Blind Eye

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘This man,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘is the only physical evidence we have. I know it sounds harsh, but we can’t afford to just throw that away. Now can you be a team player long enough to examine him, or do I have to get someone else out here?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, Doc, no buts. When he goes up to A&E they’ll destroy anything we might be able to use. And when he wakes up he’ll be too afraid to speak to us.’

  ‘This isn’t just unethical, it’s—’

  ‘It’s all we’ve got! Do you want this to keep happening? Is that what you want? Because until we get some real evidence it’s going to!’

  Lying on the ground at their feet, the latest victim twitched and moaned.

  Doc Fraser went quiet, face creased up in thought. ‘First you get one of the ambulance crew to give this man a painkiller and a sedative, otherwise I’m out of here and on the phone to Professional Standards. Understand?’

  Two minutes later a grim-faced paramedic pulled a needle from the victim’s arm and taped a wad of cotton over the injection site. ‘I don’t like this.’

  The pathologist grimaced. ‘Believe me, you’re not the only one.’ Then he handed a Dictaphone to Logan, snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and gently cupped the victim’s head, pulling it round. Then winced. ‘Oh dear God, that’s disgusting…’ The eyes were completely gone, nothing left but dark slits, surrounded by angry red tissue, curls of crispy black skin, and drying blood.

  ‘Come on, Doc,’ said Pirie, obviously trying to lighten the mood, and failing miserably, ‘you’ve seen worse than this.’

  ‘Not on a living human being…’ He took a deep breath and with both hands tried to pull the eye socket open. There was a crackling noise and some of the tissue crumbled into the hole. ‘Oh…’ He leaned in for a closer look.

  ‘I can smell an accelerant of some kind. Give me a cotton swab from my bag.’

  The paramedic did the honours and Fraser ran it around the socket, then dropped it in a small evidence vial. ‘We can test it in the lab, but it’s probably petrol or lighter fluid. He’s lucky…’

  ‘That’s lucky?’

  #x2018;The eyes are right next to the nasal passages and throat – all your major airways. Too much heat from the burning and they swell, close up. You’d suffocate.’ He ran a gloved-fingertip gently around the ragged hole. ‘There’s scarring to what’s left of the lower eyelid. Maybe a knife?’ He peered even closer. ‘Something with a hooked blade, no longer than your thumb. He’s right handed too. Give me a torch.’

  Click, and a bright LED light shone into the ravaged eye socket.

  ‘Chemical reaction with the tissue at the back of the orbit. Ragged end to the optic nerve, so it was probably torn, not cut.’ Doc Fraser sat back on his heels. ‘I’d say the eyes were gouged out of the head with a small hooked knife, cutting the muscles. Then the assailant takes the eye in the palm of his hand like this—’ he did a little mime, just to make sure everyone got the full picture ‘—with the optic nerve between the middle two fingers, and yanks like he’s trying to start a chainsaw.’

  Which was an image Logan really didn’t want at this time of the morning.

  ‘Then,’ said the pathologist, ‘once he’s done the left and the right, he pours accelerant into the empty sockets and sets fire to it.’ Fraser asked Logan to help him stand. ‘Take some photos then get this man to hospital.’ He turned and tottered from the room. ‘I’m done here.’

  Back at Force Headquarters, the IB technician took one look at the photo in Logan’s hand and made a small gagging sound. ‘You could’ve waited till I’d finished my sandwich!’ Today her T-shirt said, ‘I’VE SEEN YOUR MUM NAKED’. If that was true, Logan pitied her.

  He put the picture on the desk, next to a packet of smoky-bacon crisps. ‘Finnie wants it touched up so the victim looks like they would … before.’

  ‘Any idea what colour his eyes are?’

  ‘He didn’t have them on him at the time.’

  ‘Not asking for much, are you?’

  ‘And I need about a hundred appeal-for-information posters: Finnie wants them up all over Torry, see if we can get an ID.’

  ‘I’m not promising anything.’ She dropped the last of her sandwich in the bin. ‘And next time you’ve got a photo of some poor bugger’s gouged-up face, try waiting till after lunch.’

