by Ian Rankin
‘Want to do anything?’ Fox asked, seating himself on the edge of the bed again.
‘Not really.’
‘Watch TV? Cup of tea maybe?’
‘I’m all right.’ Mitch Fox suddenly fixed his son with a look. ‘You’re all right, too, aren’t you?’
‘Never better.’
‘Doing well at work?’
‘Revered and respected by all who know me.’
‘Got a girlfriend?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘How long is it since you divorced . . . ?’ The eyebrows knitted again. ‘Her name’s on the tip of my ...’
‘Elaine - and she’s ancient history, Dad.’
Mitch Fox nodded and was thoughtful for a moment. ‘You’ve got to be careful, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘Machinery . . . it’s not to be trusted.’
‘I don’t work with machinery, Dad.’
‘But all the same ...’
Malcolm Fox pretended to be checking his phone again. ‘I can look after myself,’ he assured his father. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’
‘Tell Jude to come and see me,’ Mitch Fox said. ‘She needs to be more careful on those stairs of hers . . .’
Malcolm Fox looked up from his phone. ‘I’ll tell her,’ he said.
‘What’s this Dad tells me about stairs?’
Fox was outside, standing beside his car. It was a silver Volvo S60 with three thousand miles on the clock. His sister had picked up after half a dozen rings, just as he’d been about to end the call.
‘You’ve been to see Mitch?’ she surmised.
‘He was asking for you.’
‘I was there last week.’
‘After you fell down the stairs?’
‘I’m fine. A few bumps and bruises.’
‘Would those bruises be facial, Jude?’
‘You sound just like a cop, Malcolm. I was bringing some stuff downstairs and I fell.’
Fox was silent for a moment, watching the traffic. ‘So how are things otherwise?’
‘I was sorry we didn’t get the chance to catch up over Christmas. Did I thank you for the flowers?’
‘You sent a text at Hogmanay, wished me a Gappy New Zear.’
‘I’m hopeless with that phone - the buttons are too small.’
‘Maybe drink had been taken.’
‘Maybe that, too. You still on the wagon?’
‘Five years dry.’
‘No need to sound so smug. How was Mitch?’
Fox decided he’d had enough fresh air; opened the car door and got in. ‘I’m not sure he’s eating enough.’
‘We can’t all have your appetite.’
‘Do you think I should get a doctor to look at him?’
‘Would he thank you for it?’
Fox had taken a packet of mints from the passenger seat; popped one into his mouth. ‘We should get together some night.’
‘Sure.’
‘Just you and me, I mean.’ He listened to his sister’s silence, waiting for her to mention her partner. If she did that, maybe they could have the real conversation, the one they’d been dancing around:
What about Vince?
No, just the two of us.
Why?
Because I know he hits you, Jude, and that makes me want to hit him back.
You’re wrong, Malcolm.
Am I? Want to show me those bruises and the staircase where it’s supposed to have happened?
But all she said was: ‘Okay, then, we’ll do that, yes.’ Soon they were saying their goodbyes and Fox was flipping shut the phone and tossing it across to the other seat. Another wasted opportunity. He started the engine and headed home.
Home being a bungalow in Oxgangs. When he and Elaine had bought the place, the sellers had called it Fairmilehead and the solicitor Colinton - both neighbourhoods seen even then as being more desirable than Oxgangs - but Fox liked Oxgangs fine. There were shops and pubs and a library. The city bypass was minutes away. Buses were regular and there were two big supermarkets within a short drive. Fox couldn’t blame his father for misplacing Elaine’s name. The courtship had lasted six months and the marriage a further ten, all of it six years back. They’d known one another at school, but had lost touch. Met again at an old friend’s funeral. Arranged to go for a drink after the meal and fell into bed drunk and filled with lust. ‘Lust for life,’ she’d called it. Elaine had just come out of a long-term relationship - the word ‘rebound’ had only occurred to Fox after the wedding. She’d invited her old flame to the ceremony, and he’d come, well dressed and smiling.
A month after the honeymoon (Corfu; they both got sunburn) they’d realised their mistake. She was the one who walked. He’d asked if she wanted the bungalow, but she’d told him it was his, so he’d stayed, redecorating it more to his taste and completing the attic conversion. ‘Bachelor beige’ had been one friend’s description, followed by a warning: ‘Watch your life doesn’t go the same way.’ As Fox turned into the driveway, he wondered what was so wrong with beige. It was just a colour, like any other. Besides which, he’d repainted the front door yellow. He’d put up a couple of mirrors, one in the downstairs hall, one upstairs on the landing. Framed paintings brightened both living and dining room. The toaster in the kitchen was shiny and silver. His duvet cover was a vibrant green and the three-piece suite oxblood.
‘Far from beige,’ he muttered to himself.
