The Impossible Dead

  Teresa Collins was lying.

  The other two complainants were chancers.

  The judge had helped the prosecution at every available turn.

  ‘Thing is,’ Fox said, slowly and quietly, making sure he had Michaelson’s attention, ‘when your own force’s Professional Standards team looked into the allegations, they reckoned there might be something to them. And don’t forget: it wasn’t Ms Collins who started the whole process …’

  He let that sink in for a moment. Michaelson’s focus remained fixed to a portion of the wall over Fox’s left shoulder. He was wiry and prematurely bald and his nose had been broken at some point in his life. Plus there was an inch-long scar running across his chin. Fox wondered if he’d done any amateur boxing.

  ‘It was another police officer,’ he continued, ‘Paul Carter’s uncle. Are you calling him a liar too?’

  ‘He’s not a cop, he’s an ex-cop.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  Michaelson offered a shrug and folded his arms.

  ‘Battery change,’ Naysmith broke in, switching off the camera. Michaelson stretched his back. Fox heard the clicking of vertebrae. Tony Kaye was on his feet, shaking each leg as if trying to get the circulation going.

  ‘Much longer?’ Michaelson asked.

  ‘That’s up to you,’ Fox told him.

  ‘Well we all still get paid at the end of the day, eh?’

  ‘Not in a rush to get back to your desk?’

  ‘Doesn’t really matter, does it? You tidy up one crime, another two or three are just around the corner.’

  Fox saw that Joe Naysmith was going through the pockets of the equipment bag. Naysmith knew he was being watched, looked up, and had the good sense to look contrite.

  ‘The spare’s still charging,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ Tony Kaye asked.

  ‘The office.’ Naysmith paused. ‘In Edinburgh.’

  ‘Meaning we’re done?’ Gary Michaelson’s eyes were on Malcolm Fox.

  ‘So it would seem,’ Fox answered, grudgingly. ‘For now …’

  ‘What a complete and utter waste of a day,’ said Tony Kaye, not for the first time. They had retraced their route back to Edinburgh, still mainly in the outside lane. This time, the bulk of the traffic was heading into Fife, the bottleneck on the Edinburgh side of the Forth Road Bridge. Their destination was Police HQ on Fettes Avenue. Chief Inspector Bob McEwan was still in the office. He pointed to the battery charger next to the kettle and mugs.

  ‘Wondered about that,’ he said.

  ‘Wonder no more,’ Fox replied.

  The room wasn’t large, because Counter Corruption comprised a small team. Most Complaints officers worked in a larger office along the corridor where Professional Ethics and Standards handled the meat-and-potatoes workload. This year, McEwan seemed to be spending most of his time in meetings to do with restructuring the whole department.

  ‘Basically, writing myself out of a job,’ as he had put it himself. ‘Not that you should worry your pretty little heads …’

  Kaye had thrown his coat over the back of his chair and was seated at his desk, while Naysmith busied himself switching the batteries in the charger.

  ‘Two interviews conducted,’ Fox told McEwan. ‘Both somewhat curtailed.’

  ‘I take it there was a bit of resistance.’

  Fox gave a twitch of his mouth. ‘Tony thinks we’re talking to the wrong people anyway. I’m beginning to agree with him.’

  ‘Nobody’s expecting miracles, Malcolm. The Deputy Chief Constable phoned me earlier. It takes as long as it takes.’

  ‘Any longer than a week and I might run a hose from my car exhaust,’ Kaye muttered.

  ‘It takes as long as it takes,’ McEwan repeated for his benefit.

  Eventually they settled down to review the recordings. Halfway through, McEwan checked his watch and said that he had to be elsewhere. Then Kaye received a text.

  ‘Urgent appointment with the wife and a bottle of wine,’ he explained, patting Fox’s shoulder. ‘Let me know how it turns out, eh?’

  For the next five minutes, Fox could sense Naysmith fidgeting. It was gone five anyway, so he told his young colleague to bugger off.

  ‘You sure?’

