Ian Rankin - The Complaints

After the meal, he tried watching TV, but there was nothing to grab his attention. He kept swimming back through the day’s events. When his phone bleeped with a message, he sprang towards it. Tony Kaye was inviting him to Minter’s. It took Fox all of five seconds to make up his mind.

‘It’s almost as if we have nothing better to do with ourselves,’ Fox said as he made for the usual table. There was a different barman on duty – much younger, but still glued to a quiz show on TV. Two clients standing at the bar – Fox recognised neither of them. Margaret Sime, Kaye’s friend, was at her own table. She nodded a greeting. On the way back into town, Fox had taken the slightest of detours past Jamie Breck’s house. No sign of life, and no van parked in the vicinity.

‘Cheers,’ Kaye said, taking delivery of the fresh pint and placing it beside the one he was halfway to finishing. Fox placed his own tomato juice on a coaster and slipped out of his sports jacket. He had left his tie at home, but was still wearing the same shirt, braces and trousers.

‘So what was happening at Jude’s?’ Kaye asked.

‘Bad Billy had his men digging up the garden. Anonymous caller said they heard some activity on Sunday night.’

‘That’s Billy’s excuse anyway,’ Kaye sympathised with a shake of the head. ‘Hope you didn’t leave any prints at the locus, Foxy. If he sees an opening, he’s going to come at you with teeth bared and claws out.’

‘I know.’

‘Bastard put a lot of trust in Glen Heaton… defended him to the hilt.’

Fox stared at his colleague. ‘You don’t think Giles knew what Heaton was like?’

Kaye shrugged. ‘We can’t know for sure one way or the other. All I’m saying is, I can appreciate the man is hurting.’

‘If he goes on tormenting my sister, he’ll really get to know that feeling.’

Kaye chuckled into his glass. Fox knew what he was thinking: You’ve no ammo, Foxy, no stomach for that kind of fight. Maybe. Maybe not. He sipped at his own drink.

‘Would it kill you to put a dash of vodka in there?’ Kaye chided him. ‘It makes me feel like the town drunk when I’m sitting with you.’

‘You asked me to come.’

‘I know I did; I’m just saying…’

‘The first one wouldn’t kill me,’ Fox said after a moment’s thought. ‘But it would be a start. Somebody like me, Tony, a start’s all they need.’

Kaye wrinkled his nose. ‘You’re not an alky, Malcolm. I’ve seen alkies, used to hose their cells down when I was a probationary.’

‘Drink doesn’t like me, Tony. Besides…’ He picked up the tomato juice again. ‘This gives me the moral high ground.’

Both men drank in silence. A group of three new faces had arrived. Fox, his back to the door, watched Kaye make a quick appraisal. That was what you did when you were a cop – you watched the door for trouble. Trouble was the guy you’d once arrested; the guy whose uncle or cousin you once gave evidence against; the guy you’d persuaded to turn informer one time so he’d save his own skin. City the size of Edinburgh, it was difficult sometimes to escape your own history – things you’d done; people you’d used. But Kaye was back to concentrating on his drink: no reason to fret. Fox gave the men a quick glance anyway. Suits and ties – businessmen at day’s end, maybe with a curry-house appointment later.

When the door opened again, Fox watched Kaye, saw an eyebrow rise, and turned round to look. It was Joe Naysmith. He was dressed for a long, cold night in the van. Lumberjack shirt beneath Shetland sweater, sweater beneath jerkin, jerkin beneath duffel coat. He was shedding these layers as he approached the table.

‘Boiling in here,’ he complained. He unbuttoned the shirt, to show a plain black T-shirt.

‘Had a tiff with the boyfriend?’ Kaye asked slyly.

Naysmith ignored him and asked them what they were drinking.

‘Usual for me,’ Kaye was quick to say, while Fox shook his head. His eyes met the younger man’s.

‘So what did happen?’ he asked.

‘We were doing a final check on the van. Gilchrist gets a call and tells me we don’t need to go out.’ Naysmith shrugged and started to head for the bar.

‘Who was the call from?’ Fox persisted. Naysmith just shrugged again and went to fetch the drinks.

‘You think something’s happened?’ Kaye asked Fox.

‘I’m not a soothsayer, Tony.’

‘Nice excuse to call DS Inglis at home, invite her out for a late-night pow-wow with beverages supplied…’

‘She’s got a kid.’

‘Then invite yourself round there; take a bottle.’ Kaye broke off and rolled his eyes. ‘Except you don’t drink.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So it’s soft drinks for you, and a few hefty Bacardis for the lady.’

Naysmith was coming back, a pint in either hand. ‘I’d packed sandwiches and everything,’ he went on complaining. ‘Loaded some videos on to my phone to show him…’

‘And he didn’t say who the call was from or what was said?’ Fox watched Naysmith shake his head. ‘You couldn’t hear any of it – not even what he was saying?’

‘I was in the back of the van; he was out front.’

‘This was in the garage at Fettes?’

Naysmith nodded and gulped down the first inch and a half of beer, exhaling with satisfaction and wiping thumb and forefinger across his lips.

‘Inglis seemed keen enough earlier,’ Fox stated.

‘Maybe she came round to your point of view,’ Naysmith suggested.

‘Maybe,’ Fox conceded. ‘So where’s Gilchrist now?’

‘He said he didn’t fancy a drink.’

The three men sat in silence, and when the conversation resumed they were soon discussing other cases – past and present – moving on from there to McEwan’s current ‘jolly’.

‘It’ll be an hour of discussion over tea and biscuits, then four hours on the golf course,’ Tony Kaye proposed.

‘Does McEwan even play golf?’ Fox asked, rising to get the next round in. He was debating whether to stay. Maybe he’d get a pint apiece for Kaye and Naysmith, then tell them he had to be leaving. But as he waited to be served, he glanced up at the TV. The quiz show had finished, and the local news was on. A dapper-looking man was giving some sort of statement in what looked like his office. Reporters held microphones to his face. Then a still photograph appeared onscreen: a man and woman standing on the deck of a yacht, dressed to the nines and grinning for the camera, arms around one another. Fox thought he recognised the woman.

‘Turn that up,’ he ordered the barman. But by the time the remote control had been located, the news had moved to another story. Fox gestured to be given the remote, and used it to switch from TV to text, running down the list of options until he found ‘Regional News’. He clicked on Scotland and waited for the items to appear on the screen. Third story down he saw what he was looking for.

Property Tycoon Missing At Sea

Fox hit the button again and scrolled down the story. Charles Brogan, 43, millionaire property developer… took his boat out from its Edinburgh mooring… boat found deserted and drifting at the mouth of the Firth of Forth…

‘What is it?’ Kaye asked. He was standing by Fox’s shoulder, studying the TV screen.

‘The guy behind Salamander Point. I heard his company was in trouble, and now he’s missing from his boat.’

‘Hara-kiri?’ Kaye guessed.

Fox laid the remote on the bar and paid for the round. Without having been asked, the barman had poured him another tomato juice. They took the drinks to the table.

‘Something on the news?’ Naysmith prompted.

‘Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about,’ Kaye replied, tousling Naysmith’s hair. ‘Hadn’t you better get a trim before Jack Nicklaus gets back?’