The Complaints

‘Till next time,’ he said, turning away. One of the women glanced up at him as he passed, and he managed a wink of his own.

When he got back to the Complaints office, Naysmith told him there was a message waiting.

‘And would I find it on my desk or under it?’ Fox asked. But there it was, lying next to his telephone. Just a name and number. He looked at it, then up at Naysmith. ‘Alison Pettifer?’

Naysmith just shrugged, so Fox lifted the receiver and punched the number in. When it was answered, he identified himself as Inspector Fox.

‘Oh, right,’ the woman on the other end said. She sounded hesitant.

‘You called me,’ Fox persisted.

‘You’re Jude’s brother?’

Fox was silent for a moment. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I live next door,’ the woman stumbled on. ‘She happened to mention once that you were in the police. That’s how I got your number…’

‘What’s happened?’ Fox repeated, aware that both Naysmith and Kaye were now listening.

‘Jude’s had a bit of an accident…’

She tried to close the door in his face, but he pushed against it and her resistance evaporated. Instead, she marched back into her living room. It was a mid-terraced house in Saughtonhall. He didn’t know which side Alison Pettifer lived – neither set of net curtains had twitched. Each and every house on the street boasted a satellite dish, and Jude’s TV was tuned to some daytime chat-and-cookery show. She turned it off as he walked into the room.

‘Well now,’ was all he said. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. There was some faint bruising on her left cheek, and her left arm was in plaster, a sling cradling it. ‘Those stairs again?’

‘I’d had a drink.’

‘I’m sure.’ He was looking around the room. It smelt of alcohol and cigarettes. There was an empty vodka bottle on the floor next to the sofa. Two ashtrays, both full. A couple of crushed cigarette packets. A breakfast bar separated the living area from the small kitchen. Plates stacked up, next to discarded fast-food cartons. More empty bottles – lager; cider; cheap white wine. The carpet needed vacuuming. There was a layer of dust on the coffee table. One of the legs had been snapped off, replaced by a stack of four building bricks. Figured: Vince worked in the building trade.

‘Mind if I sit down?’ Fox asked.

She tried to shrug. It wasn’t easy. He decided his safest bet was the arm of the sofa. He still had his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. There didn’t seem to be any heating in the room. His sister was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and a baggy pair of denims. Her feet were bare.

‘You look a right state,’ he told her.

‘Thanks.’

‘I mean it.’

‘You’re not exactly a poster boy yourself.’

‘Don’t I know it.’ He’d lifted the handkerchief from his pocket so he could blow into it.

‘You still haven’t got rid of that cold,’ she commented.

‘You still haven’t got rid of that bastard of yours,’ he replied. ‘Where is he?’

‘Working.’

‘I didn’t know anyone was building anything.’

‘There’ve been lay-offs. He’s hanging in.’

Fox nodded slowly. Jude was still standing up, shifting slightly from the hips. He recognised the movement. She’d done it as a kid, whenever she’d been caught out. Paraded in front of their father for a telling-off.

‘You not got a job yet?’

She shook her head. The estate agent had laid her off just before Christmas. ‘Who told you?’ she asked eventually. ‘Was it next door?’

‘I hear things,’ was all he said.

‘It wasn’t anything to do with Vince,’ she stated.

‘We’re not in a bloody police station, Jude. This is just the two of us.’

‘It wasn’t him,’ she persisted.

‘Who then?’

‘I was in the kitchen Saturday…’

He made show of peering over the breakfast bar. ‘Wouldn’t have thought there was room to fall over.’

‘Caught my arm on the corner of the washing machine as I went down…’

‘That the story you gave them at A and E?’

‘Is that who told you?’

‘Does it matter?’ He was staring towards the fireplace. There were shelves either side, filled with videos and DVDs – looked like every single episode of Sex and the City and Friends, plus Mamma Mia and other films. He gave a sigh and rubbed his hands down his face, either side of his nose and mouth. ‘You know what I’m going to say.’

‘It wasn’t Vince’s fault.’

‘You provoked him?’

‘We provoke each other, Malc.’

He knew as much; could’ve told her that the neighbour often heard slanging matches. But then Jude would have known who’d called him.

‘If we charged him – just one time – it might put a stop to it. We’d make it a requirement he got some counselling.’

‘Oh, Vince would love that.’ She managed a smile; it wiped years from her face.

‘You’re my sister, Jude…’

She looked at him, blinking, but not about to cry. ‘I know,’ she said. Then, indicating the cast on her arm: ‘Think I should still go see Dad?’

‘Maybe leave it.’

‘You won’t tell him?’

He shook his head, then looked around the room again. ‘Want me to tidy up? Wash some dishes maybe?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Has he said sorry?’

She nodded, keeping eye contact. Fox didn’t know whether to believe her – and what did it matter anyway? He rose to his feet, towering over her, then leaned down to peck her on the cheek.

‘Why does someone else have to do it?’ he whispered into her ear.

‘Do what?’

‘Phone me,’ he answered.

Outside, it was snowing again. He sat in his car, wondering if Vince Faulkner’s working day would be curtailed. Faulkner was from Enfield, just north of London. Supported Arsenal, and hadn’t a good word to say for football north of the border. This had been his opening gambit when the two men had been introduced. He hadn’t been keen on the move to Scotland – ‘but she keeps bending me bleedin’ ear’. He was hoping she’d get bored and want to head south again. She. Malcolm had seldom heard him use her name. She. Her indoors. The other half. The bird. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, wondering what to do for the best. Faulkner could be working on any one of three or four dozen projects around the city. The recession had probably put the brakes on the new flats in Granton, and he reckoned Quartermile was dormant, too. Caltongate wasn’t up and ru

‘Wild goose chase,’ he said to himself. His phone vibrated, letting him know he had a text. It was from Tony Kaye.

We r at Minters.

It was gone four. McEwan had obviously clocked off for the day, giving the others no reason to loiter. Fox closed his phone and turned the key in the ignition. Minter’s was a New Town bar with Old Town prices, tucked away where only the cognoscenti could find it. Never easy to find a parking space, but he knew what Kaye would have done – stuck a great big POLICE placard on the inside of the windscreen. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t: depended on the mood of the warden. Fox tried to work out a way back into the city centre that would avoid the tram works at Haymarket, then gave up. Anyone who could solve that, they should give them the Nobel Prize. Before driving off, he looked to his right, but there was no sign of Jude at her living-room window, and still nobody visible in the homes on either side. If Vince Faulkner were to turn into the street right now, what would he do? He couldn’t remember the name of the character in The Godfather, the one who’d chased the brother-in-law and thumped him with a bin lid.

So

What he’d like to think he would do.

Minter’s was quiet. But then it had been quiet for several years, the landlord first blaming the smoking ban and now muttering about the downturn. Maybe he had a point: plenty of banking types lived in the New Town, and they’d be wise to keep their heads down.