The Impossible Dead (3 page)

‘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 …’

4

The staff of Lauder Lodge, however, had other ideas.

It was past nine when Fox got there. He could hear a TV blaring in the lounge. Lots of people coming and going – looked like a shift changeover.

‘Your father’s in bed,’ Fox was told. ‘He’ll be asleep.’

‘Then I won’t wake him. I just want to see him for a minute.’

‘We try not to disturb clients once they’re in bed.’

‘Didn’t he used to stay up for the ten o’clock news?’

‘That was then.’

‘Is he on any new medication? Anything I don’t know about?’

The woman took a moment to weigh up whether an accusation was being made, then gave a resigned sigh. ‘Just a minute, you say?’ Fox nodded, and she nodded back. Anything for a quiet life …

Mitch Fox’s room was in a new annexe to the side of the original Victorian property. Fox walked past a room that had, until a couple of months back, been home to Mrs Sanderson. Mrs Sanderson and Fox’s father had become firm friends during their time in Lauder Lodge. Fox had helped Mitch attend her funeral, no more than a dozen people in the crematorium chapel. No one had come from her family, because no family had been traced. There was a new name next to the door of her old room: D. Nesbitt. Fox got the feeling that if he peeled away that sticker, there’d be another underneath bearing Mrs Sanderson’s name, and maybe another beneath that.

He didn’t bother knocking on his father’s door, just turned the handle and crept in. The curtains were closed and the light was off, but there was a good amount of illumination from the street lamp outside. Fox could make out his father’s form under the duvet. He had almost reached the bedside chair when a dry voice asked what time it was.

‘Twenty past,’ Fox told his father.

‘Twenty past what?’

‘Nine.’

‘So what brings you here, then?’ Mitch Fox turned on the lamp and started to sit up. His son moved forward to help him. ‘Has something happened?’

‘Jude was a bit worried.’ Fox saw that the shoebox full of old family photos was on the chair. He lifted it and sat down, resting it on his knees. His father’s hair, wispy, almost like a baby’s, had a yellowish tinge. His face was thinner than ever, the skin resembling parchment. But the eyes seemed clear and untroubled.

‘We both know your sister likes her little dramas. What’s she been telling you?’

‘Just that your memory’s not what it was.’

‘Whose is?’ Mitch nodded towards the shoebox. ‘Because I couldn’t tell her the exact spot where some photo was taken fifty-odd years ago?’

Fox opened the lid of the box and lifted out a handful of snaps. Some had writing on the back: names, dates, places. But there were question marks, too. Lots of question marks … and something that looked like a tear stain. Fox rubbed a finger across it, then turned the photo over. His mother dandled a child on either knee. She was seated on the edge of a rockery.

‘This one only goes back thirty years,’ Fox said, holding the photo up for his father to see. Mitch peered at it.

‘Blackpool maybe,’ he said. ‘You and Jude …’

‘And Mum.’

Mitch Fox nodded slowly. ‘Any water there?’ he asked. Fox looked, but there was no jug on the bedside cabinet. ‘Get me some, will you?’

Fox went into the adjoining bathroom. The jug was there, along with a plastic tumbler. He reckoned the staff didn’t want Mitchell Fox guzzling water at night, not if it meant trouble in the morning. The pack of incontinence pads sat in full view next to the sink. Fox filled jug and tumbler both and took them through.

‘Good lad,’ his father said. A few drops dribbled from his chin as he drank, but he needed no help placing the drained tumbler next to him by the bed. ‘You’ll tell Jude not to worry?’

‘Sure.’ Fox sat down again.

‘And you’ll manage to do it without falling out?’

‘I’ll try my best.’

‘Takes two to make an argument.’

‘You sure about that? I think Jude could have a pretty good go in an empty room.’

‘Maybe so, but you don’t always help.’

‘Is this you and me arguing now?’ Fox watched his father give a tired smile. ‘Want me to go so you can get back to sleep?’

‘I don’t sleep. I just lie here, waiting.’

Fox knew what the answer to his next question would be, so he didn’t ask it. Instead, he told his father that he’d just spent a fruitless day over in Fife.

‘You used to love it there,’ Mitch told him.

‘Where?’

‘Fife.’

‘When was I ever in Fife?’

‘My cousin Chris – we used to visit him.’

‘Where did he live?’

‘Burntisland. The beach, the outdoor pool, the links …’

‘How old was I?’

‘Chris died young. Take a look, he should be in there somewhere.’

Fox realised that his father meant the shoebox. So they lifted out the contents on to the bed. Some of the photos were loose, others in packets along with their negatives. A mixture of colour and black-and-white, including some wedding photos. (Fox ignored the ones of him and Elaine – their marriage hadn’t lasted long.) There were blurry snaps of holidays, Christmases, birthdays, works outings. Until eventually Mitch was handing a particular shot to him.

