sauna down it ...’ Fox noticed the change in Jamie Breck’s face. ‘You know it?’ he guessed.

  ‘There’s a sign, just says “Sauna”? Narrow little lane?’

  ‘Spit it out.’

  But Breck needed some tea first. He placed his plate on top of some of the books on the coffee table, half the croissant still untouched. ‘I went there once with Glen Heaton,’ he admitted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not inside,’ Breck quickly corrected himself. ‘We’d been out to Jock’s Lodge ... talking to a witness. On the way back, Heaton said to take the route through the Cowgate. Then he sent a text, and told me to pull up when we reached that lane. He got out of the car and a woman came out of the building. She was wearing a raincoat, but I got the feeling there wasn’t a whole lot underneath. The two of them did some talking. At the end, she pecked him on the cheek. I think he might even have given her some money.’ Breck’s face was creased in concentration. ‘She was tiny - had to stand on tiptoe to reach his face. Younger than him; maybe late twenties. Anyway, she headed back indoors and he got into the car.’ He gave a shrug.

  ‘Did he tell you her name?’

  ‘No. I asked him what it was all about and he just winked and hinted that she was a contact of some kind.’

  ‘An informer?’

  Breck gave another shrug. ‘There were things I knew it was best not to ask. Glen had a way of letting you know...’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Last autumn.’

  Fox thought for a moment. ‘She was tiny, you say?’

  ‘Under five foot.’

  ‘Curly blonde hair?’ Breck stared at him, and Fox decided to explain. ‘We had Heaton under surveillance for months - checked his e-mails, taped his phone calls, followed him. There was a woman he was seeing behind his wife’s back. Worked as a lap-dancer on Lothian Road. Little slip of a thing called...’ But Fox couldn’t summon up her name.

  ‘Looks like she’s holding down two jobs,’ Breck commented. Then, fixing Fox with a stare: ‘You don’t think...?’

  It was Fox’s turn to shrug. ‘Whoever it was, they just wanted to dole out a bit of punishment - not a huge amount; just enough.’

  ‘Glen Heaton would have motive,’ Breck agreed. Fox was already punching Tony Kaye’s number into his phone.

  ‘Wondered when I’d be hearing from you,’ were Kaye’s answering words. ‘Give me a sec, will you?’

  Fox listened as Kaye got up from behind his desk and moved into the corridor. ‘Can I assume Gilchrist’s hard at work?’

  ‘McEwan’s got him busy on a few bits and pieces,’ Kaye acknowledged. ‘I’m assuming this is purely a social call?’

  ‘I need you to look something up for me, Tony - might mean a trip to the Fiscal’s office, if they’re the ones with the paperwo
rk.’

  ‘Or I could just call them...’

  ‘Fewer people in the know, the better I’ll like it,’ Fox countered.

  ‘Fair enough - so what do you need?’

  ‘Info on Glen Heaton’s squeeze.’

  ‘The lap-dancer?’

  ‘Do you recall her name?’

  ‘We never bothered interviewing her. She was going to be leverage, remember? If we needed Heaton to ’fess up.’

  ‘Just get me what you can, Tony.’

  ‘Mind telling me why?’

  ‘Later.’ Fox ended the call and made to tap the phone against his chin, before remembering that it would sting.

  ‘What was Jack Broughton doing there?’ Breck was asking himself.