Ian Rankin - The Complaints

Four in the morning and Fox was back home.

Wauchope and Vass would spend the night in separate cells, though Wauchope’s lawyer – the one working hard to spring Bruce Senior from jail – was already on his way from Dundee. Charlie Brogan would be interviewed again in the morning. At some point, Fox knew he had to explain it all to Jude. But that could wait. He also needed to call Linda Dearborn – she was owed an exclusive, and Fox knew he could offer her a choice of several. He had assumed he’d be feeling lighter, but there was still the sense of a weight pressing down on him. He placed a couple more books on one of the shelves, then sat back down with a mug of tea. When he heard a car come to a stop outside, he turned his head towards the window. The living-room lights were off, the curtains still open. The car idled, then its headlights were switched off, followed by its engine. A door opened and closed. Fox held the mug in both hands, his elbows resting on his knees. The caller didn’t use the bell; they knocked instead, knowing he’d be waiting.

It was another few seconds before he rose to his feet, leaving the mug on the coffee table. When he opened the door, Bob McEwan was standing there.

‘Everything all right?’ McEwan asked.

Fox nodded slowly and ushered his boss inside. He’d spent a good part of Sunday convincing McEwan to go along with Jamie Breck’s plan. Back in the living room, Fox switched on the ceiling light.

‘Tony Kaye tells me you managed to record the whole lot.’

‘The whole lot,’ Fox echoed. Then, after a pause: ‘Well… not quite. Do you want a drink?’

‘A whisky, maybe.’

‘No alcohol in the house.’

‘Not even for special occasions, Malcolm?’

Fox shook his head. McEwan had spotted the mug. ‘Tea, then,’ he decided.

The two men went through to the kitchen. Fox filled the kettle and switched it on.

‘Did they give you any trouble?’ he asked.

McEwan put his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘Vass took a couple of swings, but you’d warned the lads he would.’ He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. ‘This cold of mine’s getting worse…’

Fox just nodded and reached into the cupboard for a mug. It had a drawing of Edinburgh Castle on the side. He hesitated, then placed the mug on the worktop.

‘I can’t do this,’ he muttered, pushing past McEwan.

‘Do what?’ McEwan asked.

Fox was standing by the window when McEwan arrived in the living room a few moments later.

‘What’s wrong?’ McEwan asked.

Fox kept his back to McEwan and started to speak. ‘Remember what you said to me, Bob? All those years back when I joined the Complaints? You said “No favours.” What you meant was, we had to treat everyone the same – friend or stranger, if they were bent, we took them down.’

‘I remember,’ McEwan said quietly. Fox heard him take a seat.

‘Adam Traynor wanted a favour from you – he wanted a cop put under surveillance. You said it would be best if the Chop Shop did the asking – that was the proper channel, after all.’

‘Is that right, Malcolm?’

‘I can’t see any other way it could have happened.’ Fox took a deep breath. ‘This would have been the Thursday or Friday. I was busy dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on Glen Heaton… handing the whole thing over to the Procurator Fiscal. But there was something you told me that Friday – you said there might be a case for us in Aberdeen.’ Finally Fox turned towards McEwan. ‘And that gave you an idea. Maybe you already knew a bit about Jamie Breck… what kind of officer he was. You reckoned me and him would get on. I’d be intrigued by him, begin to see in him lots of things I’m not… You did a deal with Grampian – they’d start tailing me and you’d do what you could to make sure the inquiry into them was as soft as it could be.’

Fox walked towards his chair and sat down opposite McEwan. McEwan was staring at the piles of books on the floor next to him. He would even pick one up from time to time and pretend to study it before putting it back.

‘You had that whole weekend to think it over,’ Fox went on, ‘to make sure it felt right. I’d be set the task of watching Jamie Breck. The more I found out about him, the more I’d start to trust him rather than the evidence. And from what you’d come to know about me, you were sure I’d put my foot in it somehow. That was all you needed… for me to make a mistake. Same sort of fall Breck himself was being set up for, and for exactly the same reasons.’ Fox paused. ‘Which, if true, puts you in the selfsame class as Bull Wauchope and Charlie Brogan…’ He let the accusation linger, while McEwan riffled the pages of another book.

‘If true,’ McEwan eventually echoed.

‘The only real coincidence was, Breck ended up on the Faulkner inquiry – gold dust, as far as you were concerned. It gave me a whole new set of ways of falling flat on my face…’

Fox paused again, giving McEwan another opportunity to speak, an opportunity McEwan found it easy to refuse.

‘When I was going through Traynor’s file, I took a look at yours too, Bob. It reminded me of something you’d said right back at the start of the Heaton inquiry – that you had to take a back seat. And you were quite right – you’d worked in the same office as him, after all. Only for a short time, but these things can come back to haunt us once defence teams get hold of them. But your file told a different story. Glen Heaton was your partner way back in the day – he was just starting out and you were the one teaching him the ropes. You wanted my reputation tarnished so his lawyer could use it against us in court. You wanted the Complaints to fail. Your own team, Bob…’

McEwan looked up for the first time. ‘And to your way of thinking, this is the only way it plays out?’ he asked.

‘Remember when you told me Breck and Heaton weren’t the best of friends? You said you’d spoken to someone at Torphichen… but it was your old pal Heaton you actually spoke to, wasn’t it? We don’t get to help our old pals,’ Fox continued, leaning forward with the top half of his body. ‘We’re the Complaints.’

McEwan cleared his throat. ‘Glen Heaton gets the job done, Malcolm.’

‘So I keep hearing, but that’s the excuse we’re always given!’ Fox waited for McEwan to say something more, but he just tossed the book he was holding on to the coffee table and leaned back a little on the sofa.

‘I thought it was Wauchope helping Heaton,’ Fox admitted with a rueful smile.

‘Bull Wauchope and Terry Vass are bad men, Malcolm.’

‘Meaning you’re not?’ Fox stared at his boss. After a few moments of silence, he gave a sigh. ‘In the morning,’ he said, ‘you’re going to take everything on Wauchope and Brogan and Vince Faulkner to the Chief…’

‘Everything?’ McEwan echoed.

‘You’re going to have to tell him about Traynor and you’re going to make sure Jamie Breck gets reinstated without the hint of a slur or a stain on his character.

McEwan nodded slowly. ‘And what about us?’

‘Last thing you do before leaving the Chief’s office is hand him your resignation – that gives you a few hours to come up with any excuse you like. I want DI Stoddart put back in her box and I want to be told I’m returned to duty. But not with you running the show.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then it’s my turn to talk to the Chief.’

‘It’d be my word against yours.’

‘You really want to take that chance? Be my guest…’ Fox got to his feet. ‘I suppose I’ll find out in a few hours’ time.’