The Complaints

by Ian Rankin

  Fox shrugged. ‘I’m just saying. But how come you were watching me, Inspector? Who was it ordered the surveillance, and what story did they use?’

  Stoddart gave a cold smile. ‘That’s confidential information.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it - too many leaks around here for my liking ...’ He sat back, mimicking her posture.

  ‘Shall we get started?’ she asked.

  ‘Ready when you are,’ Fox told her.

  An hour and a half later, he was handing his pass back to Frank on the front desk, grateful not to have bumped into anyone he knew - it would only have meant lying about his bumps and bruises. On the other hand, Tony Kaye, Annie Inglis and the others would probably find out anyway. Fettes was like that. On his way to his car, Fox took a call on his old mobile. It was Jude, just wanting a chat.

  ‘How you doing, sis?’ he asked her.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Are your pals still rallying round?’

  ‘Everybody’s been great.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘How about Dad - have you seen him?’

  ‘I’m probably in his bad books as well...’

  ‘I didn’t say you were in my bad books,’ she chided him.

  ‘I’ll try to visit at the weekend. Maybe we could take Dad out somewhere.’ Fox was behind the steering wheel by now. ‘Any news of them releasing the body?’

  ‘Nobody’s told me anything - could you maybe put in a word?’

  ‘I don’t see why not - everybody on the team loves me to bits.’

  ‘Are you being sarcastic, Malcolm?’

  ‘Maybe just a little.’ He started the ignition. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I think I sound better than you do, actually.’

  ‘You’re probably right. I’ll ring you tomorrow if I can.’

  He ended the call and put the car into first. He was just easing his foot off the clutch when his new phone rang. He exhaled loudly and answered.

  ‘Where are you?’ The voice sounded breathless.

  ‘Tony, is that you?’

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ Tony Kaye growled.

  ‘I’m on Lothian Road.’ The car was exiting its parking bay.

  ‘You’re rubbish at this game, Foxy. I’ve been lying to my wife since the morning after the honeymoon...’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’ Fox almost dropped the phone when a body flung itself against the front of the Volvo. He slammed on the brakes. ‘Stupid bastard!’

  Tony Kaye had righted himself and stood with his hands cupped to his chest, trying to get his breathing back under control. His mobile was clutched in his right hand, his tongue lolling from his mouth. Fox left the car running and got out.

  ‘Can’t remember when I last ran that far,’ his friend was spluttering. ‘Egg-and-spoon race probably... last year of primary school.’ Kaye tried to spit, but the long thread of saliva just hung there until he wiped it away with a handkerchief. He took a few more gulps of air. ‘I cheated, mind - used chewing gum to fix the egg to the spoon ...’

  ‘You couldn’t have heard already,’ Fox was saying.

  ‘Wildfire,’ Kaye was able to gasp. ‘So who did it and why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘First explain to me how you know.’

  ‘Bumped into Stoddart’s boys in the toilet.’ Kaye paused, and Fox knew what he wanted.

  ‘I was jumped,’ Fox duly obliged.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Night before last.’

  ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’ Kaye sounded genuinely slighted. ‘Where did all this happen?’

  ‘Outside a sauna on the Cowgate. The inquiry got word that a cab dropped Vince Faulkner nearby. I was retracing his steps.’

  Kaye was studying Fox’s injuries. ‘Whoever it was let you off lightly.’

  Fox gave a twitch of the head in acknowledgement. ‘Anyway ... I’m touched by your show of concern.’

  ‘I was hoping for something a bit more gruesome.’ Kaye tried to sound peeved. ‘You know ... something I could post on YouTube...’

  ‘You’re all heart, Sergeant Kaye. Anything happening I should know about?’

  Kaye gave a shrug. ‘McEwan seemed to think there might be a job for us in the north-east ...’

  ‘He mentioned it to me a couple of weeks back. It’s been given to Strathclyde, right?’

  Kaye stared at him. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘McEwan told me. Shame, too - I’d have liked some ammo to tease Stoddart and her boys with...’ Fox broke off. Kaye could see he was thinking of something.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Fox assured him.

  ‘Don’t give me that...’

  ‘Why are you miffed about Strathclyde getting it?’

  ‘Because they’re rubbish, Foxy! Everybody knows that. Last time I looked, our success rate was twice what theirs is.’

  Fox nodded slowly. ‘That’s true,’ he said.

  The two men stood in silence for a moment. Kaye leaned his backside against the front wheel arch of the Volvo. ‘Was it just a coincidence?’ he asked.

  ‘The attack?’ Fox watched as Kaye nodded his head. ‘It wasn’t a mugging; nothing got taken.’

  ‘Someone could have interrupted...’

  Fox gnawed at his bottom lip. He was remembering Jack Broughton. Broughton hadn’t said much of anything at all about what he’d seen or not seen. ‘These things happen,’ he eventually offered.

  ‘Remember that night we were in a bar and some arsehole went for us with pepper spray?’ Kaye chuckled quietly.

