Blind Eye

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘I don’t. Gave up years ago when someone made a pincushion out of my innards with a six-inch knife.’ He tried to steady the cigarette. ‘Come on you little sod…’ And then it caught. He dragged in a lungful. Coughed. Spluttered. Winced.

  ‘You should think about giving up again. You are not very good at it.’

  ‘Think it’ll be cold enough yet?’

  ‘No. Twenty minutes.’ She picked up the photo of Kravchenko again and frowned at it. ‘And you are sure he is here?’

  ‘Yup.’ Logan slid the e-fit across the little cast-iron table. ‘See?’ He spread out the rest of Gorzkiewicz’s file on Major Vadim Mikhailovitch Kravchenko.

  Wiktorja bent over the photocopies, lips moving soundlessly as she read.

  Logan spotted another photograph, stuck between two photocopies. It was in colour, the tones muted and faded; a dour-looking man, a pretty woman, and a little girl. He was canted over to one side, as if there was something wrong with his leg. Gorzkiewicz – after his discharge from the Polish army, and before Kravchenko blinded him. With his wife and daughter. Dead in the furnaces of Nowa Huta’s steel works, or sold on to some Politburo stooge in Warsaw.

  The little girl’s hair really was exactly the same colour as Wiktorja’s. And the mother looked a bit like her too. And Wiktorja said she was born just outside Krakow … Nowa Huta was just outside Krakow …

  Maybe that’s why she’d been so keen to track down Gorzkiewicz?

  ‘You know,’ said Logan, trying to think of the best way to put it, ‘your hair’s the same colour as Gorzkiewicz’s daughter.’

  Wiktorja didn’t even look up from the report she was reading. ‘Maybe she uses the same hair dye.’

  ‘Oh.’ He let the photo fall back to the tabletop, feeling like an idiot. So much for that theory.

  The back door opened, and Rennie sauntered out into the garden, hands in his pockets. He stopped and stared at Wiktorja, his eyebrows going up and down like randy caterpillars. ‘Going to introduce me to your friend then?’

  Logan balanced his cigarette on the edge of a saucer. ‘No.’ He excused himself and marched over to the house, shoving Rennie back inside.

  ‘Hey? What’d I do?’

  ‘We’re not here, understand? You haven’t seen us.’

  Rennie looked blank for a moment. Then understanding crawled across his face, leaving a leer in its wake. ‘Gotcha.’ Wink. ‘Playing away from home, eh? Don’t want Sam to find out.’ He nudged Logan. ‘You dog, you.’

  Logan stared at him. ‘You’re an idiot. Where’s Rory?’

  The constable hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Living room, watching a Sponge Bob Square Pants marathon. Are you taking over, paedo-sitting? Coz I got places to go, things to do, people to arrest.’ He grinned. ‘You know I’ve been watching all those CCTV videos? Well you see—’

  Logan didn’t care. ‘You’ve got till three. If you’re not back by then, I’m telling Steel you’ve been trying on Susan’s underwear. She’ll kick the crap—’

  ‘I don’t wear women’s underwear!’ The constable coughed. ‘Well, you know, not … with the … Emma says…’ He clamped his mouth shut.

  ‘Just get your arse back here by three.’

  Logan made sure the front door was locked, then went to check on Rory Simpson. Sure enough the old man was sitting in the living room, watching kids’ cartoons. When asked if he wanted anything for lunch, Rory just shrugged. His black eye hadn’t improved any, and neither had his sulk.

  ‘My tooth hurts.’

  ‘Then microwave some soup.’

  ‘I don’t want soup.’

  Logan sighed. ‘You going to pout all day?’

  ‘I’m not pouting.’ He went back to staring at the television. ‘And you hit me.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  Rory shuffled his backside, worming his way deeper into the couch. ‘DI Steel never hit me.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Logan, closing the door again, ‘sod you then.’

  He stopped off in the kitchen to collect a pair of shot glasses, and the bottle of Wyborowa from the freezer, taking everything back out into the garden. The vodka was thick and slippery as he poured out two measures.

  He handed one to Wiktorja. ‘Well?’

