Logan kept his mouth shut and did as he was told.
Fifteen minutes later he slouched along the corridor to the intensive care ward, following an overweight nurse with tree-trunk ankles.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said, ‘it’s not their fault, but still: if you’re going to move to a country, the least you can do is learn the bloody language.’ She took a right, following the coloured lines set into the linoleum. ‘Soon as they get a drink in them they forget how to speak English. Mind you, my husband’s the same, but he’s from Ellon, so what do you expect? … Here we are.’
She pointed to a private room at the end of the corridor. A uniformed PC sat by the door, reading a lurid gossip magazine with ‘CELEBRITY CELLULITE!’ plastered all over the cover.
‘Right,’ said the nurse, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a two-hour presentation on the importance of washing my hands to go to. God save us from bloody politicians…’
Logan watched her squeak and grumble away, then wandered over to the constable and peered over his shoulder at a photograph of a bikini-clad woman with lumpy thighs. ‘Who the hell is that?’
The constable shrugged. ‘No idea. Nice tits though.’
‘Finnie inside?’
‘Aye, looks like someone shat in his shoe.’
Logan harrumphed. ‘Need I remind you, Constable, that you’re talking about our superior officer?’
‘Doesn’t stop him being a sarcastic dickhead.’
Which was true.
Logan pushed the door open and stepped into a brightly lit hospital room. Lubomir Podwoiski was slumped in bed, his eyes covered with white gauze, a morphine drip hooked up to the back of his left hand. Finnie and a police interpreter had pulled up chairs on either side, the DCI sitting with his arms crossed as the female officer finished translating something into Polish.
After a long pause, Podwoiski mumbled a reply. The interpreter leaned in close, putting her ear an inch from the blind man’s lips. And then she frowned. ‘He says he can’t remember.’
Finnie tightened his mouth into a mean little line. ‘Ask – him – again.’
The interpreter sighed. ‘I’ve been asking him since—’
‘I said, ask him again.’
‘Fine. Whatever.’ She went back to speaking Polish.
The DCI looked up and saw Logan standing in the doorway. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Had to park miles away. Do you want me to—’
‘No. Go speak to the woman. Remember her? The one you somehow managed to put a bullet in? It might be nice to know why she was there and exactly what she saw.’
‘But—’
‘Today, Sergeant.’
‘Yes sir.’
She looked as if she was made of porcelain, her pale skin marred by livid purple bruises. But you could still tell she’d been pretty, before all this…
A rats’ nest of wires and tubes anchored her to a bank of machinery in the mixed high-dependency ward, just the gentle rise and fall of her chest – powered by the ventilator next to her bed – marring the stillness.
Logan flagged down a nurse and asked how the patient was getting on.
‘Not that good.’ The nurse checked the chart at the foot of the bed. ‘Bullet went through the colon and small intestine, nicked the bottom of her spleen… Didn’t stop till it hit her spine. They’re going to wait to see if she gets a bit stronger before they try removing it. She lost a lot of blood.’
‘Any idea who she is?’
‘Never regained consciousness.’ The nurse clipped the chart back on the bed. ‘All I can tell you is she’s in her early twenties. Other than that she’s a Jane Doe.’
‘Damn…’ Logan pointed at the plastic pitcher of water on the bedside cabinet. ‘Can I borrow one of the glasses?’
‘Why?’
‘Didn’t bring a fingerprint kit with me.’ Logan snapped on a pair of latex gloves, picked up a glass and wiped it clean with a corner of the bed-sheet. Then opened the woman’s right hand and rolled the glass carefully across the fingertips.
He stood there, staring at her wrist. It was circled with a thin line of purple bruises, about a centimetre wide. The left one was the same. ‘Bloody hell…’
Logan put the glass back where he’d got it. ‘Help me untuck the sheets. I want to check her ankles.’
‘Oh no you don’t. I’ll just have to make the bed again. I do have other patients to look after, you know.’
But Logan wasn’t listening, he was pulling the sheets out, exposing a pair of pale legs. The ankles had the same ring of bruises. ‘Has she had a rape test?’
