Blind Eye

by Stuart MacBride

  If Gilchrist was angling for an insanity plea he was going the right way about it. Once given the opportunity to open up and tell his side of the story he disappeared into a fantasy world where he was some sort of dashing white knight and the Polish community were all bastards.

  Logan wouldn’t be surprised if he started chewing on the furniture soon.

  But in the end the reek of second-hand garlic was too much, and Logan abandoned the viewing suite for the corridor. He pulled out his Airwave handset, punched in DS Pirie’s badge number and listened to it ring.

  And then: ‘McRae? What, you called up to gloat?’

  ‘No I—’

  ‘We’d have got him sooner or later, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Krystka Gorzałkowska.’

  Pause. ‘What about her?’

  ‘I got them to do a rape kit when she was in hospital.’

  ‘So? That’s my case, remember? Finnie took you off it.’

  ‘Don’t be a dick: what was the result?’

  ‘Fine…’ The sound of far-off rummaging came from the earpiece. ‘Not that it’s any of your business: evidence of vaginal bruising … traces of spermicide … no DNA. Why?’

  ‘She say anything about who attacked her?’

  ‘I don’t know, I forgot to ask her.’ Pause. ‘Of course she bloody didn’t. If she had, I would’ve arrested the bastard. She won’t talk about anything, she’s terrified. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Because—’ The interview room door was opening. ‘Oops, got to go.’ Logan hung up as Finnie stepped out into the corridor.

  The DCI frowned at him. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing, I just—’

  ‘Is this because you’re not in on the interview? I thought we agreed on this? What, is your ego so fragile, Sergeant, you can’t stand to be out of the spotlight for two minutes? Hmm? You’ll get to play this afternoon, remember?’

  ‘Actually, sir,’ said Logan, trying not to rise to it, ‘I wanted to keep you up to date on the Krakow General Store shooting. They’ve managed to pull a fingerprint off one of the shell casings fired by the gunman. The one with the mullet?’

  ‘Oh…’ Finnie took a moment to process that. ‘Sorry. Get the feeling I’m banging my head against a brick wall with our lunatic friend in there. Right, so—’

  Ricky Gilchrist’s voice sounded inside the interview room. ‘I’m not kidding, I’m really desperate!’

  Finnie raised his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, then shouted over his shoulder. ‘Just tie a knot in it for two minutes!’ He turned back to Logan. ‘Where was I? Ah, OK: what did the database say?’

  ‘No match.’

  ‘Then we—’

  Gilchrist shouted, ‘I’m bursting!’

  ‘I told you to tie a bloody knot in it!’

  ‘But I can’t!’ It was like the wail of the damned.

  ‘OK, OK: I’ll get someone to take you to the toilet.’

  Logan glanced up and down the corridor. ‘I’ll do it if you like? You know, enforce the Good Cop empathy thing? Might help when we go back in with Goulding this afternoon if Gilchrist thinks he’s got a friend?’

  ‘Good idea. Just make sure he’s back here in…’ Finnie checked his watch, ‘fifteen minutes. That’ll give me time to make a couple of calls.’

  Logan leant back against the cell wall, reading the advert for Crimestoppers painted on the ceiling above the bed, while Ricky Gilchrist peed his little heart out.

  ‘Ah, Jesus…’ It sounded as if he’d swallowed a reservoir.

  ‘You know,’ said Logan, when the Niagara Falls impersonation came to a dribbling halt, ‘you’ve never said why she was there.’

  ‘Oh God, that’s better…’ Zip.

  ‘The woman, in the office building: Krystka Gorzałkowska.’

  There was a clunking sound. ‘It’s still broken! It wouldn’t flush last night – I told them. They said they’d fix it.’

  ‘The toilets aren’t supposed to flush. That way prisoners can’t get rid of evidence they’ve swallowed or cheeked.’

  ‘But they said they’d fix it!’ Gilchrist lurched out of the toilet alcove, wiping his hands on his jeans. ‘Not hygienic, is it?’

  ‘Tell me about Krystka Gorzałkowska.’

  Blank look.

  ‘The woman in the DVD? The one you left in the office building when you blinded Lubomir Podwoiski?’