  She raised her glass, said, ‘Na zdrowie!’ and tossed it back. Closed her eyes. Then smiled. ‘That’s better.’

  Logan downed his own vodka, then topped them up again.

  She picked up a sheet of paper from the pile on the patio table. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is an army report about six aid workers suspected of being Mujahideen spies. Kravchenko cut off their ears and fed them to a stray dog.’ Wiktorja picked up another. ‘In this one he tortures an old man for information on local Muslims.’ She pointed at a third. ‘They suspected one of his troops was selling military supplies on the black market. Kravchenko gouged out the man’s eyes and poured petrol into the sockets. The staff sergeant lived just long enough to be dragged outside and shot.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  It was warm in the garden, the cold vodka bottle steaming in the sunlight. They drank, and Logan filled their glasses again. ‘What about the modern stuff?’

  ‘Nothing is conclusive. Some say he is working for the Russian mafia. Some say he is working for a Polish gang.’ She puffed out her cheeks. ‘It is very hot. Are you hot?’ She tried to get out of her jacket, but the sling made it nearly impossible. Logan helped her, revealing a T-shirt, stretched tight across her chest. ‘But,’ she said, ‘it does not matter who Kravchenko works for, the end result is the same. He is interested in two things: fear and power. If he is in Aberdeen it is because his masters want to move in and take over.’

  Logan stuck the note about the Buckie Ballad and its hold full of guns on the table. ‘It comes in tomorrow night.’

  ‘Then you have a war on your hands.’

  Time for more vodka.

  61

  DI Steel was home first: half past five, and by then DC Rennie had returned, scrounged a cup of tea, and gone again. The inspector slumped through the back door into the garden, then froze, staring at Wiktorja. ‘Who the hell’s this?’

  Logan did the introductions and offered Steel a shot of vodka.

  ‘Aye, go on then.’ She settled into one of the garden chairs as Logan went inside to raid the freezer again. By the time he got back, Steel was deep in conversation with Wiktorja, heads together over the scattered contents of the Kravchenko file.

  As soon as Logan reappeared they both shot upright.

  ‘Am I interrupting anything?’

  Steel: ‘No.’

  Wiktorja: ‘We were just talking.’

  Pause. ‘OK…’ He stuck a clean glass in front of the inspector and filled it to the brim. The bottle was well on its way to being empty.

  Steel picked up her drink, sniffed at it, threw it back, then clunked her glass back on the table. ‘Same again.’

  Logan did the honours.

  ‘Tell you,’ she said, ‘won’t believe the sodding day I’ve had. Finnie’s been a right pain in the backside: they’ve got to let Creepy Colin out on bail and suddenly it’s my fault?’ She downed her second shot. ‘Frog-faced git needs taken out and given a stiff sodding kicking. Any more in that bottle?’

  Another refill. ‘Right,’ said Logan, gathering up the file, ‘we’d better get going, I’ll phone you tomorrow morning and—’

  Steel slapped a hand down over his, pinning his fingers over a photograph of one of Kravchenko’s victims. ‘No’ so fast. Susan and me are off out tonight, some woman’s-support-group-knit-your-own-tampons thing. You’re watching Rory.’

  Logan groaned. ‘Can’t you get Rennie to—’

  ‘Oh don’t be such a sodding girl. All this top secret rubbish is your fault in the first place, least you can do is take your turn. We’ll be back about ten. Till then,’ she pointed at the kitchen window, where a pale face with a black eye peered out at them,
‘Git-Features is all yours.’

  ‘I’m no’ comfy.’ DI Steel wriggled in place, hauling at the armpit of a blue silk shirt.

  ‘Would it have killed you to brush your hair?’ Susan dipped into her handbag and came out with a comb. ‘Here.’

  Logan watched them both through a slightly fuzzy haze of vodka. They’d abandoned the garden in favour of the kitchen when Logan’s forehead started to go red. Now the skin was stretched tight as an over-inflated balloon, greasy from a liberal smearing of after-sun. It stung a bit, but he was anaesthetised enough not to care. Especially after Steel had broken out the ten-year-old Highland Park.