Once inside, he remembered that his briefcase was locked in the car’s boot. As soon as you joined the Complaints you were warned: leave nothing in open view. He headed out again to fetch it, placing it on the kitchen worktop while he filled the kettle. Plan for the rest of the afternoon: tea and toast and putting his feet up. There was lasagne in the fridge for later. He’d bought half a dozen DVDs in the Zavvi closing-down sale; he could watch one or two this evening, if there was nothing on the box. At one time, Zavvi had been Virgin. Their shops had gone bust. So had the Woolworth’s on Lothian Road - Fox had gone there regularly, almost religiously, as a kid, buying toys and sweets when he was younger, then singles and LPs as a teenager. As an adult he’d driven past it a hundred times or more, but never with a reason to stop and go in. There was a daily paper in his briefcase: more doom and gloom for the economy. Maybe that helped explain why one in ten of the population was taking antidepressants. ADHD was on the increase and one in five primary school kids was overweight and heading for diabetes. The Scottish Parliament had passed its budget at the second attempt, but commentators were saying too many jobs depended on the public sector. Only places like Cuba were worse, apparently. By coincidence, one of the DVDs he’d bought was Buena Vista Social Club. Maybe he’d try it tonight: a little bit of Cuba in Oxgangs. A little bit of light relief.
Another of the stories in the paper was about a Lithuanian woman. She’d been killed in Brechin, her body dismembered and tossed into the sea, washing up again, piece by piece, along Arbroath beach. Some kids had discovered the head, and now a couple of migrant workers were on trial for her murder. It was the sort of case a lot of cops would relish. Fox hadn’t worked more than a handful of murders during his previous life in CID, but he remembered each scene of crime and autopsy. He’d been present when family members had been given the news, or had been escorted into the mortuary to identify their loved ones. The Complaints was a world away from all that, which was why other cops would say that Fox and his colleagues had it easy.
‘So how come it doesn’t feel easy?’ he asked out loud, just as the toaster finished toasting. He took everything - newspaper included - through to the living-room sofa. There wouldn’t be much on the TV this time of day, but there was always the BBC news. His gaze shifted to the mantelpiece. There were framed photos there. One showed his mother and father, probably on holiday in the mid-sixties. The other was of Fox himself, not quite a teenager, with his arm around his younger sister as they sat together on a sofa. He got the feeling it was an aunt’s house, but didn’t kn
ow which one. Fox was smiling for the camera, but Jude was interested only in her brother. An image flashed into his mind - she was tumbling down the stairs at her home. What had she been carrying? Empty mugs maybe, or a basket of washing. But then she was at the foot of the stairs, unharmed, and Vince was standing in front of her, bunching a fist. It had happened before, Jude arguing that she’d struck first, or had given as good as she got. It won’t happen again . . .
Fox’s appetite had gone, and the tea smelled as if he’d put too much milk in it. His mobile phone sounded an alert: incoming text message. It was from Tony Kaye. He was in the pub with Joe Naysmith.
‘Get thee behind me,’ Fox said to himself.
Five minutes later, he was looking for his car keys.
Monday 9 February 2009
2
Monday morning, Malcolm Fox spent almost as much time finding a parking space at HQ as it had taken him to drive there in the first place. Tony Kaye and Joe Naysmith were already in the office. As the ‘junior’, Naysmith had brewed a pot of coffee, and provided a carton of milk to go with it. Come Friday, he would ask the others to chip in. Sometimes they would and sometimes they wouldn’t, and Naysmith would continue the pretence of keeping tabs on what he was owed.
‘A quid outstanding,’ he said now, standing in front of Fox’s desk, hands bunched in pockets.
‘Double or quits at the end of the week,’ Fox answered, hanging up his coat. It was a beautiful bright day outside, the road surfaces free of ice. Gardens Fox had driven past on his estate had boasted blobs of white where snowmen had once stood. He removed his jacket, displaying the same dark-blue braces. His tie today was a more vibrant red than Friday’s, his shirt white with stripes of yellow as fine as strands of hair. There wasn’t much in his briefcase, but he opened it anyway. Naysmith had retreated to the coffee jug.
‘Three sugars,’ Kaye was reminding him, receiving the expected gesture in reply.
‘No sign of Bob?’ Fox asked.
Naysmith shook his mop of hair - his weekend hadn’t included a trim - and pointed towards Fox’s desk. ‘Should be a message there, though.’
Fox looked, but couldn’t see anything. He slid back his chair and peered beneath the desk. A slip of paper was lying on the floor, already boasting the imprint of his shoe sole. He lifted it up and turned it over, studying McEwan’s writing.
Inglis - CEOP - 10.30.
CEOP meant Child Protection - Child Exploitation and Online Protection, to give it its full title. Most of the cops pronounced it ‘chop’. Room 2.24, at the far end of the corridor and round the corner, was the Chop Shop. Fox had been inside a couple of times, stomach clenched at the very thought of what went on there.
‘Know anyone called Inglis?’ he asked out loud. Neither Naysmith nor Kaye could help. Fox looked at his watch: 10.30 was over an hour away. Naysmith was stirring a mug noisily. Kaye was leaning back in his chair, stretching his arms and yawning. Fox folded the piece of paper and placed it in his pocket, got up and slipped his jacket back on.