‘What? No, why would we—’
‘The bruises round her wrists and ankles – she’s been tied up and beaten. Pretty girl like that, do you think they just stopped there?’
‘I’ll get a doctor.’
3
‘And what exactly did you think you were doing?’ DCI Finnie stood in the hospital corridor, scowling at Logan as the nurse drew the curtain around their mystery woman’s bed. ‘Did I miss a memo? Did you suddenly get promoted to Senior Investigating Officer on this case?’
‘I just thought it would save—’
Finnie poked Logan in the chest. ‘You run everything through me before you do it. Understand?’
‘But—’
‘Do you secretly yearn to spend every day from now till you retire giving road safety lectures to sticky little children? Is that it?’
‘No, sir. I just—’
‘I don’t know what kind of slapdash methods you’re used to, but when you work for me you will follow the chain of command, or so help me I’ll send you right back where I found you.’
‘But—’
‘After your performance last year, you’re lucky to still have a job, never mind be involved in a major enquiry. What, did you think the magic career pixies put you on the Oedipus case? Because they didn’t.’ Finnie poked him again. ‘You had experience with serial weirdoes and I thought, I actually thought you might take this opportunity to get your head out your backside and turn your train-wreck life around. Was I wrong? Are you the complete cock-up everyone says you are?’
Logan ground his teeth, took a deep breath, and said, ‘No, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘And?’
‘It won’t happen again?’
‘That’s not what I meant – when are they going to get the results back from the rape kit…’ He stopped and frowned at the evidence bag in Logan’s hand. ‘Is that a glass?’ Finnie grabbed the bag and held it up to the light. ‘Why have you got a glass?’
‘We don’t have an ID for the victim, and I didn’t have a fingerprint kit with me, so I thought—’
‘You see? That’s exactly the kind of nonsense I’m talking about. We have officers posted here twenty-four-seven, do you think they might – just – have a fingerprint kit? Hmm? Do you think?’ He stared at Logan for a beat. ‘Well, go get it then.’ He held out the evidence bag. ‘And take your Junior Detective Set with you.’
By the time the fingerprint results came back from the lab, it was nearly half past two and Logan was back at his desk in CID, crunching on an indigestion tablet. That’s what he got for microwaving vegetable curry for lunch. And now he had to go tell Finnie they still had no idea who the woman was. He’d love that.
Frog-faced git.
No wonder Logan had indigestion.
It took a while to track Finnie down, but he finally found the DCI in one of the small incident rooms – just big enough for two cluttered desks, three seats, and a strange eggy smell. He was sitting on the edge of a desk, deep in conversation with a gangly admin officer.
Logan settled back to wait.
Finnie didn’t even look round. ‘Did you want something, Sergeant, or are you just worried that wall’s going to fall down with out you leaning on it?’
‘We couldn’t find her prints in the database.’
‘And?
’
‘And nothing.’
‘Have you told the Media Office to make up “have you seen this woman” posters?’
‘Well … no.’
And at that, Finnie did turn round. ‘Why not? Use your initiative, for goodness sake.’
‘You told me not to do anything without clearing it through you first.’
‘What are you, twelve? You sound like my niece.’ The DCI held his hand out. ‘Photograph.’
Logan handed over the eight-by-ten glossy showing their Jane Doe lying in her hospital bed, complete with ventilation tube and drips. It wasn’t exactly the best head-and-shoulders shot in the world.
Finnie threw it back. ‘This is useless. Get it up to Photographic. Tell them to edit out all the tubes and lines, give her skin a bit of colour, lose the panda eyes… Make her look like a person someone might actually recognize.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Sometime today would be nice, Sergeant. You know, if you’re not too busy?’
The technician in the ‘BARNEY THE DINOSAUR FOR PRESIDENT’ T-shirt made some disparaging comments about the quality of the photograph, then said she’d see what she could do. No promises though.