  Wiktorja had taken to whisky almost as quickly as Logan had taken to Polish vodka. She was still out there, at the garden table, her mobile phone clamped to one ear telling her sergeant back in Poland about the Kravchenko file, and the boatload of guns.

  ‘Honestly,’ said Susan, fussing around her wife, ‘you’re a disaster area. And eat a mint or something: you smell like a brewery…’

  Rory sat at the breakfast bar, still wearing his ‘OUT, LOUD, GAY AND PROUD!’ sweatshirt, munching away on a packet of Mini Cheddars, popping each disk into his mouth and sucking them to mush before having another. ‘Well, I think you look fabulous, Susan.’ His tongue was covered in a thin film of cheesy sludge. ‘First impressions are so important, that’s what … that’s what my Barry used to say.’ He wiped away an imaginary tear.

  ‘Oh Rory, I’m so sorry…’

  Steel hauled at her trousers. ‘Can I no’ just wear jeans?’

  ‘No.’ Susan stepped back and examined her handiwork. ‘Suppose you’ll have to do.’

  ‘But I hate these trousers, they bunch right up the crack of my—’

  ‘You look nice in them.’

  Rory hopped down off his stool, helping himself to a couple of chocolate biscuits. ‘You should listen to Susan, those trousers do wonderful things for your bum. Trust me: as a gay man, I know these things.’

  She scowled at him. ‘I’ll do wonderful things for your bum with the toe of my sodding boot!’

  Susan blushed. ‘Roberta! You be nice to our guest!’

  ‘Ah,’ Rory took Susan’s hand, ‘if only everyone was as understanding as you.’ He spun her into a fast waltz around the kitchen floor. She was giggling as he started singing Thank Heavens for Little Girls in a high, wobbling tenor.

  Little bastard.

  Nasty, little, child-molesting bastard.

  Logan swallowed the last half-inch of whisky in his glass, stood up and blocked their way.

  ‘I say, old chap,’ Rory winked at him, ‘this isn’t a gentleman’s excuse me, you find your own—’

  Logan slapped him across the face. Hard.

  Everything stopped dead. Rory clutched a hand to his cheek, stumbled back against the working surface and stared up at Logan with tears in his eyes. ‘What was that for?’

  ‘Stop it.’ Someone was grabbing at Logan’s sleeve, but he shook them off.

  ‘But I didn’t do—’

  ‘Stop it! Stop with the bloody comedy paedophile act! It’s not fucking funny!’ He was shaking, whisky and outrage surging through his veins, both hands curled into fists, just waiting for Rory to say something. Anything.

  ‘Paedophile?’ Susan stared at Logan, and then at Rory. Then she turned on Steel. ‘He’s a paedophile? You brought a paedophile into this house?’

  ‘I … we … I didn’t want to worry—’

  ‘How dare you? How fucking dare you?’

  Steel reached for her. ‘Susan, I can explain: it was—’

  ‘DON’T TOUCH ME!’ Susan backed off, glowering at them. ‘How could you bring that filthy pervert into my house? How could you lie to me?’ She took a deep breath, then spat in Rory’s face. ‘You should’ve been drowned at birth!’

  The little man bit his bottom lip and blinked. Blinked again. A fat tear welled over the edge of his red-rimmed eye and trickled down the side of his nose. Then he struggled to his feet and walked out of the kitchen. Didn’t even slam the door behind him.

  The evening was balmy, an ocean-blue sky dotted with islands of high white cloud. The sound of a sprinkler came from a nearby garden, the ‘Fssssssssss, ftt, ftt, ftt, fssssssssssss…’ overlaid with the sound of laughing children. Fat pigeons, cooing in a thick green hedge. All managing to make Logan feel even more depressed than he already was.

  Wiktorja came out into the back garden, pulled out the chair opposite and sat down in the shade of a big holly bush.

  Logan didn’t look up. ‘How’s Rory?’

  ‘You should not have hit him.’

  Fair point.

  ‘He just…’ Logan closed his eyes. Deep breath. ‘He’s OK most of the time, but…’

  ‘I do not think your inspector is very pleased with you.’