‘That’s Chris there. He’s got Jude on his shoulders. Big, tall, strapping chap.’

‘Would this be Burntisland then?’ Fox studied the photograph. Jude’s gap-toothed mouth was wide open. Hard to tell if it was laughter or terror at being so high off the ground. Chris was grinning for the camera. Fox tried to remember him, but failed.

‘Might be his back garden,’ Mitch Fox was saying.

‘How did he die?’

‘Motorbike, daft laddie. Look at them all.’ Mitch waved a hand across the strewn photographs. ‘Dead and buried and mostly forgotten.’

‘Some of us are still here, though,’ Fox said. ‘And that’s the way I like it.’

Mitch patted the back of his son’s hand.

‘Did I really love it in Fife?’

‘There was a park up near St Andrews. We went there one day. It had a train we all sat on. There might be a photo if we look hard enough. Lots of beaches, too – and a market in Kirkcaldy once a year …’

‘Kirkcaldy? That’s where I’ve just been. How come I don’t remember it?’

‘You won a goldfish there once. Poor thing was dead inside a day.’ Mitch fixed his son with a look. ‘You’ll put Jude’s mind at rest?’

Fox nodded, and his father patted his hand again before lying back against the pillows. Fox sat with him for another hour and a half, looking at photographs. He switched the lamp off just before he left.

5

‘This is a joke, right?’

‘It’s what’s on offer,’ the desk sergeant said. He looked every bit as pleased with this morning’s outcome as he had done the day before when informing them that none of their interviewees were available. ‘The door locks, and the key’s yours if you want it.’

‘It’s a storeroom,’ Joe Naysmith stated, switching on the light.

‘Forty-watt bulb,’ Tony Kaye said. ‘We might as well bring torches.’

Someone had placed three rickety-looking chairs in the centre of the small room, leaving no space for a desk of any kind. The shelves were filled with boxes – old cases identified by a code number and year – plus broken and superannuated office equipment.

‘Any chance of a word with Superintendent Pitkethly?’ Fox asked the sergeant.

‘She’s in Glenrothes.’

‘Now there’s a surprise.’

The sergeant was dangling the key from his finger.

‘It’s somewhere to park the gear, if nothing else,’ Naysmith reasoned.

Fox gave a loud exhalation through his nostrils and snatched the key from the sergeant.

While Naysmith brought the equipment bag in from the car, Fox and Kaye stayed in the corridor, eyeing the interior of the storeroom. The corridor was suddenly busy with uniforms and civilian staff, all passing through and stifling smirks.

‘No way I’m parking myself in there,’ Kaye said with a slow shake of the head. ‘I’d look like the bloody janitor.’

‘Joe’s right, though – it’s somewhere to store the gear between interviews.’

‘Any way we can speed the process, Malcolm?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You and me – we could take an interview each, be done in half the time. The only people we need on tape are Scholes, Haldane and Michaelson. The others are just chats, aren’t they?’

Fox nodded. ‘But there’s only one interview room.’

‘Not everyone we’re talking to is based at the station …’

Fox stared at Kaye. ‘You really
do
want this over and done with.’

‘Basic time management,’ Kaye said with a glint in his eye. ‘Better value for the hard-pressed taxpayer.’

‘So how do we split it?’ Fox folded his arms.

‘Got any favourites?’

‘I fancy a word with the uncle.’

Kaye considered this, then nodded slowly. ‘Take my car. I’ll try Cheryl Forrester.’

‘Fair enough. What do we do with Joe?’

They turned to watch as Joe Naysmith pushed open the door at the end of the corridor, the heavy black bag slung over one shoulder.

‘We toss a coin,’ Kaye said, holding out a fifty-pence piece. ‘Loser keeps him.’

A few minutes later, Malcolm Fox was heading out to Kaye’s Ford Mondeo, minus Naysmith. He adjusted the driver’s seat and reached into the glove box for the satnav, plugging it in and fixing it to the dashboard. Alan Carter’s postcode was in the file, and he found it after a bit of hunting. The satnav did a quick search before pointing him in the right direction. He soon found himself on the coast road, heading south towards a place called Kinghorn. Signposts told him the next town after this was Burntisland. He thought again of his father’s cousin Chris. Maybe the motorbike had crashed on this very stretch. It was the kind of drive he reckoned bikers would relish, winding gently and with the sea to one side, steep hillside to the other. Was that a seal’s head bobbing in the water? He slowed the car a little. The driver behind flashed his lights, then overtook with a blast of his horn.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Fox muttered, glancing at the satnav. His destination was close by. He passed a caravan site and signalled to take the next road on the right. It was a steep track, rutted and throwing up clouds of dust behind him. He knew he daren’t ding Kaye’s pride and joy, so ended up in first gear, doing five miles an hour. The climb continued. According to the satnav, he was nowhere, had passed his destination. Fox stopped the car and got out. He had a fine view down towards the shoreline, rows of caravans to his left and a hotel to his right. He looked at the address he had for Alan Carter: Gallowhill Cottage. The road was about to disappear into woodland. Something caught Fox’s eye: a wisp of smoke from above the treeline. He got back behind the steering wheel and eased the gear lever forward.

