‘Nothing she wants you to know, or she’d have said.’
‘Her brother’s furious with you.’
‘I can live with that.’
Jackson stared down at his feet, as if studying his shoes. ‘He looks quite normal, doesn’t he?’
‘Who?’
Jackson gestured towards the corridor. ‘They always seem so ordinary. Just that bit more… driven.’
‘And what is it that drives them?’
Jackson could only shrug.
‘What happened to him?’ Fox asked. ‘The black eye, I mean.’
‘Punched himself in the face. That way, when the media eventually get their photo, it looks as if he’s been roughed up.’ Jackson looked at Fox again. ‘Don’t worry – local Complaints have been informed, statements taken.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘Your cousin Chris… we were keeping tabs on him, but nothing serious. We didn’t see him as the real threat.’
‘Who was the real threat? Vernal? Donald MacIver? Or the foot soldiers like Hawkeye?’
‘Who’s Hawkeye when he’s at home?’
‘You didn’t come across his name?’ Fox watched Jackson shake his head. ‘Maybe you need another trip to the vaults, then.’
‘Easier just to ask you.’
‘I’ve no idea who he is.’
‘Hardly matters,’ Jackson speculated. ‘Whatever threat there was, we dealt with it at the time.’
Fox glowered at him. ‘I want to speak to the men who were tailing Vernal that night.’
‘It’s not going to happen.’
‘It’ll have to – if you want me off your back.’
‘All they’d tell you is what I’ve already said – they had nothing to do with his death.’
‘I need to hear it from them.’
‘Why?’
‘I just do.’
Jackson seemed to consider this, before shaking his head slowly. ‘Not good enough, Inspector,’ he said, pulling open the door and indicating that it was time to leave.
‘My house was broken into,’ Fox informed him. ‘Reckon if someone goes into your precious vaults in a couple of decades’ time they’ll find mention of it?’
‘No shortage of criminals out there.’
‘At least we agree on that,’ Fox replied.
They walked back down the corridor, past the interview rooms and the guards.
‘I hope your father improves,’ Jackson said, while Fox handed his pass back at reception.
‘Thanks.’
Jackson held out his hand for Fox to shake. ‘We really are on the same side,’ he stressed. ‘Don’t forget that.’
‘When do you head back south?’
‘Next day or two. But you always know where to find me if you need me.’
‘To be honest,’ Fox said, ‘I’m hoping I never see you again.’
At eight that evening, Fox was seated by his father’s hospital bed. Jude had been persuaded to go home for a few hours’ sleep. Mitch was asleep too. Fox had stopped off at Lauder Lodge for some bits and pieces, and had ended up bringing the shoebox full of photographs with him. He had looked at every single one of them, wondering what sort of story they were trying to tell him. A twentieth-century family, not very different from any other. A roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Trips to the seaside and Christmas mornings. There was Malcolm, dressed in his favourite T-shirt, hair longer than his father liked, tearing the wrapping from a present. Jude, posing with her mother in a theatre auditorium. It would have been a musical: their mother had a passion for them. Father and son would always stay home to watch American cop shows on TV.
Burntisland again: Chris Fox, with Jude up on his shoulders. And one of him showing off his motorbike, a polishing rag in one hand. Radical… violent picket… stirrer… Fox would have liked to have known the man. If his father wasn’t sleeping, he’d maybe have tried asking a few questions. Mitch’s breathing was ragged. Every now and then he would seem to choke, coughing a few times without waking. His cheeks seemed sunken to Malcolm. The drip was still feeding him. Awake, he’d not been able to swallow food. Fox tried to ignore the catheter’s tubing as it snaked from beneath the sheets towards the bag hanging from the bed’s metal frame.
Proper detective work, that’s what I’m doing, he wanted to tell his father. For better or worse, that’s what I’m doing…
When his phone started to vibrate, he checked the screen. The caller’s identity was blocked. He stood up and answered, walking past the nurses’ station towards the corridor.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Malcolm Fox?’ The voice sounded distinctly irritated.
‘Yes.’
‘They told me I had to talk to you.’
‘Oh?’
There was the sound of a throat clearing. Fox got the feeling the caller was a man in his sixties.
‘I was there that night. They said you needed to hear about it.’
‘Francis Vernal?’ Fox stopped walking. ‘You were tailing him?’
‘Surveillance, yes.’
‘I need to call you back. Let me take down your number…’
‘I might be retired, but I’m not senile.’
‘A name, then.’
‘How about Colin? Or James? Or Fred?’
‘No names?’ Fox guessed.
‘No names,’ the voice confirmed. ‘I’ve been out of the service for a long time, and I certainly don’t owe them anything, so listen – you get to hear this once and once only.’ He paused, as if expecting Fox to respond in some way.
‘Okay,’ Fox obliged.
‘Vernal was driving like a maniac. He’d had more than a few drinks before setting out from Anstruther.’
‘He’d been there all weekend?’
‘With his lover,’ the voice confirmed. ‘If there’d been any traffic at all on that road, it could have been a lot worse. We heard the crash before we saw it. Straight into a tree he’d gone. Front end crumpled, and him with a few teeth missing in the driver’s seat.’
‘Unconscious?’
‘But breathing… pulse steady. If another car had stopped and seen us… well, we didn’t want that.’
‘But you hung around long enough to give the car the once-over.’
‘Too good a chance to miss.’
‘You didn’t take his money and cigarettes, though?’
‘We were asked about that at the time.’
‘Maybe your partner…?’
‘No.’
‘Any chance of him confirming that for himself?’
‘Died a year back. Natural causes, in case you’re wondering.’
‘Sorry to hear it. What do you think happened to Vernal’s cigarettes and his lucky fifty-pound note?’
‘No idea.’
‘And there wasn’t a gun in the car when you searched it?’
‘Plenty of places he could have hidden one.’
‘He’d also hidden thirty or forty thousand in cash.’
