‘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.
‘The very man,’ a voice barked from behind him. He turned to see the Chief Constable, Jim Byars, striding towards him in almost military fashion, arms swinging. The Chief stopped a couple of inches from Fox’s face. ‘What in the name of the Holy Father is going on?’ he demanded.
‘Sir?’
‘How have you managed to get up Andrew Watson’s nose?’
‘I needed to discuss something with his sister.’
Byars glared at him. ‘I take it you mean Alison Pears, Chief Constable of Central Scotland Constabulary?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Who happens to be a personal friend of mine, and who is also currently leading the highest-profile inquiry of her career.’
‘So she probably doesn’t need me sticking my oar in?’ Fox nodded slowly. ‘Well, she answered my questions, so that’s that.’
‘What was it you were asking in the first place?’
‘Just a tenuous link to the death of Alan Carter.’
Byars rolled his eyes. ‘As tenuous as your connection to the whole bloody thing.’
‘Hard to disagree, sir,’ Fox conceded.
‘Well then…’
Fox removed the report from his pocket. ‘I’ve got our conclusions right here. Just need to check a few details before it goes to Fife Constabulary.’
‘And that’ll be the end of it?’
‘That’ll be the end of it,’ Fox stated.
‘I can put Andrew Watson’s mind at rest?’
‘Absolutely.’ Fox paused. ‘You can also remind him that his job title includes the word “Justice”.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ the Chief Constable was asking, as Fox began to walk away.
He drove to Jude’s house. She wasn’t answering her phone. He wondered if she’d maybe knocked herself out with some tablets or a few slugs of vodka. When he rang her doorbell, there was no response. He put his face to the living-room window but the place seemed deserted. He bent down at the letter box and yelled her name. Nothing. No sign of life at her neighbour’s house either, so he got back in his car and headed for the hospital. He was hitting the rush hour, and the traffic crawled. Then it took him a few minutes to find a bay in the car park. He entered the main concourse. The cafe and shop were doing good business – not just staff and visitors, but patients, too, identifiable by name tags on their wrists. Fox was gasping for a coffee, but took one look at the queue and kept walking.
As he’d suspected, Jude was seated by Mitch’s bedside.
‘Thought I was collecting you,’ he complained.
‘Woke up early.’ She was holding her father’s hand again.
‘He’s still not come round?’
She shook her head. There were three other beds in the ward, one of them vacant, elderly patients in the other two. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ she asked.
‘I’ve already been.’ He pulled the report from his pocket. ‘I was going to sit here and read this.’
‘Fine.’
Chairs were stacked against a nearby wall. He lifted one down and carried it to his father’s bedside. He didn’t know if it was a conscious decision on her part or not, but Jude’s chair was angled so that if he were to sit next to her, his own chair would be sticking out into the room, posing a possible obstacle to the staff. Instead of asking her to slide over a bit, he seated himself on the other side of the bed from her.
‘Have they given you a time for the scan?’
She shook her head again. She was stroking their father’s hair. There was grey stubble on his cheeks and chin, and a line of dried saliva at the side of his mouth. A nurse stopped to check the readout on the machine and enter the findings on a chart at the bottom of the bed. Fox asked her about the scan.
‘Hopefully before lunchtime,’ she told him. ‘He had a peaceful night.’ She smiled, as if to reassure him.
He’s not peaceful, Fox wanted to correct her, he’s comatose. But he just returned her smile and thanked her. As the nurse moved away, Fox saw that his sister was scowling at him.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Can’t you throw some weight around?’ she hissed.
‘What sort of weight?’
‘You’re a cop, aren’t you? Have a word with them – see if there’s any way of jumping the queue.’
‘They’re not the enemy, Jude.’
‘Not exactly putting themselves out either, though, are they?’
She had barely finished when two attendants arrived. The nurse brought them over to the bed.
‘CT scan,’ she announced.
‘Thank you,’ Fox said again.
‘Can we go with him?’ Jude asked, getting to her feet.
‘Best stay here,’ one attendant stated. ‘We’ll have him back in no time.’ The man had tattoos on his arms. He was broad-shouldered and sported a couple of scars on his face. He seemed to have placed Fox as a policeman, just as Fox would have bet money on the man having served time. Jude was reluctant to let go of her father’s hand. She leaned over him to plant a kiss on his forehead, then burst into tears.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ the nurse stressed. Then, to Fox: ‘Maybe take her for a cup of tea…?’
Jude didn’t want a cup of tea, but Fox managed to navigate her down the corridor towards the cafe. She pulled herself away and told him she was going outside for a cigarette.
‘Thought you’d stopped,’ he said.