Logan left her to it and headed back down to the CID office for a cup of tea and a bit of a skive. Not that he got any peace there – his in-box was overflowing with new directives, memos, reminders about getting paperwork completed on time, and right at the top – marked with a little red exclamation mark – yet another summons from Professional Standards. Apparently there were some discrepancies between his version of events and PC Guthrie’s – would he care to discuss them at half ten tomorrow morning?
No he wouldn’t. But he didn’t exactly have any choice, did he?
There was a little fridge in the corner of the CID office. Logan helped himself to the carton marked ‘DUNCAN’S MILK ~ HANDS OFF YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!’ and made himself a cup of tea, taking it back to his desk, where he sat staring out of the window: watching a pair of seagulls rip the windscreen wiper blades off a Porsche parked on the street below. Wishing he’d been able to dig up a couple of biscuits.
‘…the labs yet?’
‘Hmm?’ Logan swivelled his seat round till he was facing the newcomer – Detective Sergeant Pirie, back from the Sheriff Court, swaggered across the room.
‘I said, “do you have that photo back from the labs yet”?’
‘What’s with the smug face?’
‘Richard Banks got eight years. Bastard tried to plea-bargain it down, but the PF stuck him with the whole thing.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Photo?’
‘They’re still working on it.’
‘Rape kit?’
‘Same answer.’
‘Ah…’ Pirie ran a hand through his ginger, Brillo-Pad hair. ‘The boss isn’t going to like that.’
‘Really? That’ll make a change.’
‘Yes, well … email me everything you’ve got on our Jane Doe then you can go back to running about after that wrinkly disaster area Steel.’
Logan stared at him. ‘Do you really want a “whose DI is the biggest arsehole” competition?’
‘Fair point.’ Pirie settled onto the edge of Logan’s desk. ‘Finnie tells me you tried to take our victim’s prints with a water glass…’ His eyes roved across the piles of paperwork and then locked onto the plastic evidence bag with the glass in it. ‘And here it is! I thought he was just taking the piss.’ He picked up the bag and grinned. ‘What are you, Nancy Drew?’
‘Ha bloody ha.’ Logan snatched it back and stuffed it into his bottom drawer, burying it under a pile of Police Review magazines, then slammed the drawer shut.
‘I don’t get it: why’s he got it in for me? All he ever does is … moan.’
‘That’s easy,’ Pirie stood, turned, and sauntered out the door, ‘he doesn’t like you.’
The phone on Logan’s desk started ringing, cutting off his opinion on what DS Pirie could do with his foreskin and a cheese grater.
‘McRae?’
‘You still working for Frog-Face Finnie?’ DI Steel, sounding out of breath.
‘Not any more, Pirie’s taken over the—’
‘Then get your arse downstairs. We’ve got a riot on our hands!’
The Turf ‘n Track wasn’t the sort of place you’d put on a tourist map. Unless it was accompanied by a big sticker saying, ‘AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!’ It sat in a small row of four grubby shops in the heart of Sandilands, surrounded by suicidally depressed council flats. A pockmarked car park sulked in front of the little retail compound, complete with burnt-out litter bin, the vitrified plastic oozing out across the greying tarmac. There was a grocers on one side, the dusty corpse of a video store on the other – its windows boarded up with plywood – and a kebab shop on the end. Everything was covered in layer upon layer of graffiti, except for the Turf ‘n Track. Its blacked-out windows and green-and-yellow signage were pristine. Nobody messed with the McLeods. Not more than once, anyway.
The whole area had a rundown, neglected air to it, even the handful of kids clustered on the borders of the car park, watching the fight.
Logan screeched the pool car up onto the kerb and leapt out into the warm afternoon, shouting, ‘POLICE!’
No one paid the slightest bit of attention.
DI Steel hauled herself from the passenger seat and sparked up a cigarette, blowing out a long plume of smoke as she surveyed the scene. Six men were busy trying to beat the crap out of one other. ‘You recognize anyone?’ she asked.
They were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, all swinging punches and kicks with wild abandon. Someone would rush in, throw a fist at someone else, then retreat fast. Amateurs.