  Two hours and a stack of paperwork later, Logan knocked on DI Steel’s office door … waited a second … then walked in anyway. She was slumped across the desk, head on one side, cheek resting in a little puddle of fresh drool. Snoring gently. Very attractive.

  He sank down into one of the visitor chairs and went for a sneaky rummage through Steel’s in-tray. Mostly it was just expenses forms and witness statements, but right at the bottom was a memo from DCS Bain telling the senior officers that because DI Gray was resigning due to ill health, there was an opening for a new Detective Inspector. They were to think about suitable candidates.

  The inspector gave a little grunt and shifted in her sleep. Logan froze. Then put everything back the way he’d found it.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Ahem?’ No response. ‘Inspector?’ Still nothing. He leant forward and gave her shoulder a shake. ‘Wakey, wakey!’

  ‘Grnmmmmph?’ Steel opened a bloodshot eye, then peeled her face off the desk, leaving a string of dribble behind. ‘What time’s it?’

  ‘Back of two. We’ve got a shout: Polish grocery on Victoria Road’s been turned over.’

  She ran a hand over her face, pulling it all out of shape. ‘Urgh … I feel awful.’ She looked it too, but Logan was too polite to say anything.

  ‘I’ve got us a pool car and—’

  ‘Get stuffed, I’m no’ going anywhere. You do it. Take that useless sack of skin Rennie with you.’ She yawned, showing off a proper Scottish set of black metal fillings. ‘Think I might’ve still been drunk this morning.’

  ‘Finnie says he wants you to go. He’s—’

  Steel’s voice went up into a squeaky Monty-Python-esque impersonation: ‘“Finnie says, Finnie says”. Why don’t you just bloody marry him?’

  ‘Bit of fresh air might do you the world of good?’

  ‘Oh don’t be so—’

  ‘And if you’re not here, the Assistant Chief Constable can’t walk in and find you snoring face-down on your desk.’

  She dragged herself to her feet. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

  Logan rolled down the windows to minimize the acrid smell. DI Steel moaned and groaned in the passenger seat, clutching a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru from a petrol station. Where they’d had to make an emergency stop so she could be sick.

  ‘Must’ve been something I ate.’

  The Krakow General Store sat on Victoria Road, Torry, between a dry cleaners and an off-licence. Once upon a time it’d been a newsagents, but the days of top-shelf pornography and stale rowies were long gone. Now the place had been given a cheerful coat of bright-blue paint, the window filled with tempting foreign delicacies and posters of old buildings and winding streets.

  Inside was a different matter. Someone had given the place a serious going over: the stands were smashed; the shelves broken; and the display cabinet lay on its back in the middle of the floor, surrounded by broken eggs, dented tins, crushed packets and broken bottles. A chiller cabinet full of meat and cheese was the final resting place for the cash register and the contents of three huge plastic bottles of bleach.

  Logan surveyed the damage from the front door, while Steel stayed behind in the car to ‘make some important phone calls’. Which seemed to involve locking the doors, rolling the windows up, reclining the passenger seat as far back as it would go, pulling her jacket over her face, and lying very still.

  A middle-aged man stood beside the ruined display cabinet, mouth hanging open. He didn’t say anything, so Logan had to repeat himself.

  ‘Are you Mr Wojewódzki?’

  The man just kep
t staring at his devastated shop. ‘You have to come back later. We are … closed.’

  Logan pulled out his warrant card. ‘I’m a police officer, I’m here…’ He drifted to a halt, watching the sudden look of fear and suspicion that stampeded across the shopkeeper’s face. ‘It’s OK, I’m here to help. Can you tell me who did this?’

  A snort. ‘Animals. That is who did this. Animals.’ He dropped his eyes to the food-covered linoleum. ‘I do not know. I was not here. They must have broken in.’

  ‘Right…’ Logan picked his way between a bloody stain of smashed beetroot jars and what looked like carrot juice. ‘You didn’t call the police. We had to hear it from one of your customers. Any reason?’

  ‘What can I say when people do this? I work hard to build this business and look at it.’ He leaned back against the wall, running a hand through his close-cropped greying hair. ‘First it is papers: Aberdeen Examiner telling everyone that Polish shopkeepers refuse to serve local people. Pah. Is hard enough to make living without turning good money away.’ He kicked a carton of milk. ‘Small-minded people telling lies. I make everyone welcome. I want local people to buy my things, is why I come here in first place.’

