Blind Eye

by Stuart MacBride

  Kylie’s sister spat. ‘Who do you think?’ She pointed back through the door towards the lounge. ‘Harry comes back from the hospital, like, about three in the morning, and he hits the booze. Starts going on about how he’s the man and Creepy’s going to pay. How no bastard pushes Harry Jordan around…’ She patted Kylie’s hand. ‘And this silly bitch starts laughing. Coz there he is, sitting in a wheelchair, telling us how nobody can push him around. And he grabs her hair, you know? So she can’t get away. And he starts punching and shouting about how it’s her fault Creepy’s round here the whole time… We tried to help her, we did, but he was… I’m sorry Kylie.’

  Kylie managed a smile. There were teeth missing. ‘I know, Tracey, I know.’

  Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘Right, here’s what we’ll do: I’ll call an ambulance. We can write up your statements while we wait.’

  ‘No! No way! No statements.’ Tracey was on her feet in an instant. ‘And no ambulance; Harry’ll go mad if he finds out. Can’t you just get someone to come and fix her up or something?’

  ‘You want him to get away with this?’

  ‘I won’t testify to nothing. You saw what he did to Kylie

  – I’m not stupid.’ ‘But—’ ‘Please.’ Kylie started to cry. ‘Please don’t tell anyone! It wasn’t Harry’s fault. I made him do it. I shouldn’t have laughed.’

  ‘Kylie, we have to—’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Fine.’ Logan dug a Grampian Police business card out of his wallet, flipped it over and wrote his mobile number on the back. ‘If you change your mind, give me a call.’

  Tracey followed him out of the room, all the way to the front door. ‘What about a doctor?’

  ‘There’s a GP who owes me a couple of favours. I’ll give her a call, see if she can swing past.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Logan stood in the doorway, looking down at the girl in the dirty nightie, with her needle-track arms and sunken cheeks. ‘You don’t have to live like this. We can get you and your sister into a rehabilitation programme, sheltered housing; off the drugs, off the streets, and away from bastards like Harry Jordan.’

  ‘Aye,’ she almost smiled, ‘and maybe me and Kylie’ll meet nice blokes, and get married, and we’ll have kids, and live next door to each other in Cults, and no one’ll give a toss we was hoors and drug addicts. Nice fucking dream.’

  Steel was slouched against the pool car, smoking in the sunshine. ‘Well,’ she said, as Logan climbed back in behind the steering wheel, ‘hope you used a condom. They looked a bit skanky to me.’

  ‘Why the hell do we bother?’ Logan started the car. ‘I’ve just spent the last ten minutes listening to an eighteen-year-old girl called Kylie lying to protect the pimp who battered the living hell out of her.’

  ‘What, Harry?’ Steel scowled back at the flat. ‘The little bastard…’

  Logan pulled away from the kerb, heading back towards the station. ‘She says it was definitely Colin McLeod who hammered Harry’s knees; she watched him do it.’

  ‘Good. Serves him right.’

  ‘What do you want to do now?’

  Steel puffed out her cheeks. ‘Go to the pub and drink myself into a happy haze. But I suppose we should report in to our great lord and master, Finnie the Unwashable.’ She dug out her phone and did just that, flicking two fingers in the general direction of Force Headquarters whenever the DCI was speaking. And then she hung up and added a long, wet raspberry. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Frog-Face is un impressed with our lack of progress.’ She dug about in her trouser pocket, coming out with a handful of loose change and a couple of crumpled notes. ‘How much do I owe the swear box?’

  ‘Four pound fifty.’

  ‘Let’s make it an even fiver. Finnie is a complete and utter, total WANKER!’ And then Steel handed over a five pound note that looked as if it’d been lining the bottom of a birdcage for a month. ‘He wants us to rush straight back to the station. So we’re going in the opposite direction: Turf ‘n Track, Laz, and don’t spare the horses.’

  The betting shop was alive with the sound of greyhounds. They pelted round on the two wall-mounted television screens, all teeth and tongues and flying legs. A pair of baggy old men sat watching the race, passing a half-bottle of Bells whisky back and forth.

  Mrs McLeod sparkled away behind the counter – dripping with jewellery – face buried in a copy of the Racing Post. She looked up as the door bleeped, her face souring as she recognized Logan and DI Steel. ‘What the hell do you Muppets want?’

