The Complaints

The proprietor insisted on carrying the tea to the table for her. She thanked him with a crinkling of her nose, then sat down next to Fox rather than across the table from him, having removed her satchel from the chair. She crossed one leg over the other while he assumed an interest in the art on the walls around them.

‘Nice place,’ he said.

‘It’s handy – my flat’s on Gardner ’s Crescent.’

Fox nodded and turned his attention to the window. There were two shops across the street. One was a hairdresser’s, the other a vet’s. Linda Dearborn had leaned down to find something in her bag. When she placed the laptop on the table, she peered down the front of her own blouse.

‘Almost a wardrobe malfunction there,’ she pretended to apologise.

‘Does the act always work?’ Fox asked, fixing his eyes on hers.

‘Mostly,’ she eventually conceded.

‘Well, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but maybe we could…’ He tapped the laptop. Dearborn gave a little pout but lifted the screen anyway and switched the machine on. Fox looked away as she typed in her password. Twenty seconds and a couple of clicks later and she was angling the screen towards him.

‘Companies House is all well and good,’ she began. ‘But it helps that my newspaper hasn’t yet scaled down its business desk. The accountants aren’t even halfway through dealing with everything Mr Brogan left behind, but what seems clear is that CBBJ was buoyed in the early days by large injections of cash. As far as anyone can tell, these weren’t always accompanied by effective paperwork. ’

‘Meaning?’

‘We don’t know where the money came from. But there are plenty of other actual shareholders.’

‘Would one of them happen to be called Wauchope Leisure?’

Dearborn ran one long-nailed finger down the mouse pad, the names and numbers on the screen scrolling with her.

‘Not quite,’ she said, placing the cursor over a name and highlighting it – ScotFuture (Wauchope).

‘Would that company be Dundee-based, by any chance?’ Fox asked.

Dearborn just nodded. ‘Remember you asked me to look at Lovatt, Meikle, Meldrum’s client base? They just happen to represent a company called Wauchope Leisure. As far as I can ascertain, LMM’s job was to disguise the sleaze factor in a series of adverts for lap-dancing clubs up and down the country. Meantime, Wauchope’s managing director has been put in jail…’

‘Fancy that,’ Fox mused. When the journalist saw she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him, she turned her attention back to the screen.

‘There are a lot of small companies listed here – private companies, meaning they don’t have to file much in the way of information about themselves. The lads on the business desk were intrigued. Charles Brogan seems to have had friends all over the country – Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Paisley… and further afield, too – Newcastle, Liverpool, Dublin…’

‘I don’t suppose these friendships survived the financial melt-down, ’ Fox mused.

‘No, I don’t suppose they did. Anyone who bought into Salamander Point, for example… well, nobody seems to think they’ll get back more than five pence in the pound.’

‘Ouch.’

‘And our benighted banks take yet another hit – Brogan had loans totalling just over eighteen million, and he was behind on his payments.’

‘Could they go after his widow?’

‘Unlikely – that’s the beauty of a limited company.’

‘Is Joa

Dearborn was shaking her head. ‘She didn’t hold a single share.’

‘Yet her initials are right there in the company’s name.’

‘That’s why I dug back a little further. She was a partner at one time, but her husband bought her out, around the same time she started her casino.’

‘Does CBBJ happen to own a slice of the Oliver?’

‘I don’t think so.’ She cupped her chin in her hand. ‘And neither does Wauchope Leisure. So where’s this all leading, Malcolm?’

‘You tell me.’

‘You think some of the money in CBBJ was dirty?’

‘Is that just an inspired guess?’

She smiled. ‘It’s what my business editor thinks. Problem is, the paper trail is almost impossible to follow.’

‘Maybe if you gave it a bit longer…’

She stared at him. Her eyes were almost violet. He wondered if they were tinted lenses. ‘Maybe,’ she said. Then: ‘By the way, how’s suspension treating you?’

‘Can’t complain.’

‘That’s fu

‘Because I’m in the Complaints, you mean?’ He watched her nod.

‘Story is, you were trampling all over your brother-in-law’s murder.’

‘He wasn’t my brother-in-law.’ Fox paused. ‘And it’s not a story.’

‘Oh, but it might be, if you let it.’ The tip of her tongue protruded from between her lips.

‘Grieving Cop Errs on the Side of Zeal – that’s about as much as you could do with it.’

‘But now all that zeal seems aimed at Charles Brogan…’

‘Do you reckon your own zeal will get you anywhere?’

‘My editor describes me as “tenacious”.’

‘But so far you can’t prove a link between Brogan and Ernie Wishaw?’

‘I know they met several times.’

‘But nobody saw any money change hands?’ Fox guessed. Dearborn angled her head to one side.

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘The way he went missing just after your friend Vince died? Took me about fifteen minutes to make the co

‘I never thought you were.’

‘Hot water?’ a voice from behind them called. It was the proprietor, standing with a fresh pot in his hand.

Fox had parked his car on a yellow line outside. A warden was hovering as he emerged from the café. The man was wondering whether to honour the POLICE sign Fox had left on the inside of the windscreen. When Fox scowled at him, the warden decided there might be easier pickings elsewhere. Fox had offered Linda Dearborn a lift, but she’d said she was happy walking. Her destination was George Street, ‘for a little window shopping’. Fox could bet that she liked walking, knowing male heads were turning as she passed them; knowing eyes were fixed on her from cars and vans and office windows. He was turning the key in the ignition when his phone – his new phone – sounded. The number belonged to Jamie Breck.

‘Morning,’ Fox said, answering.

‘I’ve just had a call from Mark Kelly.’

‘What’s he got for us?’

‘He visited Norquay’s widow. She didn’t seem fazed by his request.’

‘She showed him hubby’s phone bills?’

‘Mark says the whole house is a shrine. She’s bought a job lot of photo frames. There are hundreds of family pics strewn across the living-room floor as she sorts them all out. She took him into her husband’s den – the paperwork was immaculate. She’s got it all boxed in chronological order – bank statements, bills and receipts, credit card stuff…’

‘And phone bills?’ Fox prompted.

‘Right.’ Fox listened as Breck picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Luckily he opted to have everything itemised – calls in as well as calls out. Towards the end of that di

‘Okay.’

‘Call lasted two minutes and forty seconds.’

‘And do we know his state of mind immediately afterwards?’

‘Mark hadn’t thought to go that particular extra mile…’

‘But you’ve asked him now?’

‘He’s going to talk to the friends who were with Norquay at the di

‘I don’t suppose it’ll get us much further.’

‘No…’ Breck drew the word out, and Fox knew there was something else.