  Fox gestured towards the door, and soon he was alone in the office, thinking that maybe he should have praised Naysmith for his work behind the camera. Both picture and sound were sharp. There was a notepad on Fox’s lap, but it was blank apart from spirals, stars and other assorted doodles. He thought back to something Scholes had said, about the Complaints wanting to drag everyone else down with Paul Carter. Carter was history. What reason was there to suppose Scholes and the others would keep breaking the rules? Of course they’d look out for each other, stick up for each other, but maybe a lesson had been learned. Fox knew he could put the investigation into cruise control, could ask the questions, log the responses and come to no great conclusions. That might be the outcome anyway. So what was the point of busting a gut? This, he felt, was the subtext of the whole day, the thing Tony Kaye had been bursting to say. The three officers had been named and shamed in court. Now they were the subject of an internal inquiry. Did all that not comprise punishment enough?

  In the Pancake Place, Kaye had mentioned Colin Balfour. The Complaints had put together just about enough of a case to see him drummed out of the force, but they’d stopped short of implicating two or three other officers who had attempted a cover-up. Those officers were still working; never a hint of trouble.

  No complaints, as the saying went.

  Fox used the remote to switch off the recording. All it proved was that they were doing what was expected of them. He very much doubted the bosses at Fife Constabulary HQ required further bad news; they just wanted to be able to say that the judge’s comments had not been ignored. Scholes, Haldane and Michaelson needed only to go on denying everything. And that meant Tony Kaye was right. It was the other CID officers they should be talking to – if they wanted to be thorough. And what about Carter’s uncle? Shouldn’t they also get his side of the story? Fox was intrigued about the man’s motive. His evidence in court had been brief but effective. The way he told it, his nephew had paid him a visit one afternoon after a few drinks. He’d been garrulous, talking about the ways in which policing had changed since his uncle’s day. Not so many corners could be cut, and there were fewer fringe benefits.

  But there’s one perk I get that maybe you and my dad never did …

  Fox was reminded that he hadn’t spoken to his own father in a couple of days. His sister and he took it in turns to visit. She was probably at the care home right now. The staff liked you to avoid mealtimes, and by mid-evening a lot of the ‘clients’ (as staff insisted on calling them) were being readied for bed. He walked over to the windows and stared out at the darkening city. Was Edinburgh ten times the size of Kirkcaldy? Bigger, surely. Back at his desk, he switched on his computer and sat down to do a search.

  Just under an hour later, he was in his car and heading for his home in Oxgangs. There was a supermarket almost on his doorstep, and he stopped long enough to grab a microwave curry and a bottle of Appletiser, plus the evening paper. The story on the front page concerned a drug dealer who had just been found guilty and sent to jail. Fox knew the detective who had led the inquiry – he’d been the subject of a Complaints investigation two years back. Now he was smiling for the cameras, job done.

  How come you hate cops so much? The question Scholes had asked. Time was, CID could cut corners and be sure of getting away with it. Fox’s task was to stop them doing that. Not for ever and a day – in a year or two he would be back in CID himself, rubbing shoulders with those he had scrutinised; trying to put drug dealers behind bars without bending the rules, fearful of the Complaints and coming to despise them. He had begun to wonder if he could do that – work with officers who knew his past; work what everyone regarded as ‘proper’ cases …

  He stuffed the newspaper into
the bottom of his basket, covered by his other purchases.

  The bungalow was in darkness. He’d thought of buying one of those timers that brought a light on at dusk, but knew this was no real deterrent to housebreakers. He had little enough worth stealing: TV and computer, after which they’d be looking around in vain. A couple of homes near him had been broken into in the past month. He’d even had a police constable on his doorstep, asking if he’d seen or heard anything. Fox hadn’t bothered identifying himself as a fellow officer. He’d just shaken his head and the constable had nodded and headed elsewhere.

  Going through the motions.

