Ian Rankin - The Complaints

Fox was readying to turn and head back to the car when a massive force detonated between his shoulders, sending him flying. His face hit the ground. He’d had just enough time to half turn his head, so that his nose escaped the worst of the impact. The weight bore down on him – someone was kneeling on his back, punching the air out of his lungs. Dazed, Fox tried to wrestle free, but a foot had connected with his chin. A black shoe, nothing fancy or memorable about it. It snapped his head back and he felt himself spiralling into the dark…

When his eyes blinked open, the shoe was back. It was jabbing at his side. He lashed out a hand to grab it.

‘Wake up,’ a voice was saying. ‘You can’t sleep here.’

Fox clambered to his knees and then his feet. His spine ached. So did his neck and his jaw. The man standing in front of him was old, and Fox thought for a second that he knew him.

‘Too much to drink,’ the man was saying. He’d taken a step away from Fox. Fox was checking himself for damage. There was no blood, and no teeth seemed to have been dislodged.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘You’d be better going home to your bed.’

‘I’m not drunk – I don’t drink.’

‘Are you ill, then?’

Fox was trying to blink away the pain. The world sounded offkilter, and he realised it was the blood surging in his ears. His vision was blurred.

‘Did you see him?’ he asked.

‘Who?’

‘Pushed me to the ground and swung a kick at me…’ He rubbed his jaw again.

‘Did they take anything?’

Fox checked his pockets. When he shook his head, he felt like he might throw up.

‘It’s a bad part of town.’

Fox tried to focus on the man. He had to be in his seventies – cropped silver hair, liver-spotted skin… ‘You’re Jack Broughton.’

The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do I know you?’

‘No.’

Broughton stuffed his hands into his pockets and moved in until his face was a few inches from Fox’s. ‘Best keep it that way,’ he said. Then he turned to leave. ‘You might want to get yourself checked out,’ was his parting nugget of advice.

Fox rested for a moment, then shuffled back towards the main road. He angled his watch towards a street lamp. Twelve forty. Could only have been out cold for a matter of minutes. He held on to some of the buildings for support as he made his way back along to Rondo. His back felt like fire whenever he inhaled. Pete Scott saw him coming and stiffened his stance, mistaking him for trouble. Fox held up a hand in greeting and Scott moved towards him.

‘Did you trip or something?’ he asked.

‘Have you seen anybody, Pete? Had to be a big guy…’

‘There’ve been a few,’ Scott conceded.

‘In the time since I saw you?’

Scott nodded. ‘Some of them are inside.’

Fox gestured towards the door. ‘I’m going to take a look,’ he said.

‘Be my guest…’

The bar was rammed, with a sound system that could loosen fillings. The queue was three deep for drinks. Young men in short-sleeved shirts; women sipping cocktails through dayglo straws. Fox’s head took a fresh pummelling from the bass speakers as he squeezed his way through. In the back room, the stage was lit but no band was playing. More drinkers, more noise and strobing. Fox didn’t recognise anyone. He found the gents’ toilets and headed inside, gaining some respite from the din. There were paper towels strewn across the floor and none at all in the dispenser. He ran water over his hands and dabbed at his face, staring at his reflection in the smeared mirror. His chin was grazed and his cheek had swollen. The bruising would come soon enough. His palms stung where they’d connected with the ground, and one of his lapels had been ripped at the seam. He took off his coat and checked it for evidence of the force that had hurled itself at him, but there was nothing.

His attacker hadn’t taken anything – credit cards, cash, both mobile phones, all accounted for. And once he was unconscious, it didn’t appear as if they’d continued the beating. He took a good look at his teeth and then manipulated his jaw with his hand.

‘You’re okay,’ he told his reflection. Then he noticed that one button was missing from his waistband. It would need replacing, or his braces wouldn’t sit right. He took a few deep breaths, ran the water over his hands again and dried himself off with his handkerchief. One of the drinkers from the bar came weaving in, paying him almost no attention as he headed for a urinal. Fox put his coat back on and left. Outside, he nodded towards the doorman. Pete Scott was busy talking to the same two women as before. They’d stepped out for a cigarette and were complaining about the lack of ‘hunks’. If Fox had been invisible to them before, he seemed more so now. Scott asked him if he was really okay, and Fox just nodded again, heading across the road to where his car waited. Someone had left the remains of a kebab on the Volvo’s bonnet. He gave it a swipe on to the roadway, unlocked the doors and got in.

The journey home was slow, the lights against him at every junction. Taxis were touting for business, but most people seemed content to walk. Fox tuned his radio to Classic FM and decided that Jack Broughton had not recognised him. Why should he have? They had met for approximately ten seconds at the triplex penthouse. Broughton hadn’t known until some minutes later that the man waiting for the lift was a cop. Could Broughton himself have been the attacker? Doubtful – and why would he have hung around? Besides, his shoes had been brown brogues; not at all the same as the one Fox had watched connect with his chin.

Pete Scott on the other hand…Pete’s shoes had been black Doc Martens, and Pete was strong enough… But Fox didn’t think so. Would Pete have deserted his post for a spot of small-minded revenge? Well, maybe he would, but Fox had him down as a ‘possible’ rather than a ‘probable’.

Once home he stripped off his clothes and stood under a hot shower, training the water on to his back for a good nine or ten minutes. It hurt when he tried towelling himself dry, and he was able to get a look at himself in the bathroom mirror – no visible damage. Maybe it would be different in the morning. Slowly, he pulled on a pair of pyjamas and went downstairs to the kitchen, finding an unopened bag of garden peas in the freezer compartment, wrapping a tea towel around it and holding it to his jaw while he boiled the kettle for tea. There was a box of aspirin in one of the drawers, and he swallowed three tablets with a glass of water from the tap.

It was nearly two o’clock by the time he settled himself at the table. After a few minutes of staring at the wall, he got up and went through to the dining room. His computer sat on a desk in the corner. He got it working and started a search of three names: Joanna Broughton, Charlie Brogan and Jack Broughton. There wasn’t much on the last of these – his heyday had been before the advent of the internet and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Fox hadn’t thought to ask him what he was doing in the Cowgate at that time of night. But then Jack Broughton was no ordinary seventy-one-year-old. Probably he still fancied his chances against the majority of the drunks and chancers.

Fox couldn’t get properly comfortable. If he leaned forward, he ached; if he leaned back, the pain was greater. He was grateful for the lack of alcohol in the house – it stopped him reaching for that quickest of fixes. Instead, he held the bag of peas to his face and concentrated on Charlie Brogan, finding several interviews culled from magazines and the business pages of newspapers. One journalist had asked Brogan why he’d become a property developer.

You’re creating monuments, Brogan had replied. You’re making a mark that’s going to outlast you.