The Complaints

  ‘Tell her I’m sorry for butting in,’ Fox said.

  ‘I will, when I get back to the table.’

  ‘Nice dinner?’

  ‘What is it that can’t wait till morning, Malcolm?’ Fox listened to the sound of a door opening and closing. The atmosphere changed - Breck had stepped out of the restaurant. Fox thought he could hear distant traffic, the sounds of the city at night.

  ‘If it wasn’t urgent, Jamie ...’

  ‘But obviously it is, so let’s hear it.’

  Fox began to walk a diagonal of the room, and explained as best he could. Breck didn’t interrupt once, except to posit the theory that Gilchrist, being so keen to take a beating, might well be a masochist. When Fox finished, there was silence for a good fifteen seconds.

  ‘Yes,’ Breck eventually said. ‘Well ...’

  ‘You mean you’d already figured this out?’ Fox blurted out, sinking down on to the sofa.

  ‘I’m a gamer, Malcolm. Role-playing games - and that’s just what this has been. There are roles someone knew we’d end up playing - I’d get to like you; you’d come to trust me ... and we’d end up with our careers blown to smithereens because of it. It’s down to our natures, Malcolm.’ Breck paused. ‘We’ve been played.’

  ‘By one of our own? Our Deputy Chief Constable?’

  ‘I’m not sure that really matters. What’s more important is the why.’

  ‘And have you come to any other conclusions? Ones you’ve seen fit to keep from me?’

  ‘We’re back in the game, Malcolm. We got blown up once, but they misjudged us - we’ve got a second life, and that’s down to our natures, too.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow ...’

  ‘You don’t need to. All this work we’ve been doing ...’ Breck paused to correct himself. ‘Work you’ve been doing ... it’s leading to one thing and one thing only.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Endgame.’ Breck paused once more. ‘They’re going to have to destroy us again, and that’s when we’ll know the who and the why.’

  ‘How can you sound so bloody calm?’

  ‘Because that’s how I feel.’ Breck gave a laugh - a tired laugh, but a laugh all the same. ‘Remember when we talked in the car on the way back from the casino?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘You’re not a spectator any more.’

  ‘Is that necessarily a good thing?’

  ‘I don’t know - what do you think?’

  ‘I just want this done and dusted, one way or the other.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like the old, cautious Malcolm Fox.’

  ‘Sorry I interrupted your dinner, Jamie.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll talk tomorrow, Malcolm. Maybe I’ll call after my meeting with Stoddart. Meantime, I’ve got razorfish and carpaccio of scallop waiting for me ...’

  ‘Rather you than me.’ Fox ended the call and went into the kitchen. Appletiser ... various fruit teas ... Rooiboos ... decaf coffee ... none of it appealed. He wanted something altogether edgier and more life-affirming. He thought back to the spiced tomato juice in Minter’s and imagined it with the added injection of a thirty-five-centilitre shot of Smirnoff.

  ‘In your dreams, Foxy,’ he told himself. But he could taste it all the same, smooth at the back of his throat, and then the burn as it trickled its way downwards into his belly. Vodka had been his childhood drink, swigs stolen from the cupboard where the bottles were kept. Through his teenage years he’d shifted to rum, Southern Comfort, Glayva and whisky, coming back to vodka again for a short second honeymoon before a dangerous liaison with gin. Then whisky again - the good stuff this time round. And always with beer and wine, wine and beer. Lunches and dinners and inbetweeners. Kidding himself that a champagne breakfast with Elaine didn’t count ...

  Kahlua - he’d never drunk Kahlua. Nor had he got far with the huge variety of alcopops. If he wanted lemonade in his vodka, he would add it himself - along with a few splashes of Angostura. As a five-year-old, for an experiment, he’d mixed a couple of spoonfuls of Creamola Foam into a glass of vodka. His father had torn a strip off him for that, and had moved the alcohol to a higher shelf in the pantry. Not high enough, though ...

  Fox went back through to the living room and decided to close the curtains. There was a car parked across the street. Its lights were off but its engine was still running. There was a figure in the driver’s seat. Fox finished the job at hand, then headed upstairs in darkness. In the main bedroom, he stuck close to the walls as he approached the window. The car was a dark-coloured, sleek-looking saloon. The angle didn’t allow him any view of the number plate. Fox thought he could hear music. Yes - coming from the car. Nothing he recognised, but growing in volume. A neighbour across the street opened their own curtains to peer out, but then closed them again and didn’t come to the door. A black cab stopped to let a couple out. They’d obviously been to the late-night shopping in town. The wife was toting a couple of expensive-looking carrier bags. The husband’s name was Joe Sillars - Fox had met him a few times to talk to. They’d only been in the street a couple of months. Husband and wife stared at the loudly parked car as their cab rumbled away. They had a quick word with one another and decided not to get involved. The driver acknowledged this by sliding his front windows down. And now Fox recognised the song. It was called ‘The Saints Are Coming’. It was by an old punk outfit called The Skids. Fox had heard it at many a party in his youth. But he’d listened to it more recently, too ...

