The Complaints by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page A

him.

    ‘If we charged him - just one time - it might put a stop to it. We’d make it a requirement he got some counselling.’

    ‘Oh, Vince would love that.’ She managed a smile; it wiped years from her face.

    ‘You’re my sister, Jude . . .’

    She looked at him, blinking, but not about to cry. ‘I know,’ she said. Then, indicating the cast on her arm: ‘Think I should still go see Dad?’

    ‘Maybe leave it.’

    ‘You won’t tell him?’

    He shook his head, then looked around the room again. ‘Want me to tidy up? Wash some dishes maybe?’

    ‘I’ll be fine.’

    ‘Has he said sorry?’

    She nodded, keeping eye contact. Fox didn’t know whether to believe her - and what did it matter anyway? He rose to his feet, towering over her, then leaned down to peck her on the cheek.

    ‘Why does someone else have to do it?’ he whispered into her ear.

    ‘Do what?’

    ‘Phone me,’ he answered.

    Outside, it was snowing again. He sat in his car, wondering if Vince Faulkner’s working day would be curtailed. Faulkner was from Enfield, just north of London. Supported Arsenal, and hadn’t a good word to say for football north of the border. This had been his opening gambit when the two men had been introduced. He hadn’t been keen on the move to Scotland - ‘but she keeps bending me bleedin’ ear’. He was hoping she’d get bored and want to head south again. She. Malcolm had seldom heard him use her name. She. Her indoors. The other half. The bird. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, wondering what to do for the best. Faulkner could be working on any one of three or four dozen projects around the city. The recession had probably put the brakes on the new flats in Granton, and he reckoned Quartermile was dormant, too. Caltongate wasn’t up and running yet, and the developer was in trouble, according to the local paper.

    ‘Wild goose chase,’ he said to himself. His phone vibrated, letting him know he had a text. It was from Tony Kaye.

    We r at Minters.

    It was gone four. McEwan had obviously clocked off for the day, giving the others no reason to loiter. Fox closed his phone and turned the key in the ignition. Minter’s was a New Town bar with Old Town prices, tucked away where only the cognoscenti could find it. Never easy to find a parking space, but he knew what Kaye would have done - stuck a great big POLICE placard on the inside of the windscreen. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t: depended on the mood of the warden. Fox tried to work out a way back into the city centre that would avoid the tram works at Haymarket, then gave up. Anyone who could solve that, they should give them the Nobel Prize. Before driving off, he looked to his right, but there was no sign of Jude at her living-room window, and still nobody visible in the homes on either side. If Vince Faulkner were to turn into the street right now, what would he do? He couldn’t remember the name of the character in The Godfather , the one who’d chased the brother-in-law and thumped him with a bin lid.

    Sonny? Sonny, wasn’t it? That’s what he’d like to think he would do. Bin lid connecting with face, and don’t you touch my sister!

    What he’d like to think he would do.

     
     
    Minter’s was quiet. But then it had been quiet for several years, the landlord first blaming the smoking ban and now muttering about the downturn. Maybe he had a point: plenty of banking types lived in the New Town, and they’d be wise to keep their heads down.

    ‘Other than bankers,’ Tony Kaye said, placing Fox’s glass of iced cola on the corner table, ‘who else can afford a house here?’

    Naysmith was drinking lager, Kaye Guinness. The landlord, sleeves rolled up, was intent on a TV quiz show. Two further customers had gone outside with their cigarettes. There was a woman seated in another corner with a friend. Kaye had taken her over a brandy and soda, then explained to Fox and Naysmith that she was a