The Complaints

‘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 subject 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.’

‘Money from nothing?’ Fox guessed.

‘As good as,’ Wishaw agreed. ‘Buy a parcel of land, sit on it for a year and then sell at a profit. Or a house or a bunch of flats or whatever it might be. If you’ve got cash in a bank, you want a double-digit rate of interest – doesn’t matter to you how the bank finances it. Money from thin air, that’s what it seems like. And nobody asks any questions because that might break the spell.’

‘Your own company’s surviving, though?’

‘It’s hard going, I won’t deny it.’

‘But you’ll work your way through it?’

Wishaw nodded vigorously. ‘Which is why I resent it when… when…’ He was wagging a finger towards Jamie Breck.

‘He didn’t mean anything, sir. We’re just trying to build up a picture of why Charles Brogan did what he did.’

‘Charlie…’ Wishaw calmed again, his eyes losing focus as he remembered the man he’d known. ‘Charlie was incredibly likeable – genial company, all of that. But he was a product of his time. In a nutshell, he got greedy. That’s what it boils down to. He thought that money should come easy, and for the first few years it really did. But that can make you soft and complacent and gullible…’ Wishaw paused. ‘And stupid. Above all, it can make you incredibly stupid… yet for a while you’re still making money.’ He raised a hand. ‘I’m not saying Charlie was the worst, not even in the bottom fifty or hundred! At least he created things – he caused buildings to rise.’

Fox seemed to recall that Brogan had said much the same thing in one of his newspaper interviews. ‘But that becomes a problem when nobody wants those buildings,’ he suggested.

Wishaw’s mouth twitched. ‘It’s when your investors want to be paid back. Empty buildings might be an investment if you wait long enough – same goes for land. What’s worthless one year can turn to gold the next. But none of that’s relevant if you’ve promised a quick return to your investors.’

Fox was giving Wishaw his full attention. ‘Who were Mr Brogan’s investors?’