  Six minutes, the curry took. Fox found a news channel on the TV and turned the sound up. The world seemed to be filled with war, famine and natural disasters. An earthquake here, a tornado there. A climate-change expert was being interviewed. He was warning that viewers needed to get used to these phenomena, to floods and droughts and heatwaves. The interviewer managed somehow to hand back to the studio with a smile. Maybe once he was off air, he would start running around pulling out clumps of his hair and screaming, but Fox doubted it. He pressed the interactive button on the remote and scanned the Scottish headlines. There was nothing new on the explosion outside Lockerbie; the Alert Status at Fettes had been MODERATE, same as at Kirkcaldy. Lockerbie: as if that benighted spot hadn’t seen enough in its history … Fox flipped to a sports channel and watched the darts as he ate the remainder of his meal.

  He was just finishing when his phone started ringing. It was his sister Jude.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked her. They took it in turns to call. It was his turn, not hers.

  ‘I’ve just been to see Dad.’ He heard her sniff back a tear.

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘He keeps forgetting things.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘One of the carers told me he didn’t make it to the toilet in time this morning. They’ve put him in a pad.’

  Fox closed his eyes.

  ‘And sometimes he forgets my name or what year it is.’

  ‘He has good days too, Jude.’

  ‘How would you know? Just because you pick up the bills doesn’t mean you can walk away!’

  ‘Who’s walking away?’

  ‘I never see you there.’

  ‘You know that’s not true. I visit when I can.’

  ‘Not nearly enough.’

  ‘We can’t all lead lives of leisure, Jude.’

  ‘You think I’m not looking for a job?’

  Fox squeezed his eyes shut again: walked into that one, Malc. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘It’s exactly what you meant!’

  ‘Let’s not get into this, eh?’

  There was silence on the line for a few moments. Jude sighed and began speaking again. ‘I took him a box of photographs today. Thought maybe the pair of us could go through them. But they just seemed to upset him. He kept saying, “They’re all dead. How can everyone be dead?”’

  ‘I’ll go see him, Jude. Don’t worry about it. Maybe the thing to do is phone ahead, and if the staff don’t think it’s worth a visit that day—’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying!’ Her voice rose again. ‘You think I mind visiting him? He’s our dad.’

  ‘I know that. I was just …’ He paused, then asked the question he felt was expected of him. ‘Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘It’s not me you need to go see.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘So you’ll do it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Even though you’re busy?’

  ‘Soon as I’m off the phone,’ Fox assured her.

  ‘And you’ll get back to me? Tell me what you think?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Jude.’

  ‘You want him to be – that way he’s not on your conscience.’

  ‘I’m putting the phone down now, Jude. I’m putting the phone down and heading out to see Dad …’

  4

  The staff of Lauder Lodge, however, had other ideas.

  It was past nine when Fox got there. He could hear a TV blaring in the lounge. Lots of people coming and going – looked like a shift changeover.

  ‘Your father’s in bed,’ Fox was told. ‘He’ll be asleep.’

  ‘Then I won’t wake him. I just want to see him for a minute.’

  ‘We try not to disturb clients once they’re in bed.’

  ‘Didn’t he used to stay up for the ten o’clock news?’

  ‘That was then.’

  ‘Is he on any new medication? Anything I don’t know about?’

  The woman took a moment to weigh up whether an accusation was being made, then gave a resigned sigh. ‘Just a minute, you say?’ Fox nodded, and she nodded back. Anything for a quiet life …

  Mitch Fox’s room was in a new annexe to the side of the original Victorian property. Fox walked past a room that had, until a couple of months back, been home to Mrs Sanderson. Mrs Sanderson and Fox’s father had become firm friends during their time in Lauder Lodge. Fox had helped Mitch attend her funeral, no more than a dozen people in the crematorium chapel. No one had come from her family, because no family had been traced. There was a new name next to the door of her old room: D. Nesbitt. Fox got the feeling that if he peeled away that sticker, there’d be another underneath bearing Mrs Sanderson’s name, and maybe another beneath that.

  He didn’t bother knocking on his father’s door, just turned the handle and crept in. The curtains were closed and the light was off, but there was a good amount of illumination from the street lamp outside. Fox could make out his father’s form under the duvet. He had almost reached the bedside chair when a dry voice asked what time it was.

