The Impossible Dead

3

Kirkcaldy boasted a railway station, a football club, a museum and art gallery, and a college named after Adam Smith. There were streets of solid, prosperous-looking Victorian villas, some of which had been turned into offices and businesses. Further out were housing schemes, some of them so recent there were still plots waiting to be sold. A couple of parks, at least two high schools, and some 1960s high-rises. The dialect was not impenetrable, and shoppers stopped to talk to each other outside the bakeries and newsagents.

‘I’m nodding off here,’ Tony Kaye commented at one point. He was in his own car’s passenger seat, Joe Naysmith driving and Fox in the back. Lunch had comprised filled rolls and packets of crisps. Fox had called their boss in Edinburgh to make an initial report. The call had lasted no more than three minutes.

‘So?’ Kaye asked, turning in his seat to make eye contact with Fox.

‘I like it,’ Fox answered, staring at the passing scene.

‘Shall I tell you what I see, Foxy? I see people who should be at work this time of day. Scroungers and the walking wounded, coffin-dodgers, jakeys and ASBOs.’

Joe Naysmith had started humming the tune to ‘What a Wonderful World’.

‘Every car we’ve passed,’ Kaye went on, undeterred, ‘the driver’s either a drug dealer or he’s hot-wired it. The pavements need hosing down and so do half the kids. It tells you all you need to know about a place when the biggest shop seems to be called Rejects.’ He paused for effect. ‘And you’re telling me you like it?’

‘You’re seeing what you want to see, Tony, and then letting your imagination run riot.’

Kaye turned to Naysmith. ‘And as for you, you weren’t even born when that song came out, so you can shut it.’

‘My mum had the record. Well, the cassette anyway. Or maybe the CD.’

Kaye was looking at Fox again. ‘Can we please go back and ask our questions, get whatever answers they want to dump on us, and then vamoose the hell out of here?’

‘When did CDs start appearing? Naysmith asked.

Kaye punched him on the shoulder.

‘What’s that for?’

‘Cruelty to my gearbox. Have you ever even driven a car before?’

‘Okay,’ Fox said. ‘You win. Joe, take us back to the station.’

‘Left or right at the next junction?’

‘Enough’s enough,’ Tony Kaye said, making to open the glove box. ‘I’m plugging in the satnav.’

Detective Sergeant Gary Michaelson had grown up in Greenock but lived in Fife since the age of eighteen. He’d attended Adam Smith College, then done his police training at Tulliallan. He was three years younger than Ray Scholes, married, and had two daughters.

‘Schools here good?’ Fox had asked him.

‘Not bad.’

Michaelson was happy to talk about Fife and Greenock and family, but when the subject turned to Detective Constable Paul Carter, he offered as little as Scholes before him.

‘If I didn’t know better,’ Fox commented at one point, ‘I’d say you’d been put through your paces.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Coached in what not to say – coached by DI Scholes, maybe…’

‘Not true,’ Michaelson had insisted.

It was also untrue that he had altered or deleted notes he had taken during an interview conducted both at the home of Teresa Collins and in the very same interview room where they were now seated. Fox recited part of Teresa Collins’s testimony:

‘You can charge me with anything you like, Paul. Just don’t think you’re putting your hands on me again. She didn’t say that?’

‘No.’

‘Verdict suggests otherwise.’

‘Not much I can do about that.’

‘But there was a bit of personal history between Carter and Ms Collins. You can’t have been unaware of it.’

‘She says there was a history.’

‘Neighbours saw him coming and going.’

‘Half of them known to us, by the way.’

‘You’re saying they’re liars?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Doesn’t really matter what I think. How about the missing page from your notebook?’

‘Spilled coffee on it.’

‘Pages underneath seem fine.’

‘Not much I can do about that.’

‘So you keep saying…’

Throughout the interview, Fox knew better than to make eye contact with Tony Kaye. Kaye’s infrequent contributions to the questioning showed his growing irritation. They were getting nowhere and would almost certainly continue to get nowhere. Scholes, Michaelson and the allegedly flu-ridden Haldane had not only had plenty of time to choreograph their answers, they’d also already premiered the routine in the courtroom.

Teresa Collins was lying.

The other two complainants were chancers.

The judge had helped the prosecution at every available turn.

‘Thing is,’ Fox said, slowly and quietly, making sure he had Michaelson’s attention, ‘when your own force’s Professional Standards team looked into the allegations, they reckoned there might be something to them. And don’t forget: it wasn’t Ms Collins who started the whole process…’

He let that sink in for a moment. Michaelson’s focus remained fixed to a portion of the wall over Fox’s left shoulder. He was wiry and prematurely bald and his nose had been broken at some point in his life. Plus there was an inch-long scar running across his chin. Fox wondered if he’d done any amateur boxing.

‘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.

Going through the motions.

Six minutes, the curry took. Fox found a news channel on the TV and turned the sound up. The world seemed to be filled with war, famine and natural disasters. An earthquake here, a tornado there. A climate-change expert was being interviewed. He was warning that viewers needed to get used to these phenomena, to floods and droughts and heatwaves. The interviewer managed somehow to hand back to the studio with a smile. Maybe once he was off air, he would start running around pulling out clumps of his hair and screaming, but Fox doubted it. He pressed the interactive button on the remote and scanned the Scottish headlines. There was nothing new on the explosion outside Lockerbie; the Alert Status at Fettes had been MODERATE, same as at Kirkcaldy. Lockerbie: as if that benighted spot hadn’t seen enough in its history… Fox flipped to a sports channel and watched the darts as he ate the remainder of his meal.

He was just finishing when his phone started ringing. It was his sister Jude.

‘What’s up?’ he asked her. They took it in turns to call. It was his turn, not hers.

‘I’ve just been to see Dad.’ He heard her sniff back a tear.

‘Is he okay?’

‘He keeps forgetting things.’

‘I know.’

‘One of the carers told me he didn’t make it to the toilet in time this morning. They’ve put him in a pad.’

Fox closed his eyes.

‘And sometimes he forgets my name or what year it is.’

‘He has good days too, Jude.’

‘How would you know? Just because you pick up the bills doesn’t mean you can walk away!’

‘Who’s walking away?’

‘I never see you there.’

‘You know that’s not true. I visit when I can.’

‘Not nearly enough.’

‘We can’t all lead lives of leisure, Jude.’

‘You think I’m not looking for a job?’

Fox squeezed his eyes shut again: walked into that one, Malc. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘It’s exactly what you meant!’

‘Let’s not get into this, eh?’

There was silence on the line for a few moments. Jude sighed and began speaking again. ‘I took him a box of photographs today. Thought maybe the pair of us could go through them. But they just seemed to upset him. He kept saying, “They’re all dead. How can everyone be dead?”’

‘I’ll go see him, Jude. Don’t worry about it. Maybe the thing to do is phone ahead, and if the staff don’t think it’s worth a visit that day-’

‘That’s not what I’m saying!’ Her voice rose again. ‘You think I mind visiting him? He’s our dad.’

‘I know that. I was just…’ He paused, then asked the question he felt was expected of him. ‘Do you want me to come over?’

‘It’s not me you need to go see.’

‘You’re right.’

‘So you’ll do it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Even though you’re busy?’

‘Soon as I’m off the phone,’ Fox assured her.

‘And you’ll get back to me? Tell me what you think?’

‘I’m sure he’s fine, Jude.’

‘You want him to be – that way he’s not on your conscience.’

‘I’m putting the phone down now, Jude. I’m putting the phone down and heading out to see Dad…’