The Complaints

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I can see that ...’ She looked from Fox to Breck and back again. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘We might try talking to Terry Vass,’ Fox said.

  ‘So if we’re found floating face-down in the Tay,’ Breck went on, ‘at least you’ll know where to start.’

  Stoddart managed the beginnings of a smile. ‘It is a bit chilly up here,’ she said, getting to her feet.

  ‘Colder than Aberdeen?’ Fox teased. But she took the question seriously.

  ‘In a funny way, yes.’ The three of them started back towards the car. ‘I know I’ve not been here long, but there’s something about this city ... something lacking.’

  ‘Blame the trams,’ Breck joked. ‘It’s what everybody else does.’

  But Fox stayed silent. He thought he knew what she meant. People in Edinburgh might be quick to take offence, but they were slow to do anything about it other than seethe. And meantime, on the outside, they seemed reticent and unemotional. It was as if there were some vast game of poker being played, and no one wanted to give anything away. He caught Stoddart’s eye and nodded slowly, but she was retreating back into her own shell and didn’t respond. What would she say at Fettes? How would she frame her report? Might she begin to resent them for dragging her into their story, a story she wanted no part of? As they reached the car, she stopped with her hand on the door handle.

  ‘Maybe I’ll walk,’ she said.

  ‘You sure?’ Breck asked. But Fox knew she’d made up her mind.

  ‘It’s downhill from here,’ he explained, pointing. ‘You’ll come to Holyrood Park Road and that leads out on to Dalkeith Road. Should be taxis there ...’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ She slid her hands into her pockets. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about.’ Then she paused and fixed Breck with a look. ‘But I’ll still need you to come in for interview, DS Breck. Say tomorrow at nine?’

  Breck scowled. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday.’

  ‘We don’t take weekends off, DS Breck, not on the taxpayer’s tab.’ She waved and headed down the footpath. Breck got into the passenger seat and shut the door. ‘What’s the point of pulling me in for another Q and A? We’ve just filled her in on every sodding thing.’

  ‘It’s for her colleagues’ benefit. So they don’t get more suspicious than they probably already are.’ Fox started the car and released the handbrake. Ten seconds later, they were passing her. She kept her eyes to the ground, as if the car and its occupants were strangers to her.

  ‘Have we just made a huge fucking mistake?’ Breck asked.

  ‘If so,’ Fox reassured him, ‘we can always blame the trams.’

  26

  That evening, Breck was going for a meal with Annabel Cartwright. Fox had asked which restaurant.

  ‘Tom Kitchin’s place - booked it before all this blew up.’ Breck had paused. ‘I’m sure we could squeeze in an extra chair ...’ But Fox had shaken his head.

  ‘Brogan used to take Joanna there,’ he commented.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was in his diary.’

  Afterwards, thinking back on this exchange, he’d felt gratified that Breck had asked him to come to the meal. It was the act of a friend, or at the very least the act of a man with little to hide. Fox had asked Breck if he was any nearer to telling Annabel about the website.

  ‘Later,’ was all Breck had said.

  Fox had gone out to his car and driven to Minter’s, texting Tony Kaye to let him know he was on his way. When he was five minutes from his destination, a reply had arrived from Kaye: Cant make it sorry TK. Another minute later, there was a PS: Joe n gilchrist might be there.

  Fox wasn’t sure that he wanted to see Joe Naysmith and his new best friend. On the other hand, he couldn’t be bothered turning back, and the deal was sealed when a car drew out of a parking bay just as Fox was arriving. He backed the Volvo in and checked that he didn’t need to pay for a ticket at this hour. Turned out he’d beaten the system by a good five minutes. He locked the car and crossed the road to Minter’s. There wasn’t anyone standing at the bar, and no quiz show on the TV. The barmaid was young, with tattooed arms and pink streaks in her hair. Fox looked around. The woman Kaye knew was chatting with a friend at a corner table. Recognising Fox, she gave him a wave. Fox dredged up her name: Margaret Sime. The drink in front of her looked like a brandy and soda. Her cigarettes and lighter sat at the ready. Fox nodded back a greeting and ordered a tomato juice.

  ‘Do you want it spicy?’ the barmaid asked. Her accent was Eastern European.

  ‘Thanks,’ Fox said. ‘And a round of drinks for the table over there.’ Then, as she went about her business: ‘Are you Polish?’

  ‘Latvian,’ she corrected him.

  ‘Sorry.’

  She shrugged. ‘I get that a lot. You Scots are used to the Poles invading your country.’

  ‘I hear a lot of them are heading home.’

  She nodded at this. ‘The pound is not so strong, and people are getting angry.’

  ‘About the exchange rate?’

  She shook the bottle of tomato juice before opening it. ‘What I mean is, jobs are becoming difficult to find. You don’t mind immigrants when they’re not stealing work from you.’

  ‘Is that what you’re doing?’

  She was adding Tabasco to the drink. ‘Nobody’s complained as yet - not to my face.’

  ‘What would you do if they did?’