The cottage sat near the top of the rise, just as the track came to an end at a gate leading to fields. A few sheep were scattered around. Noiseless crows glided between the trees. The wind was biting, though the sun had broken from behind a bank of cloud.

Smoke continued to drift up from the cottage’s chimney. There was an olive-green Land Rover parked off to one side, next to a large, neat pile of split logs. The door of the cottage rattled open. The man who filled the doorway was almost a parody of the big, jolly policeman. Alan Carter’s face was ruddy, cheeks and nose criss-crossed with thin red veins. His eyes sparkled and his pale yellow cardigan was stretched to the limit of its buttons. The check shirt beneath was open at the collar, allowing copious grey chest hair to breathe. Though almost completely bald, he retained bushy sideburns, which almost met at one of his chins.

‘I knew I’d be getting a visit,’ Carter bellowed, one pudgy hand resting on the door frame. ‘Should’ve made an appointment, though. I seem to be busier these days than ever.’ Fox was standing in front of him now, and the two men shook hands.

‘You’re not in the Craft, then?’ Carter asked.

‘No.’

‘Time was, most coppers you met were Masons. In you come then, lad …’

The hallway was short and narrow, most of the space taken up with bookshelves, coat rack and a selection of wellington boots. The living room was small and sweltering, courtesy of a fire piled high with logs.

‘Need to keep it warm for Jimmy Nicholl,’ Carter said.

‘Who?’

‘The dog.’

An ancient-looking Border collie with rheumy eyes blinked in Fox’s direction from its basket near the fireplace.

‘Who’s he named for?’

‘The Raith manager. Not now, of course, but Jimmy took us into Europe.’ Carter broke off and gave Fox a look. ‘Not a football fan either?’

‘Used to be. My name’s Fox, by the way. Inspector Fox.’

‘Rubber-Sole Brigade – that what they still call you?’

‘That or the Complaints.’

‘And doubtless worse things too, behind your back.’

‘Or to our faces.’

‘Will it be a mug of tea or something stronger?’ Carter nodded towards a bottle of whisky on a shelf.

‘Tea’ll do the job.’

‘Bit early in the day for the “cratur”, maybe,’ Carter agreed. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

He headed for the kitchen. Fox could hear him pouring water into a kettle. His voice boomed down the hallway. ‘When I read Cardonald’s summing-up, I knew there’d have to be an inquiry. You’re not local, though. A local might’ve known the name Jimmy Nicholl. On top of which, your car’s from Edinburgh …’

Carter was back in the room now, looking pleased with himself.

‘The registration?’ Fox guessed.

‘The dealer’s sticker in the back window,’ Carter corrected him. ‘Take a seat, laddie.’ He gestured to one of the two armchairs. ‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Just milk. Are you still in security, Mr Carter?’

‘Is this you showing me you’ve done your research?’ Carter smiled. ‘The company’s still mine.’

‘What exactly does the company do?’

‘Doormen for bars and clubs … security guards … protection for visiting dignitaries.’

‘Do a lot of dignitaries pass through Kirkcaldy?’

‘They did when Gordon Brown was PM. And they still like to play golf at St Andrews.’

Carter left the room to fetch their drinks, and Fox crossed to the window. There was a dining table there, piled high with paperwork and magazines. The paperwork had been stuffed into folders. A map of Fife lay open, locations circled in black ink. The magazines seemed to date back to the 1980s, and when Fox lifted one of them he saw that there was a newspaper beneath it. The date on the newspaper was Monday, 29 April 1985.

‘You’ll have me pegged as a hoarder,’ Carter said, carrying a tray into the room. He placed it on a corner of the table and poured out tea for the both of them. Half a dozen shortbread fingers had been emptied on to a patterned plate.

‘And a bachelor?’ Fox guessed.

‘Your research has let you down. My wife ran off with somebody two decades back, and the same number of years younger than me at the time.’

‘Making her a cradle-snatcher.’

Carter wagged a finger. ‘I’m sixty-two. Jessica was forty and the wee shite-bag twenty-one.’

‘Nobody else since?’

‘Christ, man, is this a Complaints interview or a dating service? She’s dead anyway, God rest her. Had a kid with the shite-bag.’

‘But none with yourself?’ Carter gave a twitch of the mouth. ‘Does that rankle?’

‘Why should it? Maybe my son or daughter would have turned out as bad as my nephew.’