  ‘Did you ever track him down?’

  Kaye’s face tightened a little. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Is that what you’d have done to Vince Faulkner - kicked the crap out of him?’

  ‘Would the world have lost anything in the process?’

  Fox knew how he wanted to reply - he wanted to say ‘yes’. But then Kaye would have asked ‘What exactly?’ and Fox didn’t have an answer for that...

  ‘I’ve got to get going,’ he said instead.

  ‘Anything else I should know about?’

  Fox shook his head, but then thought of a question. ‘You said you lied to your wife the morning after the honeymoon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was the lie?’

  ‘I told her she was really something in the sack...’

  The Gyle hadn’t really existed when Malcolm Fox had been growing up in the city. The land must have been there, of course, but with nothing on it and no roads leading to it. He remembered walking to the airport one day with friends, so they could go plane-spotting. And he would take his bike along the canal, reaching Wester Hailes and beyond. Maybe the Gyle had been fields or wasteland, meriting no place in his memory. These days, it was more a city within a city, with its own railway station and vast corporate buildings and a shopping complex. Ernie Wishaw’s haulage business had its HQ in an industrial estate, next door to a parcel delivery company. Lorry cabs sat in a row on the pale concrete apron. Empty trailers had been unhitched and lined up in similar fashion. There were also stacked pallets and a couple of fuel pumps, and bundles of rubbish awaiting collection. The perimeter fencing, unlike neighbouring properties, lacked any windblown shreds of plastic and polythene. There was a well-equipped garage where a couple of mechanics wrestled with what sounded to Fox like an air-brake problem. They had a radio playing and one of them was singing along.

  Jamie Breck had arrived first, content to wait in his car outside the compound until Fox trundled up. They entered the open gates as a convoy of two, and parked in front of the garage. There was a door to the right with a sign on it saying OFFICE. The two men greeted one another with a nod.

  ‘How do you want to run this?’ Breck asked, stretching his neck muscles.

  ‘How about I play the bad cop,’ Fox suggested. ‘And you play the bad cop too.’ Then he offered a smile and a wink. ‘Let’s just see what he has
to say.’ He pushed open the door, expecting the room beyond to be cramped, but it was long and light and airy. There were four women and two men working telephones and computers from their individual desks. A photocopier was humming, a laser printer printing, and a fax machine halfway through sending a document. There were two smaller offices off to one side. One of these was empty; in the other sat a woman who removed her glasses as Fox and Breck walked in, the better to scrutinise these new arrivals. She rose to her feet, smoothing her skirt before leaving the office to greet them.

  ‘I’m Inspector Fox,’ Fox said, handing over one of his business cards. ‘Is there any chance of a word with Mr Wishaw?’

  The woman’s glasses hung around her neck on a cord. She slipped them back on so she could study the writing on the card.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ she asked.

  ‘Just something we need to talk to Mr Wishaw about.’

  ‘I’m Mrs Wishaw. Whatever it is, I’m sure I can help.’

  ‘You really can’t,’ Fox informed her, looking around the room. ‘My colleague called not fifteen minutes ago and was told Mr Wishaw was here.’

  The woman turned her attention to Breck.

  ‘Isn’t that his Maserati outside?’ Breck decided to ask.

  Mrs Wishaw looked from one detective to the other. ‘He’s very busy,’ she countered. ‘You probably know that he’s a councillor as well as running a successful business.’

  ‘We only need five minutes,’ Fox said, holding up his right hand, fingers splayed.

  Mrs Wishaw had noticed that the desks were quiet. The staff were holding their phones to their faces, but they were no longer talking. Fingers had ceased clattering against keyboards.

  ‘He’s next door.’

  ‘You mean the garage?’

  Mrs Wishaw nodded: she meant the garage.

  As they left the office, Breck added some information for Fox’s benefit. ‘She’s his second wife, used to be one of the desk-jockeys... ’

  ‘Right,’ Fox said.

  The two mechanics were finishing off the job. One was tall and brawny and young. He was gathering together all the tools they’d used. The other was much older, with wavy silver hair receding at the temples. He was below five and a half feet and the waistband of his blue overalls was bulging. He was concentrating on wiping his oily hands on an even oilier rag.

  ‘Mr Wishaw,’ Breck said, having recognised him at last.

  ‘You two look like cops,’ Wishaw stated.

  ‘That’s because we are,’ Fox told him.

  Wishaw glowered at him from under a set of dark, bushy eyebrows, then turned towards the mechanic.

  ‘Aly, off you go and get a coffee or something.’

  The three men waited until Aly had done as he’d been told. Wishaw stuffed the rag into the pocket of his overalls and wandered over towards a workbench. There was a concertina-style toolbox there and he hauled it open.

  ‘Notice anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything’s in the right place,’ Fox stated after a few seconds.

  ‘That’s right. Know why that is?’

