Ian Rankin - The Complaints

Wishaw was quiet for a moment. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked.

‘We want to ask you about a man called Charles Brogan.’

‘Charlie.’ Wishaw bowed his head and shook it slowly. ‘Hell of a thing.’

‘How well did you know him?’

‘I met him a number of times – council business and suchlike. We got invites to the same sorts of parties and functions.’

‘You knew him pretty well then?’

‘I knew him to talk to.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’

Wishaw’s eyes met Fox’s. ‘You’ve probably been through his phone records – you tell me.’

Fox swallowed and tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I’d rather you did the talking, sir.’

Wishaw considered this. ‘Couple of days before he died,’ he finally admitted. ‘Only for five minutes or so.’

‘I meant to ask… Did your firm ever do any work for CBBJ?’ Fox watched Wishaw shake his head. ‘So you weren’t owed money?’

‘Thankfully.’ Wishaw had taken the rag from his pocket and was wiping his fingers more thoroughly, making little or no difference.

‘But the call was business?’ Fox persisted calmly.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Was he offering you another bung?’ Breck interrupted. ‘Probably begging you by then…’

‘What did you say?’ The rush of blood to Wishaw’s face was impressive in its immediacy. ‘Would you be happy to repeat that in front of a lawyer?’

‘All my colleague meant was…’ Fox had his hands held up in supplication.

‘I know damned well what he meant!’ The man’s face was the colour of cooked beetroot; flecks of white were appearing at the corners of his mouth.

‘Come clean on Brogan,’ Breck was saying, ‘and we might forget all about the bung you handed to your driver’s family. Remember him? With the dope stashed in the fuel tank?’

Fox turned away from the spluttering Wishaw and propelled Jamie Breck backwards towards the garage opening. When they were out of earshot, Breck gave Fox the most fleeting of winks.

‘That felt good,’ he whispered.

‘Slight change of plan,’ Fox whispered back. ‘You stay here; I’m going to be good cop…’ He removed his hand from Breck’s chest and turned back towards Wishaw, reaching him in a few short strides.

‘Sorry about that,’ he apologised. ‘Younger officers don’t always have the…’ He sought the right word. ‘Decorum,’ he decided. Wishaw was rubbing hard at his palms with the rag.

‘Outrageous,’ he said. ‘Such an accusation… totally unfounded…’

‘Ah, but it’s not, is it?’ Fox said gently. ‘You did give the man’s family a sum of money – what it comes down to after that is interpretation. That’s the mistake my colleague made, isn’t it?’

Wishaw’s silence seemed to concede as much. ‘Outrageous,’ he echoed, but with only half as much force as before.

‘It’s Charles Brogan we were talking about,’ Fox reminded him. Wishaw gave a sigh.

‘Thing about men like Charlie… His whole generation…’ But he broke off, and Fox knew a bit more effort was required. He pretended to be studying the garage.

‘You’re a lucky man, Mr Wishaw. Except we both know luck has little or nothing to do with it – that fleet of lorries, the Maserati… they’re the result of hard work rather than luck. You’ve as good as said so yourself.’

‘Yes,’ Wishaw agreed. This was a subject he could talk about. ‘Sheer bloody hard work – I would say “graft” but you’d probably take it the wrong way.’

Fox decided this was worth a full-throated chuckle.

‘That’s what so many people don’t realise,’ Wishaw went on, buoyed by the effect of his words on the detective. ‘I’ve worked my arse off, and I do the same thing in the council chamber – to try to make a difference. But these days, people just want to sit back and let the money and all that goes with it find them. That’s not the way it works! There are businessmen out there…’ Wishaw made a stabbing motion with one finger, ‘who think money should come easy.’

‘Money from nothing?’ Fox guessed.

‘As good as,’ Wishaw agreed. ‘Buy a parcel of land, sit on it for a year and then sell at a profit. Or a house or a bunch of flats or whatever it might be. If you’ve got cash in a bank, you want a double-digit rate of interest – doesn’t matter to you how the bank finances it. Money from thin air, that’s what it seems like. And nobody asks any questions because that might break the spell.’

‘Your own company’s surviving, though?’

‘It’s hard going, I won’t deny it.’

‘But you’ll work your way through it?’

Wishaw nodded vigorously. ‘Which is why I resent it when… when…’ He was wagging a finger towards Jamie Breck.

‘He didn’t mean anything, sir. We’re just trying to build up a picture of why Charles Brogan did what he did.’

‘Charlie…’ Wishaw calmed again, his eyes losing focus as he remembered the man he’d known. ‘Charlie was incredibly likeable – genial company, all of that. But he was a product of his time. In a nutshell, he got greedy. That’s what it boils down to. He thought that money should come easy, and for the first few years it really did. But that can make you soft and complacent and gullible…’ Wishaw paused. ‘And stupid. Above all, it can make you incredibly stupid… yet for a while you’re still making money.’ He raised a hand. ‘I’m not saying Charlie was the worst, not even in the bottom fifty or hundred! At least he created things – he caused buildings to rise.’

Fox seemed to recall that Brogan had said much the same thing in one of his newspaper interviews. ‘But that becomes a problem when nobody wants those buildings,’ he suggested.

Wishaw’s mouth twitched. ‘It’s when your investors want to be paid back. Empty buildings might be an investment if you wait long enough – same goes for land. What’s worthless one year can turn to gold the next. But none of that’s relevant if you’ve promised a quick return to your investors.’

Fox was giving Wishaw his full attention. ‘Who were Mr Brogan’s investors?’

It took Wishaw fully fifteen seconds to answer that he didn’t know. ‘I’m just thankful I’m not one of the ones waiting for Salamander Point to turn a profit.’ He was trying for levity, and that told Malcolm Fox something.

Told him he’d just been lied to.

‘That last time you spoke with him – did he call you or did you call him?’

Wishaw blinked a couple of times and fixed the detective with a look. ‘You must know that from the logs.’

‘I just want confirmation.’

But there was a change taking place behind Wishaw’s eyes. ‘Should my lawyer be here?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’

‘I’m beginning to wonder. The man had money troubles and he took his own life – end of story.’

‘Not for the police, Mr Wishaw. As far as we’re concerned, when someone disappears or dies… that’s the story just beginning.’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ Wishaw offered. ‘But I’ve told you all I can.’

‘Except for the details of that final phone call.’

Wishaw considered his response for a further ten or fifteen seconds. ‘It was nothing,’ he decided. ‘Nothing at all…’ He looked down at his overalls. ‘I need to get changed. There’s council business this afternoon – another dispute with the tram contractor.’ He offered a curt nod and made to move past Fox.

‘You’re sure you never had any business dealings with Mr Brogan?’ Fox asked. ‘Not even a tender for some work?’

‘No.’

‘And he wasn’t trying to persuade you to help him lay some of his tower blocks off on the council?’ Wishaw just glared, bringing a smile to Fox’s lips. ‘You know a man called Paul Meldrum, Mr Wishaw?’