  Steel slapped her wallet on the counter. ‘Fifteen quid on Mary Hinge: three thirty at Chepstow.’

  ‘Why aren’t you out there catching the bastard who blinded my Simon?’

  The inspector slumped onto one of the cracked-leatherette barstools in front of the televisions. ‘Where’s Colin?’

  ‘None of your damn business.’

  ‘Come on, Agnes, you and I both know he should be here, looking after his dear old mum in her dotage, not out gallivanting with a claw hammer.’

  ‘Who the hell are you calling “in her dotage”?’

  ‘Leaving you here to run the shop while he’s off cracking people’s kneecaps, it’s not right is it?’

  Mrs McLeod threw her Racing Post across the counter. It smacked into Steel’s chest and fell apart, riders and runners fluttering to the sticky linoleum. ‘Get out.’

  The inspector didn’t budge. ‘When he comes back, I want you to tell him it’s over. This stops now. I don’t care if he’s only battering drug-dealing scumbags, I want him to hang up his hammer.’

  ‘My Colin’s a good—’

  ‘Oh, give it a rest, Agnes. We’ve just spoken to one of the guys he crippled: Harry Jordan’s prepared to finger him.’ Wink. ‘And I don’t mean in a sexual way.’ She stood and shambled her way to the door. ‘No more kneecaps, Agnes. Understand?’

  Mrs McLeod glowered, her pinched face almost white in the artificial light, golden earrings glinting, mouth a hard red line. ‘Get the fuck out my shop!’

  14

  Archibald Simpson was packed with off-duty police officers. Quarter past five and nearly the entire day-shift was in there, getting themselves outside the first pint of the evening. Logan pushed his way through the throng to the bar, flashed his warrant card and got a free pint of Stella from the Polish barman.

  The hubbub rose, and then someone shouted, ‘As you know…’ Then tried again: ‘SHUT UP!’ Silence settled into the crowded bar. ‘That’s better.’

  Logan couldn’t see who was speaking, but it sounded like Detective Chief Superintendent Bain, the baldy head of CID.

  ‘As you know, we had a great result today, thanks to DI McPherson—’

  Everyone cheered.

  ‘—excellent job. He and his team have dealt a significant blow in the fight against gang violence in Aberdeen.’ Bain raised his glass. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, and Custody Assistants, a toast: DI McPherson, and his team.’

  And they all drank to his health, honour, and the large stash of weapons he’d stumbled upon hidden in a caravan in Stoneywood.

  ‘Right,’ said, DCS Bain, before the noise could start again, ‘there’s three hundred quid left behind the bar. First come, first served!’

  Logan sat at their usual table, under the television in the little alcove off the main bar, watching DC Rennie weaving his way through the crowds with a tray of drinks and crisps.

  The constable sank into his seat and everyone helped themselves: pint of Stella for Logan, pint of Export for DS Beattie, pint of ice and a bottle of cider for Gary from fingerprints, and a lager for himself. ‘Tell you,’ said Rennie, popping open a packet of prawn cocktail, ‘it was funny as hell. McPherson’s just done this big motivational speech thing – all duty and public trust and stuff – then he turns to walk back to the car, slips, and goes arse over tit all the way down the hill! Right through a dozen gorse bushes and a pile of dog turds big as your
house.’ Rennie took a mouthful of lager, chasing it with a handful of crisps, crunching round the words. ‘So he’s lying there, spread-eagled, covered in scratches and jobbies, groaning away to himself, and we’re all up at the top of the hill trying not to piss ourselves laughing.’

  More lager disappeared. ‘So I go down there to help him up and what do I see, but this manky looking caravan hidden away in the trees and bushes. “Oh-ho,” I thinks, “this looks a bit fishy.” And when we pop it open, guess what: it’s full of bloody Kalashnikovs!’

  Logan still couldn’t believe it. ‘So you’re saying this was all down to you?’

  Rennie posed, one hand on his chest, the other flopping about in the air. ‘I am a detecting machine!’

  DS Beattie scratched a hand through his beard, sending a dusting of dandruff fluttering down the front of his shirt. ‘Is it just me, or is Aberdeen getting bloody scary? What do they need machine guns for?’