  She made a claw of her free hand. The nails were long and looked sharp. ‘I bite, too,’ she added. Then she rang up the drinks. Fox was trying to decide where to sit when the door opened and Naysmith came in, followed by Gilchrist. Fox noticed that Joe’s whole demeanour had changed. He rolled his shoulders when he walked, as if filled with new confidence. His smile to Fox was that of an equal rather than an understudy. A couple of paces behind him, Gilchrist had his hands in his pockets, seemingly pleased with the transformation and ready to take credit for it.

  ‘Hiya, Foxy,’ Naysmith said, voice louder than usual.

  ‘Joe,’ Fox said. ‘What are you having?’

  ‘Pint of lager, thanks.’

  Gilchrist added that he’d take a half of cider. The barmaid had just returned from delivering the drinks to Mrs Sime and her friend. She started pouring as Fox dug into his pocket for more cash.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Naysmith was asking. He went so far as to place a hand on Fox’s shoulder, as if to console him. Fox glared at the hand until it was removed. Gilchrist pursed his lips, trying to suppress a grin.

  ‘Still suspended,’ Fox answered Naysmith. ‘What’s keeping Kaye from his usual skinful?’

  ‘Crisis at home,’ Naysmith explained. ‘Mrs Kaye says if he doesn’t start spending some time there, she’s going to walk.’

  ‘So now we know who wears the trousers,’ Gilchrist added from over Naysmith’s shoulder. Naysmith laughed and nodded.

  Fox didn’t know whether to be impressed or outraged. It had taken the interloper only a few days to turn Joe Naysmith around. The notion of Joe making jokes about Tony Kaye ... laughing at domestic troubles ... gossiping within hearing distance of a barmaid ... With Fox out of the picture, Kaye was team leader, and now his authority was being eroded from within. Malcolm Fox didn’t like it. He didn’t like the way Joe had changed, or had let himself be remoulded.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ Gilchrist was asking.

  ‘None of your business,’ Fox answered.

  ‘Let’s grab a seat,’ Naysmith was saying, oblivious to Fox’s scowl of disapproval. Gilchrist had seen it, though, and understood perfectly. The smile he gave was lopsided and humourless. Divide and conquer - Fox had seen it before in his career. A team was seldom a team. There would always be the naysayer, the dissenting voice, the stirrer. You either gelded them or you moved them elsewhere. One cop he’d known had been offered a promotion to pastures new but had asked for it to be offered to a rival. Why? To move the bastard on and leave the rest of the crew intact
. Fox wasn’t sure he’d have done the same. Maybe now he would, but not until recently. Until recently, he’d have taken the promotion and moved on, leaving his old team to its troubles.

  ‘Bloody quiet in the office,’ Naysmith was saying. ‘Bob’s talking about us taking on some of the meat-and-potatoes stuff.’

  ‘I’m not missed, then?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘But if I was still there, you wouldn’t be.’ Fox gestured towards Gilchrist.

  ‘It’s not as cloak-and-dagger as I was expecting,’ Gilchrist complained. ‘Joe’s told me about some of your previous work. I wouldn’t have minded a piece of that.’

  ‘Don’t go getting too comfy,’ Fox warned him. ‘I could be back at my desk any day.’

  ‘It’ll happen, Malcolm,’ Naysmith assured him. But Fox was staring at Gilchrist, and Gilchrist didn’t seem so sure. Fox got to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping against the floor. ‘Joe,’ he said, ‘I need a word with your compadre.’ Then, this time to Gilchrist: ‘Outside.’

  It sounded like an order because that was what it was. Gilchrist, however, was in no rush. He took another sip of cider and slowly placed the glass on its beer mat. ‘That okay with you?’ he asked Naysmith. Joe Naysmith nodded uncertainly. Fox had waited as long as he could and was now striding towards the door.

  ‘See you later,’ the barmaid called to him.

  ‘For definite,’ he answered her.

  Outside, he took several deep breaths. His heart was pumping and there was a hissing in his ears. Gilchrist didn’t just annoy him - it went well beyond that. The door behind him swung open. Fox grabbed Gilchrist by his lapels and drew him forwards, then slammed him back against the stone wall. Gilchrist was staring at Fox’s bunched fists. He could boast almost half his opponent’s body weight and none of his indignation. There wasn’t going to be a fight.

  ‘Do what you’ve got to do,’ was all he said, turning his head so Fox couldn’t make eye contact.

  ‘You’re a turd,’ Fox said, his voice rasping. ‘What’s worse, you’re the turd who got me into this. So I’m going to ask you again - who was it brought Jamie Breck to you?’

  ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘It just does.’

  ‘You going to slap me about a bit? We could compare bruises after.’

  Fox pulled Gilchrist forward, then hurled him into the wall again.

  ‘McEwan’s going to love this when I ...’

  ‘Tell him whatever you like,’ Fox said. ‘All I want to know is - whose idea was it?’

  ‘You already know.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I think you do ... you just don’t want to believe it. She wanted me gone, Fox. Never, ever liked me. Sure, I was keen on a move, but I didn’t have anything to negotiate with. She did.’

