The Complaints

‘But not at the Oliver?’

Sandra Hendry shook her head. ‘Too far from the centre for Maggie. George Street’s what she likes.’

‘Was your husband with you?’

‘Ro

‘So he was at home then?’

Having finished wiping, she fixed him with a stare. ‘What’s this all about?’

Fox had his answer prepared. ‘We think Vince may have gone to the Oliver. Just wondering if he was on his own.’

She considered this and nodded slowly, accepting the explanation as being reasonable.

‘Did he know anyone else who frequented the casino?’ Fox asked.

‘No idea.’ The tone she used, he knew he was losing her – too many questions. In her eyes, he’d stopped being Jude’s brother and turned back into a cop.

‘Times you went there with him, he didn’t bump into people he knew?’

She shrugged, straightening up as a new customer approached and started emptying his trolley. The man was unkempt and unshaven, eyes bloodshot. He was buying enough booze to kickstart Hogmanay. Sandra Hendry wrinkled her nose as she made eye contact with Fox. Her meaning was clear: one of her regulars, but by no means a favourite.

‘Is Ro

‘Unless they’ve laid him off… Nobody’s safe these days.’

Fox nodded his agreement, picked up his shopping, and thanked her for everything.

When Fox had driven into the Asda car park, a black Vauxhall Astra had been thirty yards behind him. Now, driving away, he caught the same car in his rearview mirror. It wasn’t close enough for him to make out the licence plate. He kept to a crawl of ten miles an hour as he headed towards the main road, but the Astra never came any closer. His phone rang and he answered it.

‘Where are you?’ Tony Kaye asked.

‘Keeping busy,’ Fox replied.

‘Want to hear some news?’

‘Good or bad?’

‘Vince Faulkner did indeed take a cab. Driver remembers interrupting the rammy and his cab taking a dunt in the process.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘You’re not the only one with sources – and there aren’t that many cab outfits in Edinburgh. Giles’s boys got hold of the info about an hour before I did.’

‘Does the cabbie remember where he dropped Vince?’

‘The casino near Ocean Terminal. Driver got out to inspect the damage.’

‘He saw Vince go into the Oliver?’

‘You sound like you already know all this…’

‘I had an inkling, but the confirmation is greatly appreciated.’ Fox said his goodbyes and ended the call, rewarding himself with a little smile. He didn’t know why he’d come up with the Oliver as Vince’s probable destination, but he’d been proved right. He’d never been the type to rely on gut instinct – at every step, he worked from the evidence presented. He liked to think this was one reason the Complaints had maintained their near-perfect record. But maybe instinct had its place.

As he neared the city centre, he lost sight of the Astra. Could be it had turned off. The area around Haymarket was as bad as ever. A sandwich board outside a newsagent’s informed him that the day’s Evening News was leading with a dispute between the local council and the German company behind the construction of the tram system. The Germans wanted more money, because of sterling’s weakened exchange rate.

‘The best of British luck to you,’ Fox muttered, awaiting his turn through the contraflow. He was wondering if he should have taken another route – cut straight across the south of the city maybe. But then there were delays there too. It really did feel as if the whole city – with the blessing of those empowered to manage and nurture it – was grinding to a halt. For want of anything better to do, he lifted his phone from the passenger seat and punched in the number for Jamie Breck’s mobile. Listening to it ring, he happened to glance in the rearview mirror again. A familiar-looking black Astra was three cars behind him.

‘Hello?’

‘Jamie, it’s Malcolm Fox.’

‘Morning, Malcolm. Thanks again for playing chauffeur last night.’

‘No problem. I was just wondering if there was any news.’

‘Taxi driver remembers Vince Faulkner. Dropped him outside the Oliver.’

‘So you’ll be talking to the staff?’

‘Somebody on the team will. I’m a bit busy elsewhere just at the minute.’

‘I’m interrupting you?’

‘No, but I can’t talk for long. Was there anything else?’

Fox realised there probably wasn’t – all he’d wanted to know was whether Breck would share with him about the taxi, and Breck had passed that test. Besides, traffic had eased and Fox wasn’t far from his destination. The Astra seemed to have taken a turning, but now Fox was wondering about the green Ford Ka – it was a couple of cars back, and how long had it been there?

‘Nothing else,’ Fox said in answer to Breck’s question. He ended the call and took a right turn at the next set of lights, pulling over to the kerb and stopping. He watched in his rearview as the Ka went straight ahead at the junction instead of following him. ‘Just because you’re paranoid, Malcolm,’ he muttered to himself, not bothering to complete the sentence.

There were plenty of signposts showing potential buyers the way to Salamander Point. A few blocks were already finished – curtains and blinds in some of the windows; plants sitting in pots on the corner balconies. But it was a huge site, and foundations were under way on a further four high-rise constructions. Large billboards attached to the fence around the site showed an approximation of the finished ‘city within the city by the sea’. There were capitalised buzz-words such as EASE and QUALITY and SPACE drifting into the blue-painted sky, below which the artist had depicted smiling people walking past a café, outside which other shiny people sat at tables with their espressos and cappuccinos. This was their LIFESTYLE, but the present reality was somewhat different. The occupants of Salamander Point were living in the middle of a building site that resembled, to Fox’s eye, a World War One battlefield, all mud and trench-digging, noise and diesel fumes. A corner of the site had been turned into an encampment for the workforce – ten or twelve Portakabins were stacked at double height, fronted by scaffolding and ladders. Men in high-visibility jackets and yellow hard hats sca

Nobody was buying.

In a moment, he would walk up the path and she would see him, and there would be a momentary lifting of her spirits, dashed when he introduced himself and asked to see the gaffer. But first he locked his car, leaving it by the kerb. A truck rumbled past, kicking up a mini dust storm. Fox held his hands over his eyes and mouth until everything had settled, then headed up the path. When his phone started ringing, he answered it.

‘Fox,’ he stated.

‘Anything you want to tell me, Malcolm?’ It was Breck’s voice.

‘How do you mean, Jamie?’

‘Take a look to your left, over by the Portakabins.’

With the phone still held to his ear, Fox turned his head, knowing what he would see. Breck was standing on the scaffolding. There was a hard hat on his head and another on the man standing next to him. Breck waved and spoke into his phone. A split second later, his words reached Fox.

‘Come on over, then…’

As he moved away, Fox caught sight of the saleswoman. She had risen from her desk, ready to greet him. He offered a shrug and a sheepish smile, and began picking his way across the treacherous terrain towards the site office. At the top of the ladder, Breck introduced him to Howard Bailey.