  ‘Because you’re anal?’ Breck offered. Wishaw tried him with the glower, but he had decided that Fox was the man worth talking to.

  ‘Business is all about confidence - reason the banks have started teetering is because people are losing confidence. Someone wants to work with me, maybe offer me a contract, I always bring them here. They see two things - a boss who’s not afraid of hard work, and a boss who makes sure everything runs like clockwork.’

  ‘That’s why all the lorries are lined up outside?’

  ‘And why they’ve been given a good wash, too. Same goes for my drivers...’

  ‘Do you hand them the soap personally?’ Breck couldn’t help asking. Wishaw ignored him.

  ‘If they’re going to be late on a pick-up or delivery, they call ahead and explain why. And the explanation better be twenty-two carat, because I’m the very next person they call. Know what I do then?’

  ‘You phone the customer and apologise?’ Fox guessed. Wishaw gave a brusque nod.

  ‘It’s the way things get done.’

  ‘It tends not to be how councils work,’ Fox argued.

  Wishaw threw his head back and hooted. ‘I know that. Amount of red tape I’ve tried getting rid of ... Nights I’ve sat in that chamber and argued till I’m blue in the face.’

  ‘You sit on the housing committee,’ Fox said. ‘Is that right?’

  Wishaw was quiet for a moment. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked.

  ‘We want to ask you about a man called Charles Brogan.’

  ‘Charlie.’ Wishaw bowed his head and shook it slowly. ‘Hell of a thing.’

  ‘How well did you know him?’

  ‘I met him a number of times - council business and suchlike. We got invites to the same sorts of parties and functions.’

  ‘You knew him pretty well then?’

  ‘I knew him to talk to.’

  ‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’

  Wishaw’s eyes met Fox’s. ‘You’ve probably been through his phone records - you tell me.’

  Fox swallowed and tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I’d rather you did the talking, sir.’

  Wishaw considered this. ‘Couple of days before he died,’ he finally admitted. ‘Only for five minutes or so.’

  ‘I meant to ask ... Did your firm ever do any work for CBBJ?’ Fox watched Wishaw shake his head. ‘So you weren’t owed money?’

  ‘Thankfully.’ Wishaw had taken the rag from his pocket and was wiping his fingers more thoroughly, making little or no difference.

  ‘But the call was business?’ Fox persisted calmly.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Was he offering you another bung?’ Breck interrupted. ‘Probably begging you by then ...’

  ‘What did you say?’ The rush of blood to Wishaw’s face was impressive in its immediacy. ‘Would you be happy to repeat that in front of a lawyer?’

  ‘All my colleague meant was ...’ Fox had his hands held up in supplication.

  ‘I know damned well what he meant!’ The man’s face was the colour of cooked beetroot; flecks of white were appearing at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Come clean on Brogan,’ Breck was saying, ‘and we might forget all about the bung you handed to your driver’s family. Remember him? With the dope stashed in the fuel tank?’

  Fox turned away from the spluttering Wishaw and propelled Jamie Breck backwards towards the garage opening. When they were out of earshot, Breck gave Fox the most fleeting of winks.

  ‘That felt good,’ he whispered.

  ‘Slight change of plan,’ Fox whispered back. ‘You stay here; I’m going to be good cop ...’ He removed his hand from Breck’s chest and turned back towards Wishaw, reaching him in a few short strides.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he apologised. ‘Younger officers don’t always have the ...’ He sought the right word. ‘Decorum,’ he decided. Wishaw was rubbing hard at his palms with the rag.

  ‘Outrageous,’ he said. ‘Such an accusation ... totally unfounded ...’

  ‘Ah, but it’s not, is it?’ Fox said gently. ‘You did give the man’s family a sum of money - what it comes down to after that is interpretation. That’s the mistake my colleague made, isn’t it?’

  Wishaw’s silence seemed to concede as much. ‘Outrageous,’ he echoed, but with only half as much force as before.

  ‘It’s Charles Brogan we were talking about,’ Fox reminded him. Wishaw gave a sigh.

  ‘Thing about men like Charlie ... His whole generation ...’ But he broke off, and Fox knew a bit more effort was required. He pretended to be studying the garage.

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Mr Wishaw. Except we both know luck has little or nothing to do with it - that fleet of lorries, the Maserati ... they’re the result of hard work rather than luck. You’ve as good as said so yourself.’

  ‘Yes,’ Wishaw agreed. This was a sub
ject he could talk about. ‘Sheer bloody hard work - I would say “graft” but you’d probably take it the wrong way.’

  Fox decided this was worth a full-throated chuckle.

  ‘That’s what so many people don’t realise,’ Wishaw went on, buoyed by the effect of his words on the detective. ‘I’ve worked my arse off, and I do the same thing in the council chamber - to try to make a difference. But these days, people just want to sit back and let the money and all that goes with it find them. That’s not the way it works! There are businessmen out there ...’ Wishaw made a stabbing motion with one finger, ‘who think money should come easy.’