  Fox had loosened his grip. ‘You mean Annie Inglis?’

  Now Gilchrist turned his eyes towards him. ‘Who else?’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Fine ... doesn’t matter. You asked me the question and I’ve given you the only answer I’ve got. Inglis was the one who said we were going to ask the Complaints for help - and it was your name she had.’

  ‘Was it Inglis who called you that night to cancel the surveillance? ’

  Gilchrist hesitated, and Fox knew that whatever came out of his mouth, it wouldn’t be the truth.

  ‘You’re still a turd,’ Fox stated, breaking the silence. ‘I want you to lay off Joe.’

  ‘Lay off him? I can’t get away from him! You and Kaye must have treated him like shit.’

  Fox released his grip completely, his hands falling to his sides. ‘I’m coming back,’ he said quietly.

  ‘And that’s when they move me elsewhere - anywhere Annie Inglis isn’t.’ Gilchrist was straightening his jacket. ‘Are we finished here?’

  Fox shook his head. ‘Whether it was Annie Inglis or you, the order had to come from somebody upstairs.’

  ‘So go ask Inglis.’

  ‘I’ll definitely do that.’ Fox paused, remembering something. ‘Do you recall me asking what was happening about Simeon Latham? You told me the Aussies were readying to go to trial. But when I spoke to someone on the inquiry, they contradicted that.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you lied.’

  Gilchrist shook his head. ‘It’s what I was told. How often do you want me to say it - go ask your girlfriend.’ He looked Fox up and down. ‘Except she’s not, is she? Not now she’s got what she needed from you.’ Gilchrist gave a smirk. ‘There was that look of desperation about you, first time you walked into the office, wearing your braces and your red tie, hoping they’d get you noticed. Annie Inglis is good at her job, Fox. She’s good at pretending to be what she’s not - she does it each and every day online ...’

  The door was opening. Fox expected to see Naysmith, but it was Margaret Sime, cigarette at the ready. She assessed the scene in an instant.

  ‘No nonsense, lads,’ she warned them.

  ‘We done?’ Gilchrist asked Fox.

  Fox just nodded, and Gilchrist headed back inside.

  ‘Since I first set eyes on that young man,’ Margaret Sime commented as she lit her cigarette, ‘I’ve had just the one thought.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Fox felt compelled to ask.

  ‘He’s got a face deserving of a good hard skelp.’

  ‘Sorry I let you down, Mrs Sime,’ Fox apologised.

  He spent an hour on the sofa, with the TV playing, sound turned down. He was wondering what sort of conversation he could have with Detective Sergeant Annie Inglis. She had invited him into her home ... made up with him after their falling-out. Was he really now going to accuse her of setting him up in the first place? Was he going to accept Gilchrist at face value? If so, then Inglis had set Jamie Breck up, too ...

  Fox thought about Deputy Chief Constable Adam Traynor, confronting him with Bad Billy Giles in the interview room at Torphichen. Then he spooled further back, to the Complaints office, McEwan teasing him: Chief thinks there’s the whiff of something septic up in Aberdeen ... After the chat with Stoddart, Fox’s thinking was that a deal had been done. But if all of this had been the Chief Constable’s idea, why would he have hinted to McEwan that the team might have to investigate Grampian Police? No, it had to be Traynor, didn’t it? And that was when Fox knew he had his question. He swung his legs off the sofa and reached over to the coffee table for his phone, punching in Annie Inglis’s number. When she answered, he hesitated.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, her voice taking on an edge. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me,’ Fox eventually admitted. He was gouging his thumb into the space between his eyebrows, just above the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut.

  ‘Malcolm? What’s the matter? You sound—’

  ‘Just a yes or no answer, Annie. That’s all I need, and I won’t bother you again.’

  There was silence on the line. When she spoke, it was with a tone of concern. ‘Malcolm, what’s happened? Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘One question, Annie,’ he persisted.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to hear it. You’re in a bit of a state, Malcolm. Maybe wait till tomorrow ...’

  ‘Annie ...’ He swallowed hard. ‘What did Traynor promise you?’ He listened to the silence. ‘If you brought me in on Jamie Breck, he’d move Gilchrist out - was that the deal? Was that all it took?’

  ‘Malcolm ...’

  ‘Just answer!’

  ‘I’m putting the phone down.’

  ‘I deserve to be told, Annie! This whole thing’s a stitch-up and it wouldn’t have worked without you!’

  But he was talking to the dial tone. She’d hung up on him. Fox cursed and considered calling her again, but he doubted she would answer. He could drive to her flat, keep his finger pressed to her buzzer, but she wouldn’t let him in. She was too wise.

  Too wise and too calculating.

  Good at pretending to be what she’s not ...


  Fox paced the room. He had half a mind to call Jamie, but Jamie was wining and dining Annabel. And how come he was doing that? Why wasn’t he pacing his own living room, snarling at the unfairness of it all? Fox grabbed his phone again and made the call.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ Breck said upon answering. ‘I’m taking this outside. ’ Then, to Annabel: ‘It’s Malcolm, sweetheart.’