  The constable snapped his fingers. ‘Maybe it’s Al-Qaeda? Eh? Maybe I just foiled some huge terrorist plot.’

  ‘In Stoneywood?’ Another little snowfall drifted from his chin.

  ‘You want to know what I think?’ said Rennie, scooting forward in his seat, ‘I think—’

  A voice cut him off. ‘What happened to all the free drink?’ Samantha, the IB’s pet Goth, stood with a frown and a noxious looking pint of something dark purple. ‘Had to pay for this myself!’ She grabbed the only free chair and helped herself to Rennie’s crisps.

  The constable snatched the packet away. ‘Your own fault for being late.’

  ‘It’s you greedy bastards in CID more like. First sniff of free booze and you drop everything.’

  ‘I’ll drop everything for you, Sam, especially trousers.’ Rennie gave her what was probably meant to be a suave smile. ‘Go on, show us your tattoos.’

  Two hours later they’d vacated Archie’s for the Pizza Express on Union Street. By which time Rennie was making even less sense than usual, and Beattie looked as if he’d emptied a carton of desiccated coconut all down his front.

  Logan topped Samantha’s glass up with the last of the wine, then ordered another bottle. ‘Did it turn out OK? The tattoo Twit-Boy tried to ruin?’

  She smiled and rolled up the sleeve of her skull-and-crossbones T-shirt. It was a life-sized handprint in black ink, made up of little tribal squiggles, the skin still slightly red and inflamed around the design. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘That must have hurt.’

  ‘Not as much as this one.’ She turned her back on him and pulled open the neck of her T-shirt. ‘It’s OK, you’re allowed to look.’

  Logan peered down inside – it was a Chinese dragon and it covered pretty much everything, the bright colours only broken by the black of her bra strap. ‘Wow.’

  Samantha grinned at him. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’

  They giggled their way into the flat and tumbled through to the bedroom. Kissing and groping and stumbling over a cardboard box in the gloom. Logan flicked on the bedside light. ‘I want you to know,’ he said, trying to sound serious, ‘that I don’t usually do this…’ He frowned. ‘Come to think of it, I’ve not done it for…’ Counting backwards on his fingers – June, May, April, March… ‘Nine months!’

  Sam whistled. ‘Nine months? Hope you can still remember where everything goes. I better get you started.’ She pulled her T-shirt up over her head, exposing even more tattoos. A pair of skeletons stretched a banner across her chest above the bra-line with, ‘QUOTH THE RAVEN, “NEVERMORE”’ on it, and a spiky tribal thing poked out from the waistband of her black leather trousers, as if a really big spider was trying to escape from her pants. Both arms had a collection of skulls and hearts and swirly things.

  She looked him up and down. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, get your kit off.’

  As Logan fumbled his way out of his shirt, Sam stripped off her stripy socks and black leather trousers, until she was kneeling on the bed in nothing but her underwear. Which was a lot more impressive than Logan’s slightly baggy pair of blue Marks & Spencer briefs.

  ‘Oh very sexy!’

  He shrugged. ‘Didn’t think anyone would see them.’

  The spidery tribal tattoo reached all the way down to her left knee, thick spikes of black ink forever ingrained into her skin. It was disturbing and strangely erotic at the same time. She unhooked her bra, lay back on the bed and said, ‘Well, don’t just stand there…’

  He didn’t need to be told twice.

  They lay side by side, catching their breath. Samantha ran a finger across Logan’s stomach – the little worms of scar tissue shining in the soft glow of the bedside light. ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘No, you were very gentle with me.’

  She hit him. ‘Getting stabbed, you idiot. Did it hurt?’

  ‘The first six or seven times are the worst. After that they all kind of blend into one another.’

  She counted her way across his stomach. ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘Think I chipped a tooth on your nipple ring.’

  ‘Is it true you died on the operating table?’

  Logan slid out of bed. Changing the subject hadn’t worked, but leaving the room would. ‘I’m going to get a glass of water, you want one?’

  She smiled. ‘Man of mystery, eh? I’ll have a Coke. And then you can get your sexy scarred arse back in bed. I’ve still got two condoms left.’