  Gilchrist sank down onto the blue plastic mattress, knees up against his chest. ‘Never bother with names. They don’t deserve names. They’re just bloody animals…’

  For some strange reason, Logan had the sudden urge to grab the little shit by his ginger hair and bash his head off the wall a couple of times. ‘Where did you get the DVD, Ricky? Did you film it? Or are you one of the men in the dog masks?’

  ‘They take everything. Polish bastard down the street falls over drunk and breaks his leg – ambulance is there in ten minutes. My mum had a fucking stroke and where was her ambulance? Eh? Half an hour.’

  ‘Did you rape Krystka Gorzałkowska?’

  He looked up at Logan, face covered in freckles and utter disgust. ‘Are you mad? I’d never filthy myself like that. Do you have any idea how many diseases they carry? I told you: they’re animals!’

  ‘Then where did you get the DVD?’

  ‘Some bloke in a pub.’ He looked away.

  ‘What bloke?’

  ‘Don’t remember.’

  ‘Which pub?’

  ‘Don’t remember.’

  Logan stared at him. ‘Why was she there when you blinded Lubomir Podwoiski?’

  Gilchrist smiled, his voice low and unpleasant: ‘Everyone’s got to be somewhere.’

  34

  ‘Come on, just a little sperm, you’ll no’ miss it, will you?’

  Logan turned off the engine. ‘Can we just go one day without the sperm talk?’

  The ClarkRig Training Systems Ltd car park was busy today, he’d had to squeeze the CID Vauxhall in between a Nissan Skyline and a filthy minibus with ‘BRUDAS ~ STRONG TEAM!!!’ finger-painted in the grime. There was only just enough room to open the doors.

  ‘Don’t be so wet.’ Steel popped another little white pellet of nicotine gum, chewing with her mouth open as they marched over to the entrance.

  The old lady on reception told them Zander wasn’t in his editing suite today, he was filming. Then she ushered them through in to the studio.

  It looked a lot like a converted warehouse, because that’s what it was. A large soundstage sat in the middle of the space, everything painted in the same shade of bright blue and covered in a grid of little yellow markers. There was a half-sized humpbacked bridge made of chipboard; two rows of boxes for a riverbank; and a pair of plastic Victorian lampposts, the kind you got in DIY stores for the garden. A big lighting rig hung above everything, showering it in a golden glow.

  The only things onstage not painted Chroma Key blue were the three people on top of the bridge. Two women, one man, grinding away, stark naked.

  Steel froze. ‘Oooh … will you look at that…’

  A camera swooped in on the end of a long, counterbalanced pole, worked by two blokes who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a zoo.

  Someone pressed play, and music belted out of a portable stereo.

  As Logan watched, a small rowing boat slid out from beneath the bridge. There were little men in the boat. Little men dressed in white dungarees, brown turtlenecks, and white gloves. Little men with orange faces, white eyebrows, and green hair.

  Logan blinked twice, but they were still there. ‘Oh, you have got to be kidding.’

  And then they started to sing.

  ‘What do you get with a dose of VD?

  An itch in your crotch, and it burns when you pee,

  I bet you wish that you’d worn a condom,

  Now we are singing our song,

  Humpa Lumpa…’

  Stee
l stood, rooted to the spot, with her mouth hanging open. Making giggling noises.

  When the song was finished, someone yelled ‘Cut! Well done everyone; let’s get set up for the next shot.’ Zander Clark hauled himself out from behind a monitor and marched towards the bridge and its naked tableau.

  ‘Doug, I want you to remember your motivation in this scene, OK?’

  Doug stopped what he was doing, and turned to face the director. ‘How come I’m the only one who doesn’t get a song?’

  Logan followed Steel onto the set as the director hummed and hawed for a bit. ‘Well, you see, Doug … you know personally I think you’re fabulous … But it’s—’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Clark,’ said Logan, stopping just short of where the fabulous Doug was playing with himself, ‘but can we have a quick word?’

  Zander, threw his hands in the air and made a noise like a dying balloon. ‘How am I supposed to create when…’ He stopped. ‘I know that voice.’ The director turned with a huge smile on his face. ‘Sergeant McRae, Inspector Steel, how nice to see you again. Did you enjoy the films?’

