The Complaints

‘I was going to tell you, sir…’ Fox paused. ‘Truth is, they’ve taken my sister in for questioning. She needs someone with her.’

‘Not you, Malcolm. You need to be here.’

‘They know she’s my sister, Bob. They don’t like what I’ve done to their pal Heaton.’

‘I know people at Torphichen, Malcolm. I’ll see to it everything’s squared.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Half an hour, then. You, me and Tony Kaye are going to have a fine wee natter…’ The phone went dead in Fox’s hand.

In fact, the journey took him longer than expected. His excuse: tram works. Really, he’d detoured to Jude’s street in Saughtonhall. Her front door was open. A Scene of Crime van stood kerbside. Someone had been dispatched to the corner shop – the crew were drinking from polystyrene cups and munching on pastries and crisps. He saw just a couple of plain-clothes cops – faces he recognised dimly from visits to Torphichen. No sign of either Billy Giles or Jamie Breck. A neighbour on the opposite side of the road stood watching from her window, arms folded. Fox let his engine idle, knowing there was nothing to be gained from going in. Eventually he signalled back out into the traffic. The drivers were all being polite; didn’t mind braking on his behalf.

It gave them more time to gawp.

‘My dabs will be all over the place,’ Fox told McEwan. They weren’t in the office: McEwan had found an empty meeting-room. An elliptical table and eight or nine chairs. There was a marker board on a tripod. Three words written there:

VISIBILITY VIABILITY VERSATILITY

Tony Kaye had found the only chair in the room with castors. He was rolling himself backwards from the table, then forward again.

‘That’s a

‘What are we going to do about Bad Billy?’ Kaye asked, still moving.

‘He’s DCI Giles to you, Sergeant Kaye – and we’re going to let him do his job.’ He turned his head in Fox’s direction. ‘Isn’t that right, Malcolm?’

Fox nodded. ‘Only thing we can do. They’ll feel better once they’ve given us a kicking.’

McEwan gave a sigh. ‘How many times have I told you? PSU has to be above reproach.’

‘Like I say, sir, searching the database for Vince Faulkner was my idea.’

McEwan glared at Fox. ‘That’s a load of balls and you know it. Tony here is the kind who’d decide a protocol could be bent – isn’t that right, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Kaye admitted.

‘Last night we told Giles something different,’ Fox cautioned.

‘Then you better stick to that,’ McEwan snapped back. ‘If he catches you in one lie, he’ll go looking for others…’ He paused. ‘Are there any others?’

‘No, sir,’ both men said in unison.

McEwan was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Billy Giles is all bile and bluster. Scratch the surface and there’s a lot less of him to be scared of.’ He held up a finger. ‘Doesn’t mean you should underestimate him.’

Malcolm Fox took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘Are they treating Jude’s house as a crime scene?’

‘Possible crime scene.’

‘They won’t find anything.’

‘I thought you just said they’d find your prints.’

‘I was there on Monday, and then again yesterday.’

‘Best make sure they know that.’

Fox nodded slowly, while McEwan’s attention shifted back to Kaye.

‘Tony, I swear to God, if you don’t stop swivelling on that damned chair…’

Kaye leapt to his feet so suddenly, the chair rolled all the way back to the marker board. He strode over to the window and peered down at the car park. ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ he muttered with a shake of the head. ‘Foxy starts looking at Jamie Breck – next thing we know, C Division’s sniffing at our balls. What if Bad Billy got wind of it and decided he’d lost enough rotten apples for one season?’

‘And did what?’ McEwan reasoned. ‘Killed a man in cold blood? Is that seriously what you’re suggesting?’

‘I’m not saying he…’ But Kaye couldn’t finish what he’d started. It turned into an elongated snarl instead.

‘Do I put myself forward for questioning?’ Fox calmly asked of his boss.

‘They’ve already requested the pleasure of your company.’

‘When do they want me?’

‘Soon as this meeting’s done,’ McEwan said.

Fox stared at him. ‘So?’

‘So you’re idiots, the pair of you. Nobody accesses the PNC without good reason.’

‘We had good reason,’ Kaye insisted.

‘You had a good personal reason, Tony, and that’s far from being the same thing.’

‘He’d been involved in a domestic,’ Kaye ploughed on. ‘We were looking for evidence of priors.’

‘Keep telling yourself that,’ McEwan offered with a tired-looking smile.

‘Sir?’ Fox interrupted, needing to hear the word.

‘Go,’ Bob McEwan obliged.

‘Is my sister all right?’

‘You want to see her?’ Giles asked. He was dressed in the same clothes as the previous night, but with the addition of a tie. His neck had outgrown the collar of his shirt, and the top button was undone, visible behind the tie’s loose knot.

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s not far.’ They were in one of the interview rooms at Torphichen. The place had a Precinct 13 feel to it – crumbling and circumferenced by dereliction and roadworks. There wasn’t much for the tourists, once you got west of Princes Street and Lothian Road. The one-way system dragged buses, cabs and lorries around it, but it was a thankless spot for pedestrians. Inside the building there were the usual smells of mildew and desperation. The interview room bore battle scars – scratched walls, chipped desk, graffiti on the back of the door. They’d kept Fox waiting a good long time in the reception area, giving uniforms and plain-clothes officers alike the chance to come and glare at him. When he’d eventually followed Giles down the corridor towards the interview room, there had been plenty of hissing and cursing from office doorways.

‘Is she all right, though?’ Fox persisted.

Giles made eye contact with him for the first time since coming in. ‘We’ve not started the waterboarding yet, if that’s what you’re asking. Tea and biccies and a female officer for company last time I looked in.’ Giles leaned forward so his elbows rested against the table. ‘It’s a bad business,’ he stated. Fox just nodded. ‘When did you last see Mr Faulkner?’

‘Before Christmas – November maybe.’

‘You didn’t have much time for him?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t blame you. You knew he was using your sister as a punch-bag, though?’ Fox stared at him but didn’t answer. ‘See, if that’d been my kith and kin, I’d’ve been on the bastard like a ton of shit.’

‘I’d spoken to her about it. She told me her arm was an accident. ’

‘No way you believed her.’ Giles leaned back again, bunching his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘So how come you didn’t face up to him?’

‘I never got the chance.’

‘Or you were yellow…’ Giles let the accusation float in the air between them. When Fox didn’t rise to it, he bared his teeth. ‘Her arm was broken Saturday, wasn’t it?’

‘So she says.’

‘When did you find out about it?’

There was a noise in the corridor outside. A young male by the sound of it, not exactly cooperating as he was led to or from his cell.

‘That’ll be Mollison,’ Giles explained. ‘Wee wanker’s a one-man crime wave. Soon as I’m done here, I’ll be having words with him.’

‘Is he anything to do with…?’

Giles shook his head. ‘Mollison’ll break into your home or car, but it’s unlikely he’d bludgeon you to death. Takes rage, that sort of attack. The sort of rage that comes from a grudge.’

‘I hadn’t seen Faulkner since before Christmas.’

‘Did you know back then?’

‘Know what?’

‘That he was a wife-beater.’

‘Jude wasn’t his wife.’

‘Did you, though?’ Giles’s small eyes, staring out from his fleshy face, were drilling into Fox. Though he fought against it, Fox wriggled in his chair.