  After Glen Heaton had mentioned it at one of their interviews.

  Bloody fantastic song ... a real rallying call ...

  Fox had asked him if he thought of himself as one of the saints, but Heaton had just punched the air, belting out the first couple of lines.

  The music outside had stopped, but then started again. The bloody thing was on repeat. A fist was emerging into the night from the driver’s-side window.

  Glen Heaton was singing his heart out.

  Fox walked downstairs on unsteady legs. He stopped in the doorway outside the living room. There were things he could do, calls he could make. He could hear bass and drums join the guitar as Heaton cranked the volume up another notch. Fox grabbed his jacket and headed outside, pausing for a moment on the doorstep ...

  Then down the garden path, breathing the night air ...

  Opening the gate ...

  Crossing the road ...

  Heaton watching him all the time, fist no longer visible but still singing along. When Fox was a couple of feet away, the music died. The silence was punctuated only by the Alfa’s engine ticking over.

  ‘Knew you’d twig eventually,’ Heaton said.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You’re not the only one who can sit around outside people’s houses.’

  ‘Is that what this is?’

  ‘Did you think I hadn’t clocked you? Skulking in the dark, scuttling away as soon as you saw me coming ... But I’m bigger than you, Fox. I saw you coming and I’m still here.’

  ‘What do you want, Heaton?’

  ‘It’ll never come to trial - you know that, right?’

  ‘You’ll be tried fairly in a court of law and then you’ll go to jail.’

  Heaton puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. ‘There’s no telling some people.’

  ‘Did your pal Giles give you my address? Maybe you just wanted to check the bruises.’

  ‘Now that you mention it ...’ Heaton angled his head. ‘Not that you were much of a looker to start with. Still, I must stand whoever did it a couple of drinks.’

  ‘You’re saying it wasn’t you?’

  Heaton gave a smirk. ‘Trust me, I wouldn’t be slow to take the credit.’

  ‘So you weren’t visiting your girlfriend’s sauna on Tuesday night?’ Fox’s spirits lifted when he saw the effect his words had. ‘Sonya Michie, Heaton - we know all about her, even if your wife doesn’t. Then there’s your son ...’

  The driver’s-side door flew
open. Fox stood back, putting some distance between himself and Heaton. It struck him that they were the same height and probably much the same weight. There was more muscle on Heaton - the Complaints had followed him to his gym a few times - and almost certainly more aggression in him. But they weren’t so dissimilar. Heaton seemed to think better about making a move. Instead, he started to light a cigarette, flicking the spent match on to the roadway so it fell just short of Fox’s shoes.

  ‘What sort of cop,’ he drawled, ‘gets his kicks playing Peeping Tom? Raking through rubbish bins ... sneaking around behind people’s backs.’

  Fox thought about folding his arms, but didn’t - he needed to be ready in case Heaton tried something. ‘How is it,’ he asked back, ‘we never connected you to Jack Broughton?’

  Heaton glared at him. ‘Maybe because there is no connection.’

  ‘Sonya Michie’s a connection.’ Fox watched Heaton’s face muscles stiffen.

  ‘Careful what you say,’ Heaton cautioned. ‘Besides, she’s ancient history.’

  ‘Not so ancient. A few months back you were still seeing her. You stopped to have a chat with her outside the Cowgate sauna.’

  Heaton took a couple of seconds to work it out. ‘Breck told you,’ he said with a sneer.

  ‘Jack Broughton’s a sleeping partner in the sauna,’ Fox went on. ‘Bit more meat to add to your file. Something you might end up being asked about at the trial.’

  Slowly, Heaton folded his arms, meaning he wasn’t about to attack. Fox allowed his shoulders to unknot a little. ‘I’ve already told you - it won’t come to that.’

  ‘You ever been inside that sauna, Heaton? Is that where you met her? Maybe you bumped into Jack Broughton there. Or it could have been the lap-dancing bar on Lothian Road, the one owned by Bull Wauchope ...’

  ‘Never been near the place.’ The cigarette stayed in the corner of Heaton’s mouth as he spoke.

  ‘You’ve been to the Oliver, though?’

  ‘The casino?’ Heaton’s eyes narrowed; it could just have been the smoke, but Fox didn’t think so. ‘Yeah, I’ve lost the odd quid there.’

  ‘So you’ll know Broughton’s daughter - she runs the show.’

  ‘She’s wearing well,’ Heaton acknowledged with a nod of the head.

  ‘Did she ever introduce you to her husband?’

  ‘Charlie Brogan? Never had the pleasure.’

  ‘What about Bull Wauchope?’

  Heaton shook his head. ‘And the company that owns the sauna belongs to Bull’s old man rather than Bull himself.’

  ‘But Bull’s in charge for the foreseeable,’ Fox argued.

  ‘Might be a short tenure. I hear Bruce Senior’s spending a small fortune on lawyers. They’re picking the original case apart, looking for anything that screams mistrial.’

