‘Careful there, Joe.’
‘No fraternising with the enemy,’ Kaye added teasingly.
‘She’s not the enemy.’ Naysmith couldn’t help sounding defensive.
‘Maybe not now,’ Fox cautioned. ‘But all the same…’
Bob McEwan arrived just as Kaye and Naysmith were leaving. ‘Off to Fife?’ he guessed.
Kaye gestured in Fox’s direction. ‘How soon till we get our pal back?’
‘Not my decision. How near are you to being able to make a comprehensive report?’
‘Nobody’s admitting anything,’ Kaye told him.
McEwan’s focus moved to Naysmith. ‘Is that true, Joe?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t sound too sure.’
‘Nobody’s admitting anything,’ Naysmith echoed. ‘And the tap hasn’t-’ He stopped abruptly, winded by Kaye’s elbow finding his kidneys.
‘What tap?’ McEwan asked quietly.
‘We’re about to lift it, Bob,’ Fox explained, walking towards his boss.
‘I didn’t authorise any surveillance.’
‘It was a Fife call,’ Fox stated.
‘I should still have been told.’
‘Sorry about that.’
McEwan stabbed a finger towards Fox. ‘I don’t like this, Malcolm.’
‘Yes, sir.’
McEwan stared at him hard, then turned his attention back to Kaye and Naysmith. ‘Off you go, then.’
Kaye didn’t need telling twice, steering Naysmith out of the door ahead of him.
‘What’s going on, Malcolm?’ McEwan asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Who’s under surveillance?’
‘Scholes,’ Fox admitted. ‘But with Paul Carter a murder suspect, we’re pulling it.’
‘This is a simple enough procedure: three interviews, three reports.’
‘These things have a way of growing, Bob – you know that yourself.’
There was a finger pointing at Fox again. ‘A simple enough procedure,’ McEwan repeated, laying equal stress on each word. ‘If that has somehow changed, I need to know the why and the what – understood?’
‘Understood, sir.’
Fox knew he had only to bide his time. The two men settled at their desks and worked in silence. When Fox got up to make more coffee, McEwan refused his offer, which told Fox that he was still in the bad books. Forty-five minutes later, McEwan checked his watch and sighed, making to rise from his chair.
Another planning meeting.
‘Got enough to keep you busy?’ McEwan asked.
‘Always,’ Fox replied.
McEwan found the paperwork, but then had to come back because he’d left his phone charging beside one of the sockets. When he’d left for a second time, Fox got up and went to the doorway, checking that the corridor was empty. He closed the door and returned to his desk, picking up the phone and placing a call to Portugal. When a woman answered, he told her he wanted to speak to Mr Hendryson.
‘Is that you, Andrew?’
‘My name’s Fox – I’m phoning from Edinburgh.’
‘Just a minute, then,’ she trilled. He could hear her placing the phone on a solid surface and then calling out for her husband.
‘Rab! You’ve a call from the old country!’
It was a few moments before anything happened. Fox was trying to visualise the scene: a view of a mirror- flat blue bay, perhaps. Wooden decking with recliner chairs. The retired superintendent in flip-flops and baggy shorts. Maybe there was a golf course nearby, and an ex-pat golfing buddy called Andrew whose voice sounded a bit like Fox’s…
‘Robert Hendryson,’ a voice said as the phone was picked up again.
‘Mr Hendryson, my name’s Malcolm Fox – I’m an Inspector at Lothian and Borders Police.’
‘I know who you are.’
‘Oh?’
‘Pitkethly told me.’
‘Did she now?’
‘She used to call me a lot when she first took over. Finding her feet, but not always able to locate the key to a cupboard or some requisition form.’
‘And she’s still in touch?’
‘She wanted to let me know about Alan Carter.’
‘You knew him, then?’
‘A little. He was CID and I wasn’t – you’ll know yourself there’s a tribalism there. Plus Alan was retired before I took over at Kirkcaldy.’
‘So what did Superintendent Pitkethly tell you?’
‘Just that the Complaints were in town, led by someone called Fox. All that business about Paul Carter…’
‘You’d have known him better than his uncle,’ Fox stated.
‘Paul could be a handful, Inspector. But he got results – and I never heard a bad word about him until I was nearly retired.’
‘But when the allegation was made, did you ever doubt his innocence?’
‘Innocent until proven guilty,’ Hendryson recited. Then: ‘Is that what this is about?’ He considered for a moment, and answered his own question. ‘Of course it is. You want to know if CID really did cover up for Paul. Maybe you think it went beyond CID – the whole station, eh?’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘I don’t need to speak to you, you know.’ The voice was growing irritated. ‘I can put the phone down right now.’
Fox waited for Hendryson to draw breath. When he did, Fox uttered a name and waited again.
‘What?’ Hendryson said, bemused by the switch.
‘Gavin Willis,’ Fox repeated. ‘I was wondering what you could tell me about him. Nothing to be afraid of – he’s been dead for years.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Simple curiosity. Alan Carter is dead, and the two of them seem to have been very close.’
‘What has any of that got to do with the Complaints?’
‘It’s a fair question, sir. Paul Carter’s looking a likely candidate for his uncle’s murder. I happen to be in a minority – I don’t think he did it. So I’m trying to build up a picture of Alan Carter’s life, hoping it might help me understand why he died.’
Hendryson spent some time mulling this over. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I can see that. The thing is, I barely knew the man, and never as a serving officer.’
‘How, then?’
‘There were get-togethers sometimes – reunions, I suppose you’d say, though it might just be a few drinks one night after work.’
‘What was he like?’
‘A big, no-nonsense guy – the sort of cop we used to treasure. Knew everyone in the town, and if something happened he’d have a pretty good instinct who was to blame. Graffiti on a wall or a stone through a window… more likely than not, justice would be dispensed on the spot.’
Fox thought of a phrase Alan Carter had used: the backlands, where things tend to get fixed on the quiet… ‘A slap around the ear?’ he guessed.
‘As and when needed – and no bleeding-heart liberals to cry foul. We’d be better off if that was still the