  ‘So who ransacked your shop?’

  ‘Pffff,’ Wojewódzki threw his hands in the air, ‘what do you care? You Policja. Leave me alone, I have nothing here for you.’ He cleared away a small mound of tinned peas, then struggled with the fallen display cabinet.

  Logan took hold of the other side and heaved. It weighed a ton, but they managed to get the thing upright. ‘I meant what I said: all I want is to catch the people who did this.’

  That got him a grunt. Then Wojewódzki began gathering up the unbroken bottles.

  ‘Look, I know you’ve probably had some bad experiences with the police in Poland, but—’

  ‘I was landlord. Owned nine buildings in Kraków, very nice places. And then big shot from Warsaw comes to say he has business opportunity for me. He has cousin who works in the parliament; big land deal being done, lots of money to be made. So I sell my buildings and invest.’

  The shopkeeper picked up a jar of pickled peppers, turning it over in his hands. ‘Pfffffff, cracked.’ He dropped it to smash against the floor.

  ‘Two months go by and nothing happen: no building, no contract, no land. I ask him, where is my money? And he tells me there is no money, go back to Kraków. Like I am a small child. Of course I go to Policja, but the man’s cousin was big in Finance Ministry when Communists are in charge. Policja tell me to forget about my money. Is gone.’ He unfurled a black plastic bag and started filling it with crushed loaves of garlic and onion bread. ‘That is what Policja do. No one cares. Everyone corrupt.’

  ‘Got any more bin bags?’

  The shopkeeper shrugged and handed one over. ‘Sometimes I wonder why I come to Aberdeen. Everyone so tight with money, afraid to try new things. Six years I try…’

  They cleared up in silence for a while, picking up the shattered glass and sweeping up the breakfast cereal. Then they hauled the cash register out of the chiller cabinet. The drawer was lying open, and the contents were gone.

  He sighed. ‘You see? They break everything. They take everything. What can I do?’

  ‘You can tell me who did it.’

  ‘Four men, they come in here. Loud, shouting at each other, laughing. They throw bottles across shop, smash on the floor. Then they tell me I have to pay them for “damages”. That if I don’t, more things will get damaged.’ The shopkeeper stuck out his chest. ‘I tell them I am not afraid! And they show me knives.’ He looked away, sliding the cash register drawer shut again. ‘I tell them I already pay for shop to be safe…’

  ‘So they trashed the place.’

  ‘They say I have to pay them or I am never safe. Five hundred pounds every week.’

  Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘What did they look like?’

  Shrug. ‘Those tops with hoods. One have tattoo on his hand. Thin face, big nose? Fancy knife that folds up. Not sound Scottish.’

  ‘English?’ Logan pulled on his best Manchester accent, ‘Did dey sound a bit like dis, den?’

  Another shrug. ‘All English sound the same to me.’

  The shopkeeper produced a broom and pushed a chinking clump of broken glass across the linoleum. ‘Everything is violence these days. Everyone want money, but no one want to work for it.’

  Logan watched him sweeping up his broken merchandise, the pickle juice turning the spilled breakfast cereal into a brown vinegary mush. A red-top tabloid was pulled from the rack and thrown down to sop up the mess. The cover photo of a girl in an unfeasibly small bikini slowly disappeared into the saturated newsprint. Now they’d never find out what ‘PERKY POLISH PETRA’S PARTY PIECE’ was. It looked as if Zander Clark wasn’t the only one importing attractive women.

  There was a bottle of Polish brandy lying underneath a stack of soggy paperbacks. Logan pulled it out; it wasn’t even broken. ‘Ever heard of a company called Kostchey International Holdings?’

  The man froze. ‘No. Never.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes. Now you have to leave, I have lot of cleaning to do.’

  ‘But we were—’

  ‘Please, I am very busy.’

  Logan put the bottle back on the shelf. ‘OK… One last thing before I go.’ He unfolded three printouts from his pocket and held the first one up. It was the Oedipus victim they’d found that morning, the IB technician had done a pretty decent job painting in the eyes. ‘Do you know this man?’

  The shopkeeper took the printout, stared at it for a bit, then handed it back. ‘No.’