The inspector pointed at one of the combatants – an acne-riddled baboon with a bloody lip – as he took a swing at a fat bloke with a bowl haircut. ‘Him: Spotty. I’m sure I’ve done him for dealing.’
Logan tried again: ‘POLICE! BREAK IT UP!’
Someone managed to land a punch and a ragged cheer went up from the spectators.
‘I SAID BREAK IT UP!’
Steel laid a hand on Logan’s arm. ‘No’ really working, is it: the shouting?’
Logan took two steps towards the mass of flying fists and trainers. The inspector tightened her grip. ‘Don’t be an — idiot they might be a bunch of Jessies, but they’d tear you apart.’
‘We can’t just sit back and—’
‘Yes we can.’ Steel hoiked herself up onto the bonnet of the pool car, her shoes dangling a foot off the ground. ‘Come on: none of them’s got any weapons. Sit your backside down and enjoy the show. Uniform will be here soon enough with their Freudian truncheons and batter the lot of them.’ She flicked an inch of ash onto the tatty tarmac. ‘You eat that curry yet?’
‘Yeah… Had it for lunch.’
‘And?’
‘Tell Susan it was very nice. Bit spicy, but nice.’
‘You’re such a wimp. Next time I’ll get her to make you a nice girly korma.’
Another fist hit its target and this time DI Steel joined in the celebration, clapping her hands and shouting, ‘Jolly good! Well done that man! Now kick him in the goolies!’ She checked her watch. ‘Where the hell’s Uniform got to? Bunch of lazy—’
Right on cue a siren wailed in the distance, getting closer.
‘Ahoy, hoy,’ the inspector pointed across the car park at the front door of the Turf ‘n Track. A large man stood on the threshold, half in shadow: mid-thirties, face like a bowl of porridge, missing a chunk of one ear, huge shoulders, a lot of muscle just starting to turn into fat. ‘Looks like the guvnor’s in. Shall we go say hello, perchance to partake in a cup of tea and a garibaldi?’
‘You’ll be lucky. Last thing Simon McLeod offered me was a stiff kicking.’
‘Watch and learn…’ She wiggled her way down from the car bonnet, then sauntered around the punch-up, hands in her pocket
s, whistling a jolly tune, right up to the betting shop’s front door. ‘Afternoon, Simon, how they hanging?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Do I smell bacon?’
‘No, Chanel Number Five.’ Steel smiled sweetly. ‘Anyway, from the look of things, you smell pies.’ She stopped and poked him in the stomach. ‘Lots and lots of pies.’ She nodded back towards the brawl. ‘These your boyfriends then? Fighting over who gets to take you to the dance?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Lovely offer,’ she said, holding up her left hand with its sparkly wedding ring, ‘but my wife doesn’t like me playing with podgy gangsters.’
The first of the patrol cars appeared, slithering to a halt on the hot tarmac. Simon McLeod uncrossed his huge arms and took a couple of steps forward, shouting, ‘Get out of it, you stupid bastards: police are here!’
Spotty the Baboon turned someone’s nose from flesh and bone to blood and meat paste. The man sat down hard, and got a kick in the head for his trouble. But as soon as the first uniformed officer jumped out – extending her truncheon with a flick of the wrist – the fight started to break up.
The bright ones ran for it: Bowl Haircut and Hippy with a Limp made for the council housing estate. Tattooed Gimp sprinted back towards the roundabout. And Low-Budget Porn Star scarpered down the road, a uniformed officer chasing after him, shouting, ‘Come back here!’
Mr Meat Paste for a Nose lay on the ground, curled up in a ball with his arms protecting his head as Spotty the Baboon tried to kick him to death. The other officer from Alpha One Four waded in with her truncheon.
Logan watched Spotty fight back, before being battered into submission. Steel was right: Uniform could look after themselves.
He turned back to the doorway, expecting to see Simon McLeod still arguing with the inspector, but there was no sign of either of them. Right now McLeod was probably turning DI Steel into lesbian tartare. Logan swore, dug out his little canister of pepper-spray and hurried through the door.
Out of the sunshine and into the heart of darkness.
Blind Eye Page 2
