The Complaints Read Free

Fiscal’s office, and Heaton, having been cautioned and interviewed, would go to trial.

    Glen Heaton - fifteen years on the force, eleven of them in CID. And for most of those eleven, he’d been bending the rules to his own advantage. But he’d stepped too far over the line, leaking information not only to his pals in the media but to the criminals themselves. And that had brought him once more to the attention of the Complaints.

    Complaints and Conduct, to give the office its full title. They were the cops who investigated other cops. They were the ‘Soft Shoe Brigade’, the ‘Rubber Heels’. Within Complaints and Conduct was another smaller grouping - the Professional Standards Unit. While Complaints and Conduct worked the meat-and-potatoes stuff - grievances about patrol cars parked in disabled bays or cop neighbours who played their music too loud - the PSU was sometimes referred to as the Dark Side. They sniffed out racism and corruption. They looked at bungs received and blind eyes turned. They were quiet and serious and determined, and had as much power as they needed in order to do the job. Fox and his team were PSU. Their office was on a different floor from Complaints and Conduct, and a quarter of the size. Heaton had been under surveillance for months, his home phone tapped, mobile phone records scrutinised, computer checked and checked again - all without his knowledge. He’d been tailed and photographed until Fox had known more about the man than his own wife did, right down to the lap-dancer he’d been dating and the son from a previous relationship.

    A lot of cops asked the Complaints the same question: how can you do it? How can you spit on your own kind? These were officers you’d worked with, or might work with in future. These were, it was often said, ‘the good guys’. But that was the problem right there - what did it mean to be ‘good’? Fox had puzzled over that one himself, staring into the mirror behind the bar as he nursed another soft drink.

    It’s us and them, Foxy . . . you need to cut corners sometimes or nothing ever gets done ... have you never done it yourself? Whiter than white, are you? The pure driven?

    Not the pure driven, no. Sometimes he felt swept along - swept into PSU without really wanting it. Swept into relationships ... and then out again not too long after. He’d opened his bedroom curtains this morning and stared at the snow, wondering about phoning in, saying he was stuck. But then a neighbour’s car had crawled past and the lie had melted away. He had come to work because that was what he did. He came to work and he investigated cops. Heaton was under suspension now, albeit on full pay. The paperwork had been passed along to the Procurator Fiscal.

    ‘That’s that, then?’ Fox’s other colleague was standing in front of the desk, hands bunched as usual in trouser pockets, easing back on his heels. Joe Naysmith, six months in, still keen. He was twenty-eight, which was young for the Complaints. Tony Kaye’s notion was that Naysmith saw the job as a quick route towards management. The youngster flicked his head, trying to do something about the floppy fringe he was always being teased about.

    ‘So far, so good,’ Malcolm Fox said. He’d pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and was blowing his nose.

    ‘Drinks on you tonight, then?’

    Over at his own desk, Tony Kaye had been listening. He leaned back in his chair, establishing eye contact with Fox.

    ‘Mind it’s nothing stronger than a milkshake for the wean. He’ll be after long trousers next.’

    Naysmith turned and lifted a hand from its pocket just long enough to give Kaye the finger. Kaye puckered his lips and went back to his reading.

    ‘You’re not in the bloody playground,’ a fresh voice growled from the doorway. Chief Inspector Bob McEwan was standing there. He sauntered in and grazed his knuckles against Naysmith’s forehead.

    ‘Haircut, young Joseph - what’ve I