Ian Rankin - The Complaints

‘So how come it doesn’t feel easy?’ he asked out loud, just as the toaster finished toasting. He took everything – newspaper included – through to the living-room sofa. There wouldn’t be much on the TV this time of day, but there was always the BBC news. His gaze shifted to the mantelpiece. There were framed photos there. One showed his mother and father, probably on holiday in the mid-sixties. The other was of Fox himself, not quite a teenager, with his arm around his younger sister as they sat together on a sofa. He got the feeling it was an aunt’s house, but didn’t know which one. Fox was smiling for the camera, but Jude was interested only in her brother. An image flashed into his mind – she was tumbling down the stairs at her home. What had she been carrying? Empty mugs maybe, or a basket of washing. But then she was at the foot of the stairs, unharmed, and Vince was standing in front of her, bunching a fist. It had happened before, Jude arguing that she’d struck first, or had given as good as she got. It won’t happen again…

Fox’s appetite had gone, and the tea smelled as if he’d put too much milk in it. His mobile phone sounded an alert: incoming text message. It was from Tony Kaye. He was in the pub with Joe Naysmith.

‘Get thee behind me,’ Fox said to himself.

Five minutes later, he was looking for his car keys.

Monday morning, Malcolm Fox spent almost as much time finding a parking space at HQ as it had taken him to drive there in the first place. Tony Kaye and Joe Naysmith were already in the office. As the ‘junior’, Naysmith had brewed a pot of coffee, and provided a carton of milk to go with it. Come Friday, he would ask the others to chip in. Sometimes they would and sometimes they wouldn’t, and Naysmith would continue the pretence of keeping tabs on what he was owed.

‘A quid outstanding,’ he said now, standing in front of Fox’s desk, hands bunched in pockets.

‘Double or quits at the end of the week,’ Fox answered, hanging up his coat. It was a beautiful bright day outside, the road surfaces free of ice. Gardens Fox had driven past on his estate had boasted blobs of white where snowmen had once stood. He removed his jacket, displaying the same dark-blue braces. His tie today was a more vibrant red than Friday’s, his shirt white with stripes of yellow as fine as strands of hair. There wasn’t much in his briefcase, but he opened it anyway. Naysmith had retreated to the coffee jug.

‘Three sugars,’ Kaye was reminding him, receiving the expected gesture in reply.

‘No sign of Bob?’ Fox asked.

Naysmith shook his mop of hair – his weekend hadn’t included a trim – and pointed towards Fox’s desk. ‘Should be a message there, though.’

Fox looked, but couldn’t see anything. He slid back his chair and peered beneath the desk. A slip of paper was lying on the floor, already boasting the imprint of his shoe sole. He lifted it up and turned it over, studying McEwan’s writing.

Inglis – CEOP – 10.30.

CEOP meant Child Protection – Child Exploitation and Online Protection, to give it its full title. Most of the cops pronounced it ‘chop’. Room 2.24, at the far end of the corridor and round the corner, was the Chop Shop. Fox had been inside a couple of times, stomach clenched at the very thought of what went on there.

‘Know anyone called Inglis?’ he asked out loud. Neither Naysmith nor Kaye could help. Fox looked at his watch: 10.30 was over an hour away. Naysmith was stirring a mug noisily. Kaye was leaning back in his chair, stretching his arms and yawning. Fox folded the piece of paper and placed it in his pocket, got up and slipped his jacket back on.

‘Won’t be long,’ he said.

‘We’ll soldier on somehow,’ Kaye assured him.

The corridor was a few degrees cooler than the Complaints office. Fox didn’t rush, but it still took him only a few moments to reach 2.24. It was the very last door, and unusual in that it had its own high-security lock and entryphone. There were no names listed; the Chop Shop kept itself to itself – not unlike the Complaints. A sign on the door spelled out a warning: ‘There may be disturbing sounds and images in this room. When working at screens, a minimum of two people must be present.’ Fox took a deep breath, pressed the button and waited. A male voice came from the speaker.

‘Yes?’

‘Inspector Fox. I’m here to see Inglis.’

There was silence, then the voice again: ‘You’re keen.’

‘Am I?’

‘Ten thirty, wasn’t it?’

‘Says half nine here.’

Another silence, then: ‘Hang on.’

He waited, studying the tips of his shoes. He’d bought them on George Street a month back, and they still rubbed the skin from his heels. Quality shoes, though: the assistant had said they’d last ‘till Doomsday… or the tram line’s up and running… whichever comes first’. Bright kid; sense of humour. Fox had asked why she wasn’t in college.

‘What’s the point?’ she’d answered. ‘No good jobs anyway, not unless you emigrate.’

That had taken Fox back to his own teenage years. A good many of his contemporaries had dreamed of earning big money abroad. Some of them had succeeded, too, but not many.

The door in front of him was being opened from within. A woman was standing there. She wore a pale green blouse and black trousers. She was about four inches shorter than him, and maybe ten years younger. There was a gold watch on her left wrist. No rings on any of her fingers. She held out her right hand for him to shake.

‘I’m Inglis,’ she said by way of introduction.

‘Fox,’ he replied, then, with a smile, ‘Malcolm Fox.’

‘You’re PSU.’ It was a statement, but Fox nodded anyway. Behind her, the office was more cramped than he remembered. Five desks with just enough room between them for anyone to squeeze by. The walls were lined with filing cabinets and free-standing metal shelves. On the shelves sat computers and their hard drives. Some of the hard drives had been stripped back to show their workings. Others were bagged and tagged as evidence. The only free wall space had been covered with head shots. The men didn’t all look the same. Some were young, some old; some had beards and moustaches; some were dull-eyed and shifty, others unapologetic as they faced the camera. There was only one other person in the room, presumably the man who had spoken over the intercom. He was seated at his desk, studying the visitor. Fox nodded towards him and the man nodded back.

‘That’s Gilchrist,’ Inglis said. ‘Come in and make yourself comfortable. ’

‘Is that even possible?’ Fox asked.

Inglis looked around her. ‘We do what we can.’

‘Are there just the two of you?’

‘At the moment,’ Inglis admitted. ‘High rate of attrition and all that.’

‘Plus we mostly end up passing cases to London,’ Gilchrist added. ‘They’ve got a hundred-strong team down there.’

‘A hundred seems a lot,’ Fox commented.

‘You’ve not seen their workload,’ Inglis said.

‘And do I call you Inglis? I mean, is there a rank, or maybe a first name…?’

‘Annie,’ she eventually told him. There was no one at the desk next to hers, so she motioned for Fox to seat himself there.

‘Give us a twirl, Anthea,’ Gilchrist said. From the way he said it, Fox got the notion that the joke was wearing thin for all concerned.

‘Bruce Forsyth?’ he guessed. ‘The Generation Game?’

Inglis nodded. ‘I’m supposedly named after the gorgeous pouting assistant.’

‘But you prefer Annie?’

‘I definitely prefer Annie, unless you want to keep things formal, in which case it’s DS Inglis.’