  ‘So Bull’s not got long to make his mark ... ’ Fox was thoughtful.

  ‘What’s any of this got to do with you, Fox?’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘Well, let’s see if I can guess.’ Heaton unfolded his arms and removed the cigarette from his mouth, flicking ash on to the ground. ‘Your sister’s man gets himself killed. He worked on a building project. That project was about to doom Charlie Brogan to bankruptcy.’ Heaton paused. ‘And you’re trying to connect Brogan to Bull Wauchope?’

  ‘The connection’s already there,’ Fox stated.

  ‘Bull’s not a stupid man ... some people think he is, and that suits him - means they underestimate him, right up to the moment when he pulverises them.’

  ‘Did Charlie Brogan underestimate him?’

  Heaton smiled to himself. ‘Why should I tell you anything?’

  ‘They say confession’s good for the soul.’ Fox paused. ‘And maybe I could see to it that the stuff in your file about Sonya Michie gets lost in the system.’

  ‘You think it bothers me that much?’ Heaton watched as Fox shrugged. ‘You’d have crossed a line, Fox - hard to go back to the Complaints after that.’

  ‘I doubt I’m going back anyway.’

  Heaton stared at him for a full quarter-minute. ‘When it comes time for the Fiscal to talk to you ...’

  ‘I could say mistakes were made. I could suddenly remember that some procedure or other wasn’t followed ...’

  ‘Then they’d have to chuck the case out,’ Heaton said quietly. ‘Ten minutes ago, you said it was going to trial.’

  Fox nodded slowly.

  ‘What’s changed?’

  ‘Me,’ Fox stated. ‘I’ve changed. See, I’ve decided right of this minute that you’re not important. You’ll fuck up in future and someone will nab you then. For now, you’re a low priority. I want answers to other questions.’

  Heaton managed a wry smile. ‘How do I know you’ll do it?’

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘Case like this, Fiscal might take months or years getting it ready for trial. And all that time, I’m at home with my feet up and the salary going into my bank account.’

  ‘But that’s not you, Glen. It’s not what you were made for. You’d go stir-crazy.’

  Heaton was thoughtful. ‘So the state of play is: I’ve no guarantees I can trust you, there’s stuff you want from me, and we still hate one another’s guts?’

  ‘In a nutshell,’ Fox agreed.

  ‘Do I get to come inside?’ Heaton nodded towards Fox’s house.

  ‘No.’

  ‘In that case, get in the car - I’m freezing my balls off out here.’ Heaton didn’t wait for Fox to agree. He got back in behind the steering wheel, closed the door and slid the window shut. Fox stood his ground for a few seconds more, watching Heaton avoid eye contact. Then he walked around to the car’s passenger side and got in. The interior of the Alfa smelt new: leather and polish and carpets.

  ‘You don’t smoke in the car,’ he commented. ‘Is that because your wife doesn’t like it?’

  Heaton gave a snort.

  ‘So say your piece,’ Fox prompted.

  ‘You’re right about Bull not having long to make his mark. His plan was to act as a broker for all the other bosses. He told them he could launder their dirty money by putting it into property and property development.’

  ‘Did Jack Broughton tell you this?’ Fox asked. Heaton turned his head towards him.

  ‘Charlie Brogan told me.’

  ‘You said you’d never met him.’

  ‘I lied. But here’s the thing ... now you know this, there’s every chance you’ll end up the same way as him.’

  ‘There was a developer in Dundee ...’ Fox was thinking aloud. ‘When he lost Wauchope some money, he turned up dead. Did Terry Vass kill him?’

  Heaton’s eyebrows lifted a millimetre. ‘You seem to know a hell of a lot.’

  ‘I’m getting there. So Brogan and the Dundee developer suddenly had a bunch of negative equity, and Wauchope wanted his money out - because it wasn’t actually his. What’s Vince Faulkner got to do with any of this?’

  ‘You ever see Charlie Brogan? He never had much heft.’

  ‘Vince was like his ... bodyguard?’

  ‘That’s maybe too strong. But when you go to a meeting, you want someone at your back.’

  Fox took a moment to mull this over. ‘Remember a few months back? One of Ernie Wishaw’s drivers was caught with a consignment of dope ...’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Rumour is, you were feeding information back to Wishaw.’

  ‘Breck again,’ Glen Heaton spat.

  ‘You’re a regular gun for hire, aren’t you? And that means you know a lot ... Is that why they need to protect you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ever since I handed your case over to the Fiscal’s office, there’ve been people following me, trying to set me up and scare me off.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Your good friend Billy Giles hasn’t dropped any hints?’

  ‘I’m finished talking, Fox. Just remember what I s
aid - way things are going, you might not be around to see me stand trial.’

  ‘Not that that’s going to happen.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Heaton paused. ‘Now get out of my fucking car.’

  Fox stayed put. ‘When people speak up for you, they say you always got results. You’d do a favour for one villain, and that villain would repay the debt with a titbit about a competitor. Is that what’s happening here, Heaton? Someone’s told you to give me Wauchope?’