  15

  Torry sat just south of the River Dee, its whorl of old granite tenements and concrete council housing making a three-quarter-mile-long fingerprint in shades of grey. The scene was a two-bedroom flat halfway along Victoria Road, with views out across the fish factories and storage sheds to the harbour. Sun sparkled off the mud and fuel storage tanks in the middle distance, a collection of huge, neon-orange supply boats lolling in the blue-grey water beyond. It was almost pretty.

  A pair of white gulls circled in the clear blue sky, squawking obscenities at each other.

  FLASH – and the small bedroom lit up. Green patterned wallpaper. Brown carpet. Double bed. MFI wardrobe. Dead body.

  FLASH.

  Three figures in breathing masks and white SOC coveralls. A cloud of bluebottles frozen mid-flight.

  FLASH.

  ‘And one more for luck…’ The Identification Bureau photographer hunkered down for a close-up.

  FLASH.

  ‘Right, that’s me. You can shift the body if you like.’

  Logan shook his head. ‘Better leave it till Doc Fraser gets here.’

  ‘Okey-doke.’ The photographer dug in the pocket of his white paper oversuit, pulled out a business card and handed it to Logan. ‘Listen, if you know anyone getting married, I’m doing homers, OK? Wedding albums, family gatherings, that kind of thing.’

  Logan looked down at the body oozing out into the carpet and said he’d think about it.

  Luboslaw Frankowski lay on his front, head turned to face the open door. He was swollen: bloated with internal gasses fermented over the week and a half he’d lain there un disturbed. His skin was mottled purple and black with flecks of white mould. Crawling with fat, black flies.

  The whole room stank – the sickly sour-sweet odour of rotting meat.

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  Logan looked up to see DCI Finnie standing in the doorway, one hand clamped over his nose and mouth.

  ‘Morning, sir.’

  Finnie gagged. ‘Open a window!’

  Logan did as he was told, but it didn’t make any difference to the smell.

  The Chief Inspector stared down at the corpse. ‘Is it him?’

  ‘Far as we can tell.’ Logan pulled a photo from the folder he’d dumped on the bed earlier: Luboslaw Frankowski sitting up in a hospital bed, the bandages removed from his ravaged face. Not a pretty sight, but the way he looked now was a damn sight worse. ‘We’ll take fingerprints soon as Doc Fraser’s been.’

  ‘You taking my name i
n vain again?’

  The elderly pathologist was peering around the door frame. He was swamped by his SOC oversuit, the crinkly white paper covering everything except the tired circle of his face – large nose, lined cheeks, watery eyes. Eyebrows like elderly toothbrushes, their bristles pointing in random directions. ‘Come on then – everybody out, give a man some space to work.’

  They did as they were asked, Finnie grabbing the excuse to get away from the smell. But he was nice enough to tell Logan to stay behind and help.

  Doc Fraser levered himself slowly down beside the body. ‘Death been declared?’

  Logan nodded. ‘Any idea what killed him?’

  ‘Give us a chance. Only just got here.’ He ran his fingers over the body’s head. ‘No sign of blunt trauma, no blood on the clothes… Help us turn him over, eh?’

  Logan grabbed the man’s stained sweatshirt and heaved. The body came away from the carpet with a sticky sound and a fresh eruption of flies – buzzing into the air like a pall of smoke. Logan let go and the body flopped down on his back with a wet belch of escaping gas. ‘Ah … God’s sake!’

  Doc Fraser waved a hand in front of his face. ‘At least it wasn’t me this time.’ More prodding. And then the pathologist stood and snapped off his gloves. ‘Right, no obvious signs of external trauma—’

  ‘Except for the eyes.’

  ‘—but we’ll have to get him on the slab to tell for sure. Can’t rule out foul play yet, but as a wild guess,’ the Doc pointed at an empty litre bottle of supermarket whisky lying on the floor by the bed, ‘it was drink related.’

  ‘Oh…’ Logan stared at that bloated face again. ‘Any chance you could take a look at the eyes, you know, while you’re here?’

  ‘I’ve taken off my gloves.’

  ‘Quick look. Two minutes tops. We haven’t got a clue what he’s using to gouge their eyes out. Or burn them. We need to know what we’re looking for.’

  Doc Fraser furrowed his hairy eyebrows. ‘I’m not a detective or anything, but I would have thought the obvious answer would be to ask the victims who’re still alive.’

  ‘They won’t talk to us. Terrified of reprisals.’