Carter gestured towards the chairs and the two men sat down with their drinks. There was a slight stinging sensation in Fox’s eyes, which he tried blinking away.

‘It’s the woodsmoke,’ Carter explained. ‘You can’t see it, but it’s there.’ He reached down and fed Jimmy Nicholl half a shortbread finger. ‘His teeth are just about up to it. Come to think of it, mine aren’t much better.’

‘You’ve been retired fifteen years?’

‘I’ve been out of the force that long.’

‘Your brother was a cop same time as you?’

‘A year shy of retirement when his heart gave out.’

‘Was that around the time your nephew joined the police?’

Alan Carter nodded. ‘Maybe it was
why
he joined up. He never seemed to have a gift for it. What’s the word I’m looking for?’

‘Vocation?’

‘Aye. That’s what Paul never had.’

‘You weren’t keen on him following the family tradition?’

Alan Carter was silent for a moment, then he leaned forward as best he could, resting the mug on one knee.

‘Paul was never a good son. He ran his mother ragged until the cancer took her. After that, it was his dad’s turn. At the funeral, all he seemed interested in was how much the house was worth, and how much effort it was going to take to get the place emptied.’

‘The two of you weren’t exactly friendly, then. Yet he came to see you …’

‘I think he’d been partying all night. It was just past noon. How he got the car up here without smashing it …’ Carter stared into the fire. ‘He wanted to do a bit of bragging. But he was maudlin, too – you know the way drink can sometimes take us.’

‘One of the reasons I don’t do it.’ Fox took a swig of tea. It was dark and strong, coating his tongue and the back of his throat.

‘He came here to show off. Said he was a better cop than any of us. He “owned” Kirkcaldy, and I needn’t go thinking
I
did, even if I could hide behind an army of bouncers.’

‘I get the feeling this is verbatim.’

‘Got to have a good memory. Whenever I was called to give evidence, I always knew it by heart – one way to impress a jury.’

‘So eventually he told you about Teresa Collins?’

‘Aye.’ Carter nodded to himself, still watching the fire spit and crackle. ‘Hers was the only name, but he said there’d been others. I thought the force had seen the back of his kind – maybe you’re not old enough to remember the way it was.’

‘Full of racists and sexists?’ Fox paused. ‘And Masons …’

Carter gave a quiet chuckle.

‘It still goes on,’ Fox continued. ‘Maybe not nearly as widespread as it was, but all the same.’

‘Your line of work, I suppose you see it more than most.’

Fox answered with a shrug and placed his empty mug on the floor, declining the offer of a refill. ‘The day he came here, did he mention the others: Scholes, Haldane, Michaelson?’

‘Only in passing.’

‘Nothing about them bending the rules?’

‘No.’

‘And you hadn’t heard rumours to that effect?’

‘I’d say you’ve got your work cut out there.’

‘Mmm.’ Fox sounded as if he were in complete agreement.

‘The force is going to want to move on.’

‘I’d think so.’ Fox shifted in his chair, hearing it creak beneath him. ‘Can I ask you something else about your nephew?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Well, it’s one thing to disapprove of what he said he did …’

‘But quite another to take it further?’ Carter pursed his lips. ‘I didn’t do anything about it … not straight away. But lying in bed at night, I’d be thinking of Tommy – Paul’s dad. A good man; a really good man. And Paul’s mum, too; such a lovely woman. I was wondering what they’d be thinking. Then there was Teresa Collins – I didn’t know her, but I didn’t like the way he’d talked about her. So I had a quiet word.’

‘And this quiet word was with …?’

‘Superintendent Hendryson. He’s not there any more. Retired, I seem to think.’

‘It’s a woman called Pitkethly nowadays.’

Carter nodded. ‘It was Hendryson who really started the ball rolling.’

‘Nothing happened, though, did it?’

‘Teresa Collins wouldn’t talk. Not at first. Without her, there was nothing for the Fife Complaints to investigate.’

‘Any idea why she changed her mind?’

‘Maybe she was tossing and turning, same as me.’

‘You’ve no friends left on the force, Mr Carter?’

‘All retired.’

‘Superintendent Hendryson?’

‘He was after my time, more or less.’

‘So you went to Hendryson. He brought in the local Complaints team. They didn’t get very far. But then these other two women came forward, and that’s when Teresa Collins decided she’d cooperate?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

Fox sat for a few moments longer. Alan Carter seemed in no rush to see him go, but he had nothing keeping him there, nothing but the warmth of the fire and companionable silence.

‘A long way from Edinburgh, isn’t it, Inspector?’ Carter said quietly. ‘These are the backlands, where things tend to get fixed on the quiet.’

‘You regret what’s happened to your nephew? All that media exposure?’

‘I doubt anything’s “happened” to him.’ Carter tapped the side of his head. ‘Not in here.’

‘He’s in jail, though. That’s tough on the family.’