The Impossible Dead

38

When Fox got to Police HQ in Stirling, the media presence had not lessened, and armed officers still gave his warrant card a thorough inspection. He texted the Chief Constable’s mobile with a message: Tell Jackson I’m downstairs.

Ten minutes later, the Special Branch man was standing in front of him. Fox took his time getting up from the same seat he’d used on his previous visit.

‘What the hell do you want?’ Jackson snarled.

‘Charged them yet?’ Fox asked casually.

Jackson folded his arms and said nothing.

‘I had a good chat with the Chief Constable last night,’ Fox went on. ‘Sorry she felt the need to keep you out of it.’

Jackson exhaled noisily through his nostrils. His phone sounded and he checked the message on his screen. Fox waited until he had the man’s attention again, then started to speak.

‘Chris Fox – does the name mean anything to you?’

Jackson stared at him, then gave the slightest of nods. ‘Wondered when you’d get round to that,’ he muttered. ‘Come on…’

Fox was given a visitor’s pass by the same receptionist as the previous day. He followed Jackson along a corridor and down a flight of stairs. Another corridor, but this time with an armed officer checking IDs. Two interview rooms, facing one another across the corridor. Kevlar-vested officers standing guard outside both of them. Jackson pushed open one of the doors.

‘Take a look,’ he said.

Standing in the doorway, Fox saw that a man was seated at a table. He was handcuffed and refused to look up. Light-brown skin, thick wavy hair, dark rings under his eyes, the left eye swollen shut. Jackson closed the door again and stared at Fox.

‘Military and political targets first, then civilian – supermarkets, football fixtures, even hospitals. He didn’t care who got killed as long as we took notice.’

‘What’s your point?’ Fox asked.

‘My point is, there’s a real and current threat and we’d be foolish to dwell on the past.’ Jackson could tell that the guards were listening. He paced further down the corridor, past shirtsleeved detectives who nodded a greeting at him. There was a small empty office next to a further set of doors, and Jackson walked in, waiting for Fox to follow.

‘Close the door,’ he ordered. Fox did so, and the two men faced one another. ‘A real and current threat,’ the Special Branch man repeated quietly. ‘We do what is necessary to stop it becoming a reality.’

‘I was asking about Chris Fox.’

‘I thought that’s what this was all about. When I saw that surname in the vaults – had to be a connection.’

‘When we spoke at the cafeteria?’

‘I already knew,’ Jackson confirmed. ‘Made me wonder why you didn’t bring it up. I was beginning to think maybe you had something to hide.’

‘Such as?’

Jackson gave a shrug. ‘He’s a relative of some kind?’

‘Cousin. How come he’s in the Special Branch vaults?’

‘You don’t know?’ Jackson sounded genuinely surprised. Fox watched him calculate how much to say.

‘Strictly between us,’ Fox offered.

Jackson took a few moments more to make up his mind. ‘He was a shop steward – a radical shop steward. Liked nothing better than a violent picket or stirring things up. Card-carrying member of the Communist Party – plenty of them in Fife. But he switched to separatism. He was a good friend to Francis Vernal in the early years. The two of them hatched plans for marches and demos against visiting royals. It would only have taken one hothead with a gun…’ Jackson paused. ‘It was the same back then as it is now – a real and current threat…’

‘With Special Branch doing everything necessary to stop it becoming a reality?’

Jackson fixed Fox with a look. ‘We did not kill Chris Fox.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It was a motorbike accident, pure and simple. So if that’s what all this is about…’

‘It’s not.’

‘What, then?’

‘I don’t like the idea of people getting away with murder.’

‘We can agree on that, at least.’ Jackson paused. ‘What did the Chief Constable say to you last night?’

‘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.’

‘I was told you’d mention that.’

‘Kept in the boot, apparently.’

‘We didn’t open the boot.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘We didn’t know anything about any money.’

‘You’d been tailing Vernal. You must have seen him at DHC meetings – coming out to the car and disappearing back inside again?’

‘We never saw any money.’

‘Your mole didn’t mention it?’

The man paused again before answering. ‘I’ve told you what I know,’ he said.

‘Prove to me you were there.’

‘What?’

‘How am I supposed to know, otherwise?’

There was another long silence on the line. ‘The reason we hightailed it,’ the voice said eventually, ‘is that he started coming round. The first word out of his mouth was “Imogen”. We hadn’t been expecting that.’

‘You knew who Imogen was?’

‘She was his wife. He was obviously in a bit of pain, and she was the one he wanted to see. Not Alice – Imogen.’

‘But you just left him there – no thought of calling for help…’

‘We were called the Watcher Service, Fox. That’s what we did – and a phone call to a doctor wasn’t going to save him anyway, was it?’ Fox didn’t answer. ‘Are we done?’

‘Was someone called Hawkeye ever on your radar?’

‘He was a DHC member. Slippery little bastard.’

‘Slippery how?’

‘Few times the watchers tried a follow, he either did a Houdini act or else clocked them.’ The caller paused, then repeated his previous question: ‘We done?’

‘I don’t know how you can live with it,’ Fox commented.

‘We’re done,’ the voice stated. The line went dead. Fox found that he was leaning with his back against the corridor’s wall. He rested his head against its cool surface and stared at the framed print on the wall opposite. Then he looked up Alison Pears’s number and punched it in.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Wanted to thank you for getting Jackson to talk to me.’

‘It doesn’t seem to have stopped you pestering me.’

‘I’ve just had a call from one of the two agents who were tailing Vernal that night.’

‘Yes?’

‘I just wondered – I’m assuming you met them?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t know them?’

‘We never had any direct contact. They were spooks, I was a junior police officer. Is that all you needed to know?’

‘Well, since I’ve got you…’

‘Yes?’

‘Bit of a coincidence – I come to your house, and not long afterwards, someone breaks into mine.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Was anything taken?’

‘Laptop, memory stick, Professor Martin’s book…’

‘I see.’

‘Am I being paranoid?’

‘Who do you think did it?’

‘I’ve no idea. Have you maybe mentioned me to your handlers at Special Branch?’

‘Handlers? This isn’t John le Carre, Fox.’

‘You’ve not spoken to anyone?’

‘Believe it or not, I’ve had more important things on my plate.’

There was silence on the line for a moment, then she asked him how his father was doing.

‘Thanks, but that’s none of your business.’

Fox heard a doorbell and guessed Alison Pears was at home. ‘That’ll be my brother,’ she said by way of confirmation. ‘He’s here for an update. Do we end this conversation before I open the door to him?’

‘That’s up to you.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything else to say, is there? Hang on, though…’ He heard her unlock her door and tell the Justice Minister: ‘Him again; that makes twice today…’

The telephone changed hands. Fox listened as Andrew Watson began his tirade. Eight or nine words in, Fox ended the call and went back to his father’s bedside.