The Complaints (17 page)

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Authors: Ian Rankin

BOOK: The Complaints
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‘Nothing else,’ Fox said in answer to Breck’s question. He ended the call and took a right turn at the next set of lights, pulling over to the kerb and stopping. He watched in his rearview as the Ka went straight ahead at the junction instead of following him. ‘Just because you’re paranoid, Malcolm,’ he muttered to himself, not bothering to complete the sentence.
There were plenty of signposts showing potential buyers the way to Salamander Point. A few blocks were already finished - curtains and blinds in some of the windows; plants sitting in pots on the corner balconies. But it was a huge site, and foundations were under way on a further four high-rise constructions. Large billboards attached to the fence around the site showed an approximation of the finished ‘city within the city by the sea’. There were capitalised buzz-words such as EASE and QUALITY and SPACE drifting into the blue-painted sky, below which the artist had depicted smiling people walking past a café, outside which other shiny people sat at tables with their espressos and cappuccinos. This was their LIFESTYLE, but the present reality was somewhat different. The occupants of Salamander Point were living in the middle of a building site that resembled, to Fox’s eye, a World War One battlefield, all mud and trench-digging, noise and diesel fumes. A corner of the site had been turned into an encampment for the workforce - ten or twelve Portakabins were stacked at double height, fronted by scaffolding and ladders. Men in high-visibility jackets and yellow hard hats scanned blueprints as they pointed with their fingers. Diggers were digging, cranes lowering pipes and slabs of concrete into place. The single extent of finished pavement led to the door of a temporary sales office. Behind the windows, Fox could see a young woman seated at her desk. She had no customers to deal with, and her phone didn’t seem to require answering. The glazed look on her face indicated to him that this had probably become her daily routine.
Nobody was buying.
In a moment, he would walk up the path and she would see him, and there would be a momentary lifting of her spirits, dashed when he introduced himself and asked to see the gaffer. But first he locked his car, leaving it by the kerb. A truck rumbled past, kicking up a mini dust storm. Fox held his hands over his eyes and mouth until everything had settled, then headed up the path. When his phone started ringing, he answered it.
‘Fox,’ he stated.
‘Anything you want to tell me, Malcolm?’ It was Breck’s voice.
‘How do you mean, Jamie?’
‘Take a look to your left, over by the Portakabins.’
With the phone still held to his ear, Fox turned his head, knowing what he would see. Breck was standing on the scaffolding. There was a hard hat on his head and another on the man standing next to him. Breck waved and spoke into his phone. A split second later, his words reached Fox.
‘Come on over, then . . .’
As he moved away, Fox caught sight of the saleswoman. She had risen from her desk, ready to greet him. He offered a shrug and a sheepish smile, and began picking his way across the treacherous terrain towards the site office. At the top of the ladder, Breck introduced him to Howard Bailey.
‘This is Mr Bailey’s show,’ Breck explained, stretching out an arm towards the expanse of the site. Then, turning to Bailey: ‘Could you give me a minute with my colleague?’
‘I should really fetch him a hard hat.’
‘He won’t be staying.’
Bailey nodded and headed for the door at the far end of the platform. Breck slid his hands into his pockets and stared at Fox.
‘Has that given you enough time to come up with a plausible story?’ he asked.
‘You know why I’m here - same reason you are.’
‘Not quite, Malcolm.
I’m
here because I’m part of the inquiry team. You, on the other hand, are here to stick your oar in.’
‘I was just hoping for a quiet word with Vince’s friend Ronnie.’
‘That’ll be Ronnie Hendry - Vince’s foreman. Mr Bailey was telling me the two of them were friends off-site as well as on.’
‘You’re going to speak to him?’
Breck nodded slowly. ‘And ask him the same questions you probably would.’ After a moment’s pause, Breck gave a sigh and looked down at his muddied shoes. ‘What if it had been Billy Giles waiting here instead of me? He’d have had you on report - not the sort of thing I’d imagine your boss would be thrilled with.’
‘My sister’s lost her partner. I’m just after a word with that partner’s best friend. Could be I want to discuss the funeral arrangements . . . ask Ronnie to be a pall-bearer.’
‘You really think Giles would fall for that?’
Fox shrugged. ‘I’m not really that worried about Billy Giles.’
‘You should be - and you know it.’
Fox turned and rested his hands against one of the scaffolding poles. The warehouses across the street were going to be redeveloped too, by the look of things. Their windows had been boarded up, and a small tree was doing its best to grow from the edge of the mossy roof. A car was driving past - a black Astra.
‘You’re not having me tailed by any chance?’ Fox asked Breck.
‘No.’
‘Could Billy Giles be doing it without you knowing?’
‘I doubt we’ve got men to spare. And why would he want you tailed?’
‘A black Vauxhall Astra? Green Ford Ka?’
Breck shook his head. ‘Odd thing, though . . .’
‘What?’
‘After I’d walked home last night, there was a van parked outside. Just after I got into bed, I heard it leave.’
‘So?’ Fox was still pretending to be taking in the view. His grip on the pole had tightened.
Breck had taken off his hard hat to rub a hand through his hair. ‘We’re all getting a bit twitchy,’ he decided. Below them, a man had come into sight. He was dressed for work, his spattered denims tucked into thick grey woollen socks and those socks emerging from steel-toed boots. He wore his hard hat cocked high on his head, and under his high-visibility jacket was a denim one, not unlike Breck’s from the previous night. Fox knew it had to be Ronnie Hendry. He turned to face Breck.
‘Let me sit in,’ he said.