  ‘Twenty past,’ Fox told his father.

  ‘Twenty past what?’

  ‘Nine.’

  ‘So what brings you here, then?’ Mitch Fox turned on the lamp and started to sit up. His son moved forward to help him. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Jude was a bit worried.’ Fox saw that the shoebox full of old family photos was on the chair. He lifted it and sat down, resting it on his knees. His father’s hair, wispy, almost like a baby’s, had a yellowish tinge. His face was thinner than ever, the skin resembling parchment. But the eyes seemed clear and untroubled.

  ‘We both know your sister likes her little dramas. What’s she been telling you?’

  ‘Just that your memory’s not what it was.’

  ‘Whose is?’ Mitch nodded towards the shoebox. ‘Because I couldn’t tell her the exact spot where some photo was taken fifty-odd years ago?’

  Fox opened the lid of the box and lifted out a handful of snaps. Some had writing on the back: names, dates, places. But there were question marks, too. Lots of question marks … and something that looked like a tear stain. Fox rubbed a finger across it, then turned the photo over. His mother dandled a child on either knee. She was seated on the edge of a rockery.

  ‘This one only goes back thirty years,’ Fox said, holding the photo up for his father to see. Mitch peered at it.

  ‘Blackpool maybe,’ he said. ‘You and Jude …’

  ‘And Mum.’

  Mitch Fox nodded slowly. ‘Any water there?’ he asked. Fox looked, but there was no jug on the bedside cabinet. ‘Get me some, will you?’

  Fox went into the adjoining bathroom. The jug was there, along with a plastic tumbler. He reckoned the staff didn’t want Mitchell Fox guzzling water at night, not if it meant trouble in the morning. The pack of incontinence pads sat in full view next to the sink. Fox filled jug and tumbler both and took them through.

  ‘Good lad,’ his father said. A few drops dribbled from his chin as he drank, but he needed no help placing the drained tumbler next to him by the bed. ‘You’ll tell Jude not to worry?’

  ‘Sure.’ Fox sat down again.

  ‘And you’ll manage to do it without falling out?’

  ‘I’ll try my best.’

  ‘Takes two to make an argument.’
/>
  ‘You sure about that? I think Jude could have a pretty good go in an empty room.’

  ‘Maybe so, but you don’t always help.’

  ‘Is this you and me arguing now?’ Fox watched his father give a tired smile. ‘Want me to go so you can get back to sleep?’

  ‘I don’t sleep. I just lie here, waiting.’

  Fox knew what the answer to his next question would be, so he didn’t ask it. Instead, he told his father that he’d just spent a fruitless day over in Fife.

  ‘You used to love it there,’ Mitch told him.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Fife.’

  ‘When was I ever in Fife?’

  ‘My cousin Chris – we used to visit him.’

  ‘Where did he live?’

  ‘Burntisland. The beach, the outdoor pool, the links …’

  ‘How old was I?’

  ‘Chris died young. Take a look, he should be in there somewhere.’

  Fox realised that his father meant the shoebox. So they lifted out the contents on to the bed. Some of the photos were loose, others in packets along with their negatives. A mixture of colour and black-and-white, including some wedding photos. (Fox ignored the ones of him and Elaine – their marriage hadn’t lasted long.) There were blurry snaps of holidays, Christmases, birthdays, works outings. Until eventually Mitch was handing a particular shot to him.

  ‘That’s Chris there. He’s got Jude on his shoulders. Big, tall, strapping chap.’

  ‘Would this be Burntisland then?’ Fox studied the photograph. Jude’s gap-toothed mouth was wide open. Hard to tell if it was laughter or terror at being so high off the ground. Chris was grinning for the camera. Fox tried to remember him, but failed.

  ‘Might be his back garden,’ Mitch Fox was saying.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Motorbike, daft laddie. Look at them all.’ Mitch waved a hand across the strewn photographs. ‘Dead and buried and mostly forgotten.’

  ‘Some of us are still here, though,’ Fox said. ‘And that’s the way I like it.’