  ‘I mean, doesn’t have to be a big song or anything,’ said Doug, still keeping his lower portions amused, ‘I just want—’

  ‘Hoy!’ Steel grimaced at Doug’s erection. ‘Don’t point that thing at me. Might go off.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Zander clapped his hands, ‘I’m sorry to be rude, but we do have a shooting schedule to stick to. So…?’

  ‘Ah, right.’ Logan dug the DVD copy from his pocket. ‘We wanted you to take a look at this.’

  ‘Really?’ He turned the disk over in his thick fingers, the overhead lights sparking off the silver surface. ‘I could probably run through it tonight, if you like?’ And then he frowned, reading the label. ‘Ah.’

  ‘We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

  Fabulous Doug coughed. ‘Is this going to take long?’ He nodded in the direction of the fire escape, and mimed smoking a cigarette with his free hand. ‘You know?’

  The director nodded, not taking his eyes off the disk. ‘Just make sure you keep your robe fastened this time – don’t let anyone see you playing “keepy-up”.’ Zander turned to cast and crew. ‘We’re going to take a short break, people. I want you back here and ready to go in forty, OK?’

  The editing suite was in darkness, just the flickering pink light coming from the bank of monitors as Zander Clark played ‘KRYSTKA GET’S F*CK~D DIRTY 3-WAY!!!*!’. Finally the screens went black and he clicked on an Anglepoise lamp.

  ‘That was horrible. I mean, not just the production values – which were dreadful, by the way – but the whole thing.

  Who on Earth wants to watch something like that?’

  Steel: ‘Recognize anyone?’

  ‘Apart from Krystka?’ He picked at the skin around his thumbnail. ‘Both men are amateurs – they completely messed up the money-shot. Camera’s not even high definition, probably a home camcorder thing. The worst sort of gonzo operation. And it’s obviously not legal: even if the rape’s simulated, there’s no titles or BBFC classification.’

  Steel’s voice was alarmingly level. ‘You think it’s simulated? They were just faking it?’

  Zander put his coffee down and rubbed at his face. ‘I wish they were. But Krystka, God bless her, just isn’t that good an actress.’ He drooped. ‘I should never have let her go…’

  Logan tapped the nearest monitor. ‘You’ve no idea who might have filmed this?’

  ‘No. And believe me if I did, I’d tell you. The last thing we need is sick crap like this giving erotography a bad name. Doesn’t Krystka know?’

  ‘She won’t talk: too scared.’

  ‘Well … can’t you analyse it? Don’t you have police scientist people for this kind of thing?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Steel, ‘if we want to wait three months.’

  ‘OK.’ The director took a deep breath, scrunched his face into a pout, then started punching buttons on his keyboard. A separate scene from the DVD popped up onto each of the monitors; Zander set them all playing at the same time.

  A barrage of gibberish, grunting and swearing blared from the speakers. He hit mute. ‘I can pull off the audio as a separate file for you, cut out the background noise. Maybe you can do something with the voices.’

  His eyes flickered across the screens, the pink flesh reflecting in his trendy rectangular glasses.

  Steel sniffed and hauled up her trousers. ‘Why are—’

  ‘Shhhh …’ Zander stared at the images of Krystka Gorzałkowska being raped. ‘They never show the men’s faces – they’re always wearing the dog masks…’

  ‘We can bloody well see that!’

  He hit a key and one of the screens went blank. Then another, and another until only one screen still showed a picture. He froze it, then wound it backwards. Hit pause again, then play.

  As the scene started again a man’s voice crackled out of the speakers: ‘Take it! Take it! Taaaaaaa…’ The last word stretched out into the lower register then stopped entirely as Zander slowed the playback. Backwards: ‘Aaaaait. Ti…’ Pause. ‘… it! Take…’

  ‘There.’

  Steel stared at the screen, face scrunched up in concentration. Krystka was pinned to the couch, tears streaming down her face while Bulldog-mask abused her. ‘Where?’

  ‘Like I said, the men always keep their faces covered, but…’ He shifted the mouse, highlighting the corner of the picture, and zoomed in. Now they were looking at a grainy close-up of the not-very-good painting of Union Street. A man’s face was reflected in the glass. ‘Cameraman wasn’t so careful.’

  Steel went on squinting. ‘It looks like Mr Potato Head! What the hell are we supposed to do with that?’

  ‘What we do with that, is send it to my computer geeks. They take the next twenty frames or so and subtract all the pixels that are part of the painting. Composite what’s left, clean it up, and Bob’s your rapist.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you got a warrant based on that.’ Rennie parked the pool car and killed the engine. The house was at the end of a moth-eaten cul-de-sac, its garden overflowing with weeds, grass, and a rotting bicycle frame. The houses on either side were even worse: boarded up windows; the corpse of a washing machine; a stack of ruptured bin bags, the contents disappearing into the long grass.

  DI Steel sat in the passenger seat, puffing her way to the end of an angry cigarette. ‘Aye, well Sheriff McNab might be a sanctimonious old git, but even he’s no’ going to pass up a chance like this.’

  They climbed out into the morning sunshine.

  Logan scanned the street. The only visible inhabitant was a grey and white cat, watching them warily from the roof of a plastic Wendy-house.

  Rennie marched round to the back of the car and fetched the ‘big red door key’ from the boot. ‘Thing weighs a ton…’

  ‘Don’t whinge.’ Steel started up the path to the door, with Rennie grumbling along behind her.

  Logan waded through the knee-high grass, round the corner of the house and into the back garden. At least this time there wasn’t a fence to climb, or a dirty big dog, just a whirly listing at thirty degrees and a collection of mildewed garden furniture. He got into position, and waited for things to kick off.

  Three crashes of battering ram against UPVC. Shouts. A thump.

  Logan tried the back door – it wasn’t locked.

  Straight through the kitchen and into the hallway. A man in a brown T-shirt and boxer shorts was sprinting towards him as the front door exploded off its hinges. The man saw Logan and slithered to a halt, socks getting little purchase on the linoleum.

  Rennie: ‘STOP, POLICE!’

  Logan: ‘Give it up, Gary.’

  Gary: ‘Fuck!’ He turned and scrambled up the stairs with Rennie in hot pursuit. Logan followed, getting up to the landing in time to see Rennie launch a flying rugby tackle.

  The constable slammed into Gary, and they both w
ent down in a heap of flailing limbs and swearwords. An ironing board hit the carpet: creased clothes went everywhere.

  Grapple. Struggle. Clunk – Gary bounced the iron off Rennie’s head. The constable let go, wobbled a bit, then fell over.

  Logan fumbled in his pocket for the canister of pepper-spray as Gary struggled to his feet, the iron still clutched in his fist.

  ‘I didn’t do nothing!’ He wasn’t the ugliest person in Aberdeen, but he was having a decent stab at the title. One thick eyebrow, face like curdled milk, patchy beard.

  ‘You just assaulted a police officer.’

  ‘He was breaking into my house!’

  ‘Come on, Gary, don’t make it any worse. Put the iron down.’

  Gary dropped it, turned, and ran, slamming the bedroom door behind him. Logan scrambled past Rennie, and kicked the door open. Double bed. Black sheets with crusty white stains. Mirrored tiles on the ceiling. Camera lights on tripods. Gary was on top of a chest of drawers by the window, fighting with the catch.

  ‘It’s not going to happen, Gary. Give it up.’

  Gary swore, then climbed down. Moping his way across the carpet, head down. ‘Bloody thing was locked.’

  ‘Well, if you’d just come quietly in the first—’

  Gary’s knee slammed right into Logan’s crotch.

  Oh God… He folded in half, clutching his groin as Gary shoved past out onto the landing. ‘Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh,’

  And then Steel’s voice bellowed out from the stairwell: ‘Oh no you bloody don’t!’

  35

  Logan winced his way through into the hallway. The bathroom door was shut, but there was a lot of swearing and spluttering coming from inside; the sound of the toilet filling, then flushing, then filling, then flushing.

  He stood, holding onto the wall, trying to breathe his way through the burning ache in his testicles, just like they’d taught him at the pain clinic. Then knocked on the door.

  ‘Inspector?’

  Flush, splutter, swearing, something thumping on the bathroom floor.

  ‘Inspector, are you OK?’ He tried the handle and the door swung open.