  Which was an understatement. Susan had stormed off to her mother’s, with Steel hurrying after her, trying to explain that it wasn’t her idea and she hadn’t wanted to do it and it was all Finnie’s fault and if Susan would just slow down they could talk about it and it was only supposed to be for a couple of days and she was really, really sorry…

  Logan took another sip of whisky, trying not to think about the look of betrayal on Rory’s face. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘He says it is not the first time you have hit him.’

  ‘I didn’t … I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened.’

  Wiktorja looked at him, but Logan couldn’t meet her eyes.

  ‘I know Rory Simpson looks like this nice little old man, but he’s not. We’ve caught him four times interfering with little girls, none of them older than six. God knows how many times he’s got away with it. I just…’ He pulled out his cigarettes, but the pack was empty. He scrunched it up. Threw it away. Ran a hand across his face. ‘I don’t know.’

  They sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of a balmy Thursday evening. Then Wiktorja said, ‘I was suspended, because of what happened in Nowa Huta. Eight months undercover work, wasted.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Eight months convincing Ehrlichmann I was a drug dealer from Warsaw, looking to move up. Eight months pumping his thugs for information on the Watchmaker: Gorzkiewicz.’

  Logan stared at her. ‘You what?’

  ‘I have not been entirely honest with you, but—’

  ‘Damn right you haven’t!’

  She finished her whisky. ‘What was I supposed to do? It was bad enough you knew I was a police officer.’

  ‘How could you be undercover?’

  ‘Did you really think we had to go to the cathedral in Krakow to pray? I had to contact my handler, tell him we had an address for Gorzkiewicz.’

  Logan scowled. ‘And the next thing you know we’re getting our arses shot off.’

  ‘I am sorry. I should never have taken you with me to Nowa Huta. It was irresponsible.’

  Logan reached for his whisky, the liquid sloshing in the trembling glass. ‘Did they find his body? The man I shot?’

  ‘I should have called for backup…’

  ‘Did they check the hospitals? Doctors? Maybe he’s not dead.’

  ‘Do you know how many departments are after Gorzkiewicz? All of them. I had him at the end of my gun and I let him go.’

  ‘Wiktorja!’

  She looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘Did they find the man I shot?’

  ‘There was a lot of blood near the Trabant, but…’ She shrugged. ‘Hospitals must report anyone admitted with gunshot wounds, so Ehrlichmann has his own doctors. He does not want the policja involved.’

  ‘You’re sure it was Ehrlichmann?’

  ‘I am sure.’

  ‘And your handler?’

  ‘Disappeared.’

  Logan sagged in his chair and took a mouthful of whisky, not really tasting anything but cordite and concrete dust. ‘Every night. I dream about that bloody apartment and that bloody explosion every blood
y night.’

  She reached across the table and took his hand. ‘I know.’

  The clock on the cooker was broken or something: wouldn’t stay in focus for more than a couple of seconds. Logan squinted one eye shut and tried again. Seven o’clock and they’d just about killed the bottle of Highland Park. He lurched back out into the garden with a couple of packets of things. You know: crunchy things. Salt and vinegar, stuff like that.

  He bumped into the table and let the packets fall from his hands. ‘Help yourself.’

  Wiktorja did, fumbling with a yellow bag, and then there were prawn cocktail Skips all over the place. ‘Oops.’ She levered herself up and wobbled back and forth a bit.

  Probably a bit drunk. She’d had quite a lot to drink.

  Logan took one step forward, and leant on the garden wall, only the damn thing wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and he sort of staggered a little.

  Wiktorja laughed at him. ‘You are pijany.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Yes you are. You are pijany. Drunk.’

  ‘I’m not pijany, you’re pijany.’

  Wiktorja held up her good arm, posing like the Statue of Liberty. ‘OK, I am pijany.’ She picked up one of the little shell-like disks and stuck it on the end of her tongue. Then stepped in close. ‘We are both pijany.’

  Logan grinned. ‘I’m not pijany, I’m an idiot.’

  ‘No, you are not an idiot.’ Her face softened. And then she was kissing him; prawn cocktail tongues on a sun-soaked Thursday evening.

  Upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms they struggled out of their clothes, Logan helping