Ian Rankin - The Impossible Dead

‘Listen to yourself, Jude.’

But instead it was Fox who listened – listened to his sister as her complaints lengthened and intensified. He pictured the photograph of her as a small girl, atop Chris’s shoulders, bursting with carefree energy. Now distilled to this.

Sometimes you have to draw a line…

Fox watched himself lower the telephone receiver back on to its charger. As the connection was made, the line went dead. He drew in his bottom lip, staring at the machine, wondering if it would ring, Jude enraged on the other end.

But it didn’t, so he made himself some tea, considering whether there was anything he could have said to her to make things better – offered to visit his father more often; arranged for the three of them to go to lunch some weekend. It’s you he likes… I just fetch and carry.

With a sigh, he went over to his computer and switched it on, wondering what his search engine could tell him about 1985, while the stinging memory of the phone call began to melt away.

‘You’re not a ghost, then?’

‘Flesh and blood, last time I looked.’

Fox was starting to reach out a hand, but saw she was holding both of hers towards him. He made to grasp them, then realised it was the prelude to a hug. Awkwardly, he hugged her back.

‘Has it been three years or four?’ she asked. Three years or four since their one-night stand at, of all things, a Standards of Conduct conference at Tulliallan Police College.

‘Not quite four. You look just the same.’ He took a step back, the better to judge the truth of this. Her name was Evelyn Mills, much the same age as Fox but wearing the years lightly. She’d been married at the time of their fling, and, by the ring on her left hand, she still was. They were standing on the seafront in Kirkcaldy. There had been a heavy shower earlier, but it had blown over. Thick gobbets of cloud glided overhead. There were a couple of cargo ships on the horizon. Fox took it in, while waiting to see if she had any comment to make about his own appearance.

‘Still in the Complaints, then?’ she asked instead. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and gave a shrug.

‘And you, too.’

‘Mmm…’ She seemed to be studying him intently. Then she linked arms with him and they started walking in silence.

‘Good result for you,’ Fox offered eventually. ‘Paul Carter, I mean.’

‘Wasn’t really us, though, was it? It was down to the witnesses. Even then… different day, different courtroom – it could have swung the other way.’

‘All the same,’ he persisted.

‘All the same… we’re so good at what we do, you have to be hauled here from the bustling metropolis.’

‘Arm’s-length, Evelyn. This way no one can accuse you of looking out for your own.’

‘You think we’d do that?’

‘It wouldn’t be me pointing the finger.’ He paused. ‘If it’s any consolation…’

‘I’m not looking for consolation, Malcolm.’ With her free hand she gave his forearm a squeeze, and he knew she was offering herself as ally rather than foe.

‘Carter is walking the streets,’ Fox said. ‘Did you know that?’

She nodded. They were making towards the dock at the Esplanade’s northern end. There was a solitary fishing boat moored there, but no sign of life apart from some fierce-looking gulls.

‘We’re thinking it might be nice to hear what he says to Scholes and the others.’

‘Oh?’

‘Home and mobile phones.’

‘Of four detectives?’

‘Three: Carter’s appeal – if he starts one – would have a field day if we eavesdropped on him.’

‘I’m not sure we can stretch to it, Malcolm.’

‘Manpower or resources?’

She exhaled noisily. ‘Both, if I’m being honest. Basically, you’re looking at Fife’s Complaints department. I’m it. I mean, I can always requisition a few bodies in an emergency…’

‘Is that what you did when Alan Carter made the original complaint?’

She nodded, pushing some hair back from her face. ‘Scholes is the one Carter’s close to. If I was going to look at anybody, it would be him.’

‘We saw him leaving Carter’s house yesterday.’

‘You mean the surveillance is up and running?’

Fox shook his head again. ‘We were just passing.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Passing through the Dunnikier Estate?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

She scrutinised his face, then gave a short laugh. ‘God, the things we do,’ she said. He wasn’t sure if she meant their job or was thinking back to that night in Tulliallan; best, he felt, not to risk asking.

‘You know I’d need to go to my boss?’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘And he’d have to go to his boss?’

Fox nodded.

‘And I’m allowed to tell them it’s your idea?’

He nodded again.

‘All this, just to prove whether or not some colleagues stuck up for one of their own?’

‘Perjuring themselves in the process,’ Fox reminded her.

She ran her finger down the bridge of her nose, a nose Fox suddenly remembered kissing. She’d had a lot to drink at the bar that night. He’d been the sober one, the one who should have seen her only as far as her bedroom door. But she’d had a kettle in her room. And sachets of instant coffee. And a narrow single bed…

‘What do you think?’ he asked her now.

‘I think it’s freezing out here.’

‘Whatever your answer is, thanks for meeting with me.’

This time she patted his arm, and they turned to walk back to her car. Having reached it in silence, she asked him where he had parked. He nodded in the vague direction of the town centre. She unlocked her car and got in. It was an Alfa Romeo with a dark-blue interior.

Fox closed the door for her and watched her start the ignition. The window slid downwards and she peered up at him. ‘I was at Fettes a few months back, running an errand. I considered knocking on your door.’

‘You should have.’

She released the brake, gave him a wave, and was gone. Fox stayed where he was until he couldn’t see the car any more, then crossed the street and headed for the cafe in the Mercat shopping centre. Kaye and Naysmith were waiting there, drinking coffee and reading their chosen newspapers: Guardian for Naysmith, Daily Record for Kaye.

‘Don’t order anything,’ Kaye warned Fox. ‘Not a patch on the other place.’

‘Closer to the car, though,’ Fox reminded him. Kaye’s eyes were fixed on him, awaiting his report.

‘It’s a “maybe”,’ he obliged, squeezing into the booth. Kaye’s nostrils flared and he leaned over to sniff Fox’s coat. ‘Chanel Number 5, unless I’m losing my touch. Your contact’s not a bloke, then.’

‘Now who’s Hercule Poirot?’ Joe Naysmith muttered, not bothering to look up from his reading.

Not the interview room. Teresa Collins had been insistent. In fact, nowhere near ‘that stinking place’, which was why Fox had suggested her home. It was the upper storey of a maisonette in Gallatown. Gary Michaelson had hinted it might not be the town’s most salubrious area. Actually, it looked all right to Fox: there were plenty worse in Edinburgh. Terraced and semi-detached houses, many of them split. Pebble-dashed walls and plenty of satellite dishes. Young mothers, some pregnant again, pushed their baby buggies while talking into their phones. A few teenage lads in baseball caps scowled as the Mondeo drew to a halt kerb-side, and made intuitive grunting noises as the three men stepped out. Fox pressed the bell marked ‘Collins’.

‘It’s open!’ a voice yelled.

Fox turned the handle and started climbing the steep flight of stairs. Someone on the ground floor was hosting a party.