The Complaints

‘Then why did he keep saying it?’

‘He’s a prick, sis.’

She managed a fleeting smile at this. Fox wasn’t letting go of her shoulder just yet, but she turned to look at his hand. ‘That hurts,’ she explained, and he realised the shoulder belonged to her broken arm.

‘Christ, sorry.’

Another half-smile. ‘There was a nicer detective… Breck, I think. Yes, because we read that book one holiday when we were kids.’

‘Kidnapped,’ Fox reminded her. ‘The hero’s called Alan Breck. You wanted me to read it to you.’

‘At bedtime.’ She nodded, remembering. ‘Every night for two weeks. And now look at us…’ She turned to him, tears ru

‘I know.’

She started wiping her tears on the shirt she was holding. ‘I’m not going to cope without him.’

‘Yes, you are… trust me. Can I get you anything?’

‘How about a time machine?’

‘Might take a while to build. Sandra says you’re out of tea and coffee – I could go to the shop and fetch some.’

She shook her head. ‘She’s going to bring some back from Asda – says there’s a discount for staff.’

‘She was telling me the four of you used to go to the casino. I never knew you liked a flutter.’

Jude took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘It wasn’t me so much as the other three. I liked the meal and a few drinks… They were always good nights.’ She paused. ‘They had people here, you know, rifling through all our stuff. I had to sign for some things they took. It’s why…’ She gestured towards the clothes surrounding her. ‘Drawers were already open, so I thought I might as well…’

Fox nodded. ‘I’ll leave you to it, if you’re sure there’s nothing I…’

‘Does Mitch know?’

‘Yes. I’ve put him off visiting.’

‘I’ll go see him. That would be easier, wouldn’t it?’

‘I can take you. How about later – three o’clock, four?’

‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

Fox just shrugged.

‘Okay then,’ Jude said. Her brother started to get to his feet. He was at the door when she thought of something. ‘Monday night, someone came to the house.’

Fox paused with his hand on the handle.

‘Said he was looking for Vince,’ Jude went on. ‘I told him I didn’t know where he was. Closed the door on him and that was that.’

‘You didn’t know him?’

Jude shook her head. ‘Tall guy, dark hair. I went to the window and watched him leave, but all I saw was his back.’

‘Did he get into a car?’

‘Maybe…’

‘You told Giles this?’

She shook her head again. ‘Mad as it seems, I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe you could tell him instead?’

‘Sure. One thing, though, Jude…’

‘What?’

‘Was Vince in any sort of trouble? Maybe he’d been on a shorter fuse than usual?’

She considered this, holding the shirt up to her nose. ‘He was just Vince,’ she told Fox. ‘Always will be. But Malcolm…?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you know about the convictions?’ She watched him as he gave a slow nod of the head. ‘You never told me.’

‘By the time I found out, he was already dead.’

‘You could still have told me. Better to hear it from you than that vile man.’

‘Yes,’ Fox agreed. ‘Sorry, sis. But how about you? Did you really not know?’

It was Jude’s turn to shake her head. ‘Doesn’t matter now,’ she said, her attention drifting back to her dead lover’s shirt. ‘Nothing matters now…’

At Fettes, there was a message that DS Inglis wanted to see him.

‘She delivered it herself,’ Tony Kaye teased as Fox read the note. ‘Tidy body on her…’

‘Where’s the boss?’ Fox asked.

‘Knocked off early; says he’s got a speech to write.’ When Fox looked at him, Kaye just shrugged. ‘Some conference in Glasgow.’

‘Methods of Policing an Expected Surge in Civil Unrest,’ Joe Naysmith recited. ‘All down to the credit crunch, apparently.’

Kaye tutted. ‘They’ll be lynching bankers next.’

‘What’s that got to do with the Complaints?’ Fox asked.

‘If our lads go in a bit too hard at the protesters,’ Kaye explained, ‘might end up coming to us.’ He had risen from his desk and was moving towards Fox’s. ‘Good to see you escaped unscathed – kept you there long enough.’

‘Bad Billy Giles was doing his Torquemada impression.’

‘Only to be expected. How’s your sister bearing up?’

‘Fine, so far. I went to see her after Torphichen.’

‘Did you learn anything?’

‘Faulker had a run-in with some rugby fans Saturday night.’

‘Oh?’

‘Seemed to peter out.’

‘All the same… Is that the last sighting?’ Kaye watched his colleague nod. ‘And Jude’s been interviewed?’

‘By both Giles and Jamie Breck.’

‘Did she have anything to tell them?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Fox was pinching the bridge of his nose. He wished the head cold would either explode into life or else burn itself out. At the moment, all it was doing was shadowing him like a stalker.

‘Are you going to go see the talent?’

‘What?’ Fox looked up at Kaye.

‘The Chop Shop glamour puss.’ Kaye gestured towards the note. ‘I can always nip along on your behalf, pass on a message.’

‘It’s fine,’ Fox said, getting back to his feet. Kaye shrugged and turned away.

‘Hey, Starbuck,’ he called to Joe Naysmith, ‘get the coffee on…’

Fox walked the short distance to the CEOP office and pressed the buzzer. A

‘I haven’t got long,’ Fox warned Inglis.

‘Just wondered how things were.’ She held her hand out towards the same chair he’d taken on his first visit. He sat down opposite her, their knees brushing for a moment. She was dressed in a skirt and black tights, and an open-necked white blouse with a string of pearls around her neck. The pearls looked old; maybe some sort of heirloom.

‘Things are fine,’ he said. Gilchrist, his back to them, was lifting the casing from a hard drive, peering inside for anything of interest.

‘Our opposite numbers in Melbourne are readying to jump the gun,’ Inglis said.

‘How do you mean?’

‘The cop down there, the one I showed you…’ She indicated her desk monitor. ‘They’re worried he has friends on the force, meaning he’ll find out we’re on to him.’

‘They’re getting ready to question him?’

Inglis nodded. ‘We might lose any number of his UK clients.’

‘The ones who’ve coughed up the cash,’ Gilchrist added without looking up, ‘but not the rest of the joining fee. They’ll have to be let off with a caution.’

‘Breck still hasn’t sent any pictures?’

Inglis shook her head. ‘Hasn’t posted anything on the group’s message board either.’ She paused. ‘This has happened before – information gets leaked, leaving plenty of time for evidence to disappear or be tampered with.’

‘But you’ve got the evidence.’ It was Fox’s turn to gesture towards the monitor.

‘We’ve just scratched the surface, Malcolm.’

‘Tip of the iceberg,’ Gilchrist agreed as he started to dismantle the drive unit. ‘What we could really do with…’ he seemed to be talking to himself, ‘…is access to the suspect’s home computer.’

Fox looked at Inglis. She was staring back at him. ‘Thing is,’ she said, ‘we’d have to apply for a search-and-seize. Breck’s bound to have a friend somewhere in the system who might be tempted to alert him.’

‘You on the other hand,’ Gilchrist added, still seemingly intent on his task, ‘can do a bit of breaking and entering – and all of it above board. The Complaints have got powers beyond us mere mortals.’

‘I thought it was general background you wanted?’

‘A bit of evidence would be nice,’ Inglis mused.

‘We’d get a gold star from London,’ her colleague continued.

‘Is that what this is about?’ Fox asked. ‘Impressing the big kids?’

‘You want them to think we’re all amateurs north of the border?’ Inglis waited for a response, which didn’t come. ‘He’ll have a store of images at home – either on his hard drive or a memory stick,’ she continued quietly but determinedly. ‘Even if he’s transferred them, they’ll have left traces.’