  ‘What about these two?’ Logan showed him the e-fits he’d put together with Rory Simpson of the men who’d blinded Simon McLeod.

  This time there was a flicker of recognition in the shopkeeper’s eyes. ‘This one,’ he said, pointing at the old man’s picture, ‘I know him!’

  Ha – Finnie would have to put him up for that DI’s job now. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Is Clint Eastwood.’

  Logan turned the sheet around and stared at the face. The shopkeeper was right – it was Clint Bloody Eastwood.

  If Logan ever got his hands on Rory Simpson, he was going to throttle him.

  22

  The pool car smelled horrible. Booze, bad breath, and BO, all underpinned by the eye-nipping odour of old vomit. Steel was snoring away beneath her makeshift blanket, the sleeves dangling down into the footwell.

  Logan slammed the car door, and she shot up in her seat, jacket still draped over her head. ‘Mmphhh? What? Eh?’

  ‘Bloody Rory Bloody Simpson! He lied about the e-fit.’

  Steel yawned, squinted, then ran a hand through the electrocuted mop on top of her head pretending to be hair. ‘Why does my mouth taste of sick?’

  ‘Clint Eastwood!’ Logan dragged the car key out of his pocket and rammed it into the ignition.

  ‘I’m thirsty…’

  ‘That’s what you get for drinking a whole bottle of whisky on your own.’

  ‘No I didn’t…’ She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her head. ‘Oh God, yes I did.’

  ‘There’s a big thing of Irn-Bru at your feet. I can’t believe that tosser Simpson lied to me!’

  ‘He’s a kiddie fiddler, not George Washington.’ There was the distinctive hissssss of the top being unscrewed from a plastic bottle of fizzy juice, and then the distinctive swearing of it going all over someone’s lap. ‘Aaaagh! Rotten bastarding … it’s everywhere!’

  ‘Well, hold it out the window.’

  ‘I’m all sticky!’

  Logan turned in his seat. ‘We have to find Rory. Make the lying little sod give us a proper description.’

  The inspector took a deep swig from the bottle, then belched.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Logan, ‘we should get onto Tayside and Edinburgh? If he’s not here, he’s got to be somewhere.’

/>   ‘Give it a rest, would you?’

  ‘He lied to us!’

  ‘And stop bloody shouting. Head hurts bad enough as it is.’

  ‘I’m just saying—’

  Steel clamped her hands over her ears and screamed, ‘SHUT UP! YOU’RE BREAKING MY HANGOVER!’

  Outside, on the pavement, a small group of locals was staring at the car.

  The inspector groaned, face creased up in pain. ‘Why’d you make me do that?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just… I’m tired of letting the bad guys get away, OK?’

  Steel squinted at him. ‘I’ll forgive you if you get us some paracetamol and a packet of fags.’ There was a pause. ‘And maybe a bacon buttie?’

  The sweeping granite tenements of Victoria Road sparkled in the sunshine, but that didn’t make much of a dent in Logan’s mood. Why did it always have to come down to running sodding errands for sodding DIs? Bloody Steel. Just because she got hammered last night, why did he have to play nursemaid?

  He got the paracetamol and a small pack of Lambert and Butler from a little corner shop that hadn’t been trashed by hoodies, and the bacon buttie from the Torry Fish Bar, just down the road. It’d probably bounce as soon as it hit Steel’s stomach, but Logan didn’t care, as long as she wasn’t sick in the car. And if she was, she could clean it up herself.

  Logan got himself a portion of chips: thick fingers of crisp, golden potato slathered in salt and vinegar, in a little polystyrene tray. He ate them as he wandered back to the car, taking the long way round. Hoping that if he took long enough, Steel’s bacon buttie would be cold.

  He strolled down Walker Road, took a left just before the primary school, up a small lane, and out onto Grampian Road.

  Maybe he could persuade Steel to put his name forward for that promotion? Ingratiate himself…

  Damn.

  Letting her bacon buttie go cold probably wasn’t such a good idea after all. He felt it through the carrier bag they’d given him at the chip shop. It wasn’t exactly hot, but it would still be edible.

  He stuffed the last couple of chips into his mouth, and hurried down Grampian Road back towards the car.