Breck stared back at him. Hendry had reached the foot of the ladder and was starting to climb.
‘Please,’ Fox said.
‘You don’t say anything,’ Breck warned him. ‘Not one word. Has he met you before?’
Fox shook his head.
‘You’ve said it yourself,’ Breck went on, ‘he’ll see you at the funeral if not before. He’ll know then that he’s seen you somewhere . . .’ He rubbed a finger down his nose, obviously in a quandary. Then, as Hendry’s head appeared through the gap in the flooring, he uttered the one word Fox wanted to hear.
‘Okay.’
Fox stood back as Breck introduced himself to Ronnie Hendry and shook the man’s hand. Hendry had been wearing leather workmen’s gloves, but stuffed them into his pocket.
‘Mr Bailey’s letting us use this office here,’ Breck told Hendry, opening the door nearest them. ‘My colleague’s going to sit in.’ Breck was leading them inside, giving Hendry no time to study Malcolm Fox. It was a utilitarian space, just a desk with a plan lying on it, weighted down at all four corners with chunks of masonry. There were three folding chairs, a free-standing electric heater, and not much else. Hendry held his hands to the heater and rubbed some warmth back into them.
‘Not much of a job in this weather,’ Breck sympathised. Hendry gave a nod of agreement and removed his hard hat. His first name had been felt-penned across the back of it, and from what Fox could see of the gloves, they’d been name-tagged too. It was a building site, after all. Things would tend to go for a walk. Hendry’s hair was short-cropped and beginning to silver at the temples. He would be in his late thirties, Fox guessed. He was short and wiry - a physique not unlike Vince Faulkner’s. The face was lined and pitted, Hendry’s eyebrows black and bushy. He had now seated himself opposite Breck at the table, Fox opting to stay standing at the far end of the room, arms folded, making himself as inconspicuous as possible.
‘I wanted to ask you about Vince Faulkner,’ Breck told Hendry.
‘Hellish thing.’ The voice was gruffly local.
‘The two of you were friends.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You didn’t see him last Saturday?’
Hendry shook his head. ‘Got a text from him in the afternoon.’
‘Oh?’
‘Just a comment about the football half-times.’
‘You didn’t speak to him?’
‘No.’
‘Did you hear from him after that?’
Hendry shook his head again. ‘Next thing I knew, I was hearing he was dead.’
‘Must’ve come as a shock.’
‘Too true, pal.’ Hendry shifted in his chair.
‘The two of you worked together?’
‘Sometimes. Depends which gang you end up in. Vince was a solid worker, so I’d always pitch for him.’
‘Did he specialise in anything?’
‘He could lay bricks, mix the cement. He’d trained as a brickie, but he would turn his hand to pretty well anything you asked.’
‘He was English,’ Breck stated casually. ‘Was that ever a problem? ’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Did the guys ever give him stick?’
‘If they had, he’d’ve given them pelters.’
‘He was a bit hot-headed, then?’
‘I’m just saying he stood up for himself.’
‘Did you know he sometimes hit his partner?’
‘Jude?’ Hendry thought for a moment before answering. ‘Sandra tells me she’s got a broken arm.’
‘And that doesn’t exactly surprise you?’
‘The pair of them liked a good rammy. Oftentimes it was Jude who started it. She’d just keep having a go at him until he started to snap.’
‘I’ve known women like that.’ Breck was nodding his apparent agreement. ‘They seem to get a buzz out of it . . .’
Fox shifted his weight a little and bit down on his bottom lip.
He’s only doing his job
, he told himself,
getting the man to open up . . .
‘So you can imagine him getting into a fight on Saturday night?’ Breck was asking.
‘I suppose so.’
‘When he didn’t turn up for work Monday morning, what did you think?’
Another shrug. ‘I was up to my eyes. Didn’t really have time
to
think. Tried phoning him . . .’ He paused. ‘Or did I? I know I texted him for definite.’
Breck nodded. ‘We checked his phone. The text was there, but no one had read it. We took a look at all the messages he had stored. There were a fair few to and from you.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘And mention of the Oliver . . .’
‘It’s a casino. Just around the corner from here, actually. We sometimes took the wives there.’
‘He liked gambling?’
‘He didn’t like losing,’ Hendry said with a thin smile.
‘We think maybe he went there Saturday night. Would that have been like him - going there without you?’
‘If he’d had an argy-bargy with Jude . . . gone out drinking . . . Yeah, maybe.’
‘What about you, Mr Hendry - what did you get up to on Saturday?’
Hendry puffed out his cheeks and expelled a ball of air. ‘Long lie-in the morning, as per . . . shopping at the Gyle with Sandra, also as per . . . football results and an evening kick-off on Sky. I fetched an Indian . . .’ He paused again, remembering something. ‘Hang on, that’s right - Sandra was out with her sister and some mates. I ate enough curry for two and fell asleep in front of the telly.’
‘And Sunday?’
‘Not much different.’
‘So there’s no weekend overtime going on?’
‘Phase One there was, but nobody’s buying now we’re in Phase Two. I’d say we’re a fortnight away from lay-offs. Another fortnight after that, the whole site could be mothballed.’
‘Not so nice for the people who’re already living here.’
‘We reckon if they tried selling up, they’d get half to two thirds what they paid originally.’
‘So there are bargains to be had?’
‘If you’re interested, make Helena in sales an offer. She’ll probably throw in a lap-dance.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ Breck managed a smile.
‘Tell you what’s really worrying the bosses, though,’ Hendry went on. ‘They can’t see an end in sight. This whole development - council sold the land for almost six million. Lucky if it would fetch a third of that.’
‘Ouch,’ Breck sympathised.
‘Well, that’s one way of putting it. The guys reckon the only reason we’ll finish the next high-rise is so the developer can top himself by jumping from it.’
‘What’s the developer’s name?’ Breck asked.
‘Charlie Brogan - you going to put him on suicide watch?’

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