Fox had been informed on his arrival that there was a bed ready for his father on a proper ward. Orderlies would be coming to wheel the bed along to its new berth.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said. He walked up behind Jude and rested a hand against her neck. Her skin was cool. She inhaled, twitched and jolted awake, giving a moan of complaint.
‘They’re putting him on a ward,’ Fox explained. ‘Nothing we can do till tomorrow. Let me give you a lift home.’
‘I can manage.’ Sleepily, she pushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘There’s buses and a taxi rank outside.’
‘Be a lot quicker if I did it.’ He paused. ‘Please, Jude.’
She focused on him, and saw something in his eyes. For whatever reason, he needed to do this for her. She was giving a little nod of acquiescence as the orderlies arrived for their patient.
The nurse made sure brother and sister had the ward details and a contact number. Fox thanked her and walked with Jude back along the corridor past the A and E desk. He didn’t recognise any of the people waiting. The doors swung open, Jude sucking in lungfuls of the cold night air.
‘Better?’ he asked her. She made a non-committal sound and followed him to his car.
They didn’t say much during the drive. Fox was thinking back to the house in Stirling, the Chief Constable and her politician brother. And the money man making sure everyone got what they needed.
Fox was wondering if he had got what he needed. It took him a moment to realise that Jude was crying. He assured her that everything would be fine.
‘What if it isn’t, though?’
Then it isn’t.
But he found himself saying ‘It will be’ instead.
He dropped her at her terraced house. She had a neighbour called Pettifer and Fox said she should knock on her door.
‘I’ll do it for you, if you like,’ he offered.
But Jude shook her head. ‘I’ll just go to bed,’ she countered. ‘Bit of a lie-down.’
Fox could only nod. ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow – we’ll go see him together.’
‘Don’t put yourself out on my account.’
‘Let’s not do this, Jude.’
She rubbed at her eyes. ‘What time, then?’
‘I’ll phone you.’
‘Something might come up,’ she warned him.
‘I won’t let it.’
‘Didn’t stop you tonight, did it?’ She studied his face, then gave a sigh. ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ She closed the passenger-side door and began walking up the path towards her house with its curtainless front window and unkempt garden. Fox remembered a promise he’d made three or four months back – I’ll help you tidy it; only take us a couple of hours. A couple of hours he had never quite found. Jude didn’t glance back over her shoulder towards the car, didn’t turn and wave. Once indoors, her lights went on but she didn’t come to the window. Fox put the car into gear and drove off.
Twenty minutes later, he was sitting outside another house – nicer, more modern. No front garden for Tony Kaye, just lots of lovely monoblock so he could park his Mondeo off-road. Fox had just ended the call. He watched shadows moving behind the living-room curtains. Then the curtains parted and Kaye gestured towards him. But Fox shook his head. The door opened and Kaye padded out in what looked like a pair of leather carpet-slippers. His shirt was untucked, open at the neck.
‘My place not good enough for you?’ he said, yanking open the passenger-side door and getting in.
‘Didn’t want to disturb you. How’s Hannah?’
‘She was fine till five minutes ago. Now she’s wondering what she’s done to offend you.’ Kaye peered towards the house, as if expecting to see his wife scowling at a window.
‘I’ve had a hell of a day and I need to dump it on someone,’ Fox confided.
‘Think you’ve had it hard? I spent about three hours on the phone to Cash, trying to persuade him to bring Tosh Garioch in for an interview.’
‘And?’
‘Tomorrow morning first thing.’ Kaye sounded proud of the achievement.
‘What about the report?’
‘On your desk. McEwan likes it well enough.’
‘Has it gone to Fife Constabulary?’
‘Not without your say-so, Foxy.’
‘Then I’ll look at it in the morning.’
Kaye nodded, then fixed his eyes on Fox. ‘Is it Evelyn Mills?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘Throwing herself at you, and you need my advice?’
‘I haven’t heard a cheep from her.’
‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’
‘Give it a rest, Tony.’
Kaye gave a low chuckle and patted Fox’s leg, then shifted a little in the passenger seat, the better to face his friend. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘small talk done and dusted – time for you to spit it out. And I want every single gory detail.’
So Fox gave him the lot.
Twelve
36
Fox’s alarm woke him at seven. His thinking: go to HQ, grab the report and take it to the hospital with him. He poured All-Bran into a bowl, then found that the inch of milk left in the carton had turned to yoghurt. He used cold water from the kitchen tap instead, and wrote out a shopping list while he ate. Driving to Fettes Avenue, he felt that his breakfast had formed a solid mass in his stomach. The canteen was just opening, so he took a coffee to the Complaints office and unlocked the door. As Kaye had promised, Fox’s copy of the report was waiting on his desk. Kaye had added a yellow Post-it note: ‘Affix gold star here’. Fox peeled it off and binned it. He couldn’t help flicking to the last page. The summary was four lines long and suggested that ‘concrete evidence’ against the three officers would be hard to find, leaving only ‘legitimate concerns about the level of competence and compliance’.
He smiled to himself, knowing that given a freer hand, Tony Kaye’s language would have been altogether more colourful. What the investigators were saying to the brass in Glenrothes was: there’s a problem, but it’s up to you if you want to pursue it.
And the best of British luck.
There were another twenty-three pages of text, but they could wait. Fox rolled the report into a tube he could fit in his jacket pocket. He looked around the office. Naysmith had left a note on Tony Kaye’s desk reminding him that he now owed the best part of a tenner in ‘Tea n Coffee Kitty’ arrears. Naysmith had broken the figure down like any accountant of repute, though Fox doubted it would do him much good. He checked his office phone for messages, but there weren’t any. No mail, either. Bob McEwan’s desk was strewn with reports and other paperwork. Fox knew that when it got too messy, it would be stuffed into one of the drawers.
When he left the office, he locked the door again after him. No one except the Complaints had access to the room – not even the cleaner. Once a week, Naysmith shredded the contents of the various waste-paper baskets and sent it off for recycling. Fox stared at the sign on the door: Professional Standards Unit. How professional was he being? By rights, he should be writing his own report – laying down everything he knew and suspected about the deaths of Alan Carter and Francis Vernal. The report could then go to CID: there’s a problem… up to you if you want to pursue it.
