Ian Rankin - The Complaints

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ Fox assured him.

‘Don’t give me that…’

‘Why are you miffed about Strathclyde getting it?’

‘Because they’re rubbish, Foxy! Everybody knows that. Last time I looked, our success rate was twice what theirs is.’

Fox nodded slowly. ‘That’s true,’ he said.

The two men stood in silence for a moment. Kaye leaned his backside against the front wheel arch of the Volvo. ‘Was it just a coincidence?’ he asked.

‘The attack?’ Fox watched as Kaye nodded his head. ‘It wasn’t a mugging; nothing got taken.’

‘Someone could have interrupted…’

Fox gnawed at his bottom lip. He was remembering Jack Broughton. Broughton hadn’t said much of anything at all about what he’d seen or not seen. ‘These things happen,’ he eventually offered.

‘Remember that night we were in a bar and some arsehole went for us with pepper spray?’ Kaye chuckled quietly.

‘Did you ever track him down?’

Kaye’s face tightened a little. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Is that what you’d have done to Vince Faulkner – kicked the crap out of him?’

‘Would the world have lost anything in the process?’

Fox knew how he wanted to reply – he wanted to say ‘yes’. But then Kaye would have asked ‘What exactly?’ and Fox didn’t have an answer for that…

‘I’ve got to get going,’ he said instead.

‘Anything else I should know about?’

Fox shook his head, but then thought of a question. ‘You said you lied to your wife the morning after the honeymoon?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was the lie?’

‘I told her she was really something in the sack…’

The Gyle hadn’t really existed when Malcolm Fox had been growing up in the city. The land must have been there, of course, but with nothing on it and no roads leading to it. He remembered walking to the airport one day with friends, so they could go plane-spotting. And he would take his bike along the canal, reaching Wester Hailes and beyond. Maybe the Gyle had been fields or wasteland, meriting no place in his memory. These days, it was more a city within a city, with its own railway station and vast corporate buildings and a shopping complex. Ernie Wishaw’s haulage business had its HQ in an industrial estate, next door to a parcel delivery company. Lorry cabs sat in a row on the pale concrete apron. Empty trailers had been unhitched and lined up in similar fashion. There were also stacked pallets and a couple of fuel pumps, and bundles of rubbish awaiting collection. The perimeter fencing, unlike neighbouring properties, lacked any windblown shreds of plastic and polythene. There was a well-equipped garage where a couple of mechanics wrestled with what sounded to Fox like an air-brake problem. They had a radio playing and one of them was singing along.

Jamie Breck had arrived first, content to wait in his car outside the compound until Fox trundled up. They entered the open gates as a convoy of two, and parked in front of the garage. There was a door to the right with a sign on it saying OFFICE. The two men greeted one another with a nod.

‘How do you want to run this?’ Breck asked, stretching his neck muscles.

‘How about I play the bad cop,’ Fox suggested. ‘And you play the bad cop too.’ Then he offered a smile and a wink. ‘Let’s just see what he has to say.’ He pushed open the door, expecting the room beyond to be cramped, but it was long and light and airy. There were four women and two men working telephones and computers from their individual desks. A photocopier was humming, a laser printer printing, and a fax machine halfway through sending a document. There were two smaller offices off to one side. One of these was empty; in the other sat a woman who removed her glasses as Fox and Breck walked in, the better to scrutinise these new arrivals. She rose to her feet, smoothing her skirt before leaving the office to greet them.

‘I’m Inspector Fox,’ Fox said, handing over one of his business cards. ‘Is there any chance of a word with Mr Wishaw?’

The woman’s glasses hung around her neck on a cord. She slipped them back on so she could study the writing on the card.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ she asked.

‘Just something we need to talk to Mr Wishaw about.’

‘I’m Mrs Wishaw. Whatever it is, I’m sure I can help.’

‘You really can’t,’ Fox informed her, looking around the room. ‘My colleague called not fifteen minutes ago and was told Mr Wishaw was here.’

The woman turned her attention to Breck.

‘Isn’t that his Maserati outside?’ Breck decided to ask.

Mrs Wishaw looked from one detective to the other. ‘He’s very busy,’ she countered. ‘You probably know that he’s a councillor as well as running a successful business.’

‘We only need five minutes,’ Fox said, holding up his right hand, fingers splayed.

Mrs Wishaw had noticed that the desks were quiet. The staff were holding their phones to their faces, but they were no longer talking. Fingers had ceased clattering against keyboards.

‘He’s next door.’

‘You mean the garage?’

Mrs Wishaw nodded: she meant the garage.

As they left the office, Breck added some information for Fox’s benefit. ‘She’s his second wife, used to be one of the desk-jockeys… ’

‘Right,’ Fox said.

The two mechanics were finishing off the job. One was tall and brawny and young. He was gathering together all the tools they’d used. The other was much older, with wavy silver hair receding at the temples. He was below five and a half feet and the waistband of his blue overalls was bulging. He was concentrating on wiping his oily hands on an even oilier rag.

‘Mr Wishaw,’ Breck said, having recognised him at last.

‘You two look like cops,’ Wishaw stated.

‘That’s because we are,’ Fox told him.

Wishaw glowered at him from under a set of dark, bushy eyebrows, then turned towards the mechanic.

‘Aly, off you go and get a coffee or something.’

The three men waited until Aly had done as he’d been told. Wishaw stuffed the rag into the pocket of his overalls and wandered over towards a workbench. There was a concertina-style toolbox there and he hauled it open.

‘Notice anything?’ he asked.

‘Everything’s in the right place,’ Fox stated after a few seconds.

‘That’s right. Know why that is?’

‘Because you’re anal?’ Breck offered. Wishaw tried him with the glower, but he had decided that Fox was the man worth talking to.

‘Business is all about confidence – reason the banks have started teetering is because people are losing confidence. Someone wants to work with me, maybe offer me a contract, I always bring them here. They see two things – a boss who’s not afraid of hard work, and a boss who makes sure everything runs like clockwork.’

‘That’s why all the lorries are lined up outside?’

‘And why they’ve been given a good wash, too. Same goes for my drivers…’

‘Do you hand them the soap personally?’ Breck couldn’t help asking. Wishaw ignored him.

‘If they’re going to be late on a pick-up or delivery, they call ahead and explain why. And the explanation better be twenty-two carat, because I’m the very next person they call. Know what I do then?’

‘You phone the customer and apologise?’ Fox guessed. Wishaw gave a brusque nod.

‘It’s the way things get done.’

‘It tends not to be how councils work,’ Fox argued.

Wishaw threw his head back and hooted. ‘I know that. Amount of red tape I’ve tried getting rid of… Nights I’ve sat in that chamber and argued till I’m blue in the face.’

‘You sit on the housing committee,’ Fox said. ‘Is that right?’