‘Won’t be long,’ he said.
‘We’ll soldier on somehow,’ Kaye assured him.
The corridor was a few degrees cooler than the Complaints office. Fox didn’t rush, but it still took him only a few moments to reach 2.24. It was the very last door, and unusual in that it had its own high-security lock and entryphone. There were no names listed; the Chop Shop kept itself to itself - not unlike the Complaints. A sign on the door spelled out a warning: ‘There may be disturbing sounds and images in this room. When working at screens, a minimum of two people must be present.’ Fox took a deep breath, pressed the button and waited. A male voice came from the speaker.
‘Yes?’
‘Inspector Fox. I’m here to see Inglis.’
There was silence, then the voice again: ‘You’re keen.’
‘Am I?’
‘Ten thirty, wasn’t it?’
‘Says half nine here.’
Another silence, then: ‘Hang on.’
He waited, studying the tips of his shoes. He’d bought them on George Street a month back, and they still rubbed the skin from his heels. Quality shoes, though: the assistant had said they’d last ‘till Doomsday ... or the tram line’s up and running ... whichever comes first’. Bright kid; sense of humour. Fox had asked why she wasn’t in college.
‘What’s the point?’ she’d answered. ‘No good jobs anyway, not unless you emigrate.’
That had taken Fox back to his own teenage years. A good many of his contemporaries had dreamed of earning big money abroad. Some of them had succeeded, too, but not many.
The door in front of him was being opened from within. A woman was standing there. She wore a pale green blouse and black trousers. She was about four inches shorter than him, and maybe ten years younger. There was a gold watch on her left wrist. No rings on any of her fingers. She held out her right hand for him to shake.
‘I’m Inglis,’ she said by way of introduction.
‘Fox,’ he replied, then, with a smile, ‘Malcolm Fox.’
‘You’re PSU.’ It was a statement, but Fox nodded anyway. Behind her, the office was more cramped than he remembered. Five desks with just enough room between them for anyone to squeeze by. The walls were lined with filing cabinets and free-standing metal shelves. On the shelves sat computers and their hard drives. Some of the hard drives had been stripped back to show their workings. Others were bagged and tagged as evidence. The only free wall space had been covered with head shots. The men didn’t all look the same. Some were young, some old; some had beards and moustaches; some were dull-eyed and shifty, others unapologetic as they faced the camera. There was only one other person in the room, presumably the man who had spoken over the intercom. He was seated at his desk, studying the visitor. Fox nodded towards him and the man nodded back.
‘That’s Gilchrist,’ Inglis said. ‘Come in and make yourself comfortable. ’
‘Is that even possible?’ Fox asked.
Inglis looked around her. ‘We do what we can.’
‘Are there just the two of you?’
‘At the moment,’ Inglis admitted. ‘High rate of attrition and all that.’
‘Plus we mostly end up passing cases to London,’ Gilchrist added. ‘They’ve got a hundred-strong team down there.’
‘A hundred seems a lot,’ Fox commented.
‘You’ve not seen their workload,’ Inglis said.
‘And do I call you Inglis? I mean, is there a rank, or maybe a first name . . .?’
‘Annie,’ she eventually told him. There was no one at the desk next to hers, so she motioned for Fox to seat himself there.
‘Give us a twirl, Anthea,’ Gilchrist said. From the way he said it, Fox got the notion that the joke was wearing thin for all concerned.
‘Bruce Forsyth?’ he guessed. ‘The Generation Game?’
Inglis nodded. ‘I’m supposedly named after the gorgeous pouting assistant.’
‘But you prefer Annie?’
‘I definitely prefer Annie, unless you want to keep things formal, in which case it’s DS Inglis.’
‘Annie’s fine by me.’ Fox, seated, picked a loose thread from the leg of his trousers. He was trying to avoid the file on the desk in front of him. It was marked ‘School Uniform’. He cleared his throat. ‘My boss told me you wanted to see me.’
Inglis nodded. She had settled in front of her computer. An additional laptop was balanced precariously atop the hard drive. ‘How much do you know about CEOP?’ she asked.
‘I know you spend your time rounding up perverts.’
‘Well put,’ said Gilchrist, hammering away at his keyboard.
‘I’m told it was easier in the old days,’ Inglis added. ‘But now we’ve all gone digital. Nobody hands their photos in for processing any more. Nobody has to buy magazines or even go to the trouble of printing anything, except in the privacy of their own home. You can groom a kid from the other side of the world, only meet up with them when you’r
e sure they’re ready.’
‘Good and ready,’ Gilchrist echoed.
Fox ran a finger around his shirt collar. It was hellishly warm in here. He couldn’t take off his jacket - this was a business meeting; first impressions and all that. He noted though that Annie Inglis’s jacket was over the back of her chair. It was pale pink and looked fashionable. Her hair was cut short, almost in what would have been called a pageboy. It was a glossy brown, and he wondered if she dyed it. She wore a little make-up; not too much. And no nail varnish. He noticed, too, that unlike the rest of the offices on this floor, the windows were opaque.