‘It was another police officer,’ he continued, ‘Paul Carter’s uncle. Are you calling him a liar too?’
‘He’s not a cop, he’s an ex-cop.’
‘What difference does it make?’
Michaelson offered a shrug and folded his arms.
‘Battery change,’ Naysmith broke in, switching off the camera. Michaelson stretched his back. Fox heard the clicking of vertebrae. Tony Kaye was on his feet, shaking each leg as if trying to get the circulation going.
‘Much longer?’ Michaelson asked.
‘That’s up to you,’ Fox told him.
‘Well we all still get paid at the end of the day, eh?’
‘Not in a rush to get back to your desk?’
‘Doesn’t really matter, does it? You tidy up one crime, another two or three are just around the corner.’
Fox saw that Joe Naysmith was going through the pockets of the equipment bag. Naysmith knew he was being watched, looked up, and had the good sense to look contrite.
‘The spare’s still charging,’ he said.
‘Where?’ Tony Kaye asked.
‘The office.’ Naysmith paused. ‘In Edinburgh.’
‘Meaning we’re done?’ Gary Michaelson’s eyes were on Malcolm Fox.
‘So it would seem,’ Fox answered, grudgingly. ‘For now…’
‘What a complete and utter waste of a day,’ said Tony Kaye, not for the first time. They had retraced their route back to Edinburgh, still mainly in the outside lane. This time, the bulk of the traffic was heading into Fife, the bottleneck on the Edinburgh side of the Forth Road Bridge. Their destination was Police HQ on Fettes Avenue. Chief Inspector Bob McEwan was still in the office. He pointed to the battery charger next to the kettle and mugs.
‘Wondered about that,’ he said.
‘Wonder no more,’ Fox replied.
The room wasn’t large, because Counter Corruption comprised a small team. Most Complaints officers worked in a larger office along the corridor where Professional Ethics and Standards handled the meat-and-potatoes workload. This year, McEwan seemed to be spending most of his time in meetings to do with restructuring the whole department.
‘Basically, writing myself out of a job,’ as he had put it himself. ‘Not that you should worry your pretty little heads…’
Kaye had thrown his coat over the back of his chair and was seated at his desk, while Naysmith busied himself switching the batteries in the charger.
‘Two interviews conducted,’ Fox told McEwan. ‘Both somewhat curtailed.’
‘I take it there was a bit of resistance.’
Fox gave a twitch of his mouth. ‘Tony thinks we’re talking to the wrong people anyway. I’m beginning to agree with him.’
‘Nobody’s expecting miracles, Malcolm. The Deputy Chief Constable phoned me earlier. It takes as long as it takes.’
‘Any longer than a week and I might run a hose from my car exhaust,’ Kaye muttered.
‘It takes as long as it takes,’ McEwan repeated for his benefit.
Eventually they settled down to review the recordings. Halfway through, McEwan checked his watch and said that he had to be elsewhere. Then Kaye received a text.
‘Urgent appointment with the wife and a bottle of wine,’ he explained, patting Fox’s shoulder. ‘Let me know how it turns out, eh?’
For the next five minutes, Fox could sense Naysmith fidgeting. It was gone five anyway, so he told his young colleague to bugger off.
‘You sure?’
Fox gestured towards the door, and soon he was alone in the office, thinking that maybe he should have praised Naysmith for his work behind the camera. Both picture and sound were sharp. There was a notepad on Fox’s lap, but it was blank apart from spirals, stars and other assorted doodles. He thought back to something Scholes had said, about the Complaints wanting to drag everyone else down with Paul Carter. Carter was history. What reason was there to suppose Scholes and the others would keep breaking the rules? Of course they’d look out for each other, stick up for each other, but maybe a lesson had been learned. Fox knew he could put the investigation into cruise control, could ask the questions, log the responses and come to no great conclusions. That might be the outcome anyway. So what was the point of busting a gut? This, he felt, was the subtext of the whole day, the thing Tony Kaye had been bursting to say. The three officers had been named and shamed in court. Now they were the subject of an internal inquiry. Did all that not comprise punishment enough?
In the Pancake Place, Kaye had mentioned Colin Balfour. The Complaints had put together just about enough of a case to see him drummed out of the force, but they’d stopped short of implicating two or three other officers who had attempted a cover-up. Those officers were still working; never a hint of trouble.
No complaints, as the saying went.
Fox used the remote to switch off the recording. All it proved was that they were doing what was expected of them. He very much doubted the bosses at Fife Constabulary HQ required further bad news; they just wanted to be able to say that the judge’s comments had not been ignored. Scholes, Haldane and Michaelson needed only to go on denying everything. And that meant Tony Kaye was right. It was the other CID officers they should be talking to – if they wanted to be thorough. And what about Carter’s uncle? Shouldn’t they also get his side of the story? Fox was intrigued about the man’s motive. His evidence in court had been brief but effective. The way he told it, his nephew had paid him a visit one afternoon after a few drinks. He’d been garrulous, talking about the ways in which policing had changed since his uncle’s day. Not so many corners could be cut, and there were fewer fringe benefits.
But there’s one perk I get that maybe you and my dad never did…
Fox was reminded that he hadn’t spoken to his own father in a couple of days. His sister and he took it in turns to visit. She was probably at the care home right now. The staff liked you to avoid mealtimes, and by mid-evening a lot of the ‘clients’ (as staff insisted on calling them) were being readied for bed. He walked over to the windows and stared out at the darkening city. Was Edinburgh ten times the size of Kirkcaldy? Bigger, surely. Back at his desk, he switched on his computer and sat down to do a search.
Just under an hour later, he was in his car and heading for his home in Oxgangs. There was a supermarket almost on his doorstep, and he stopped long enough to grab a microwave curry and a bottle of Appletiser, plus the evening paper. The story on the front page concerned a drug dealer who had just been found guilty and sent to jail. Fox knew the detective who had led the inquiry – he’d been the subject of a Complaints investigation two years back. Now he was smiling for the cameras, job done.
How come you hate cops so much? The question Scholes had asked. Time was, CID could cut corners and be sure of getting away with it. Fox’s task was to stop them doing that. Not for ever and a day – in a year or two he would be back in CID himself, rubbing shoulders with those he had scrutinised; trying to put drug dealers behind bars without bending the rules, fearful of the Complaints and coming to despise them. He had begun to wonder if he could do that – work with officers who knew his past; work what everyone regarded as ‘proper’ cases…
He stuffed the newspaper into the bottom of his basket, covered by his other purchases.
The bungalow was in darkness. He’d thought of buying one of those timers that brought a light on at dusk, but knew this was no real deterrent to housebreakers. He had little enough worth stealing: TV and computer, after which they’d be looking around in vain. A couple of homes near him had been broken into in the past month. He’d even had a police constable on his doorstep, asking if he’d seen or heard anything. Fox hadn’t bothered identifying himself as a fellow officer. He’d just shaken his head and the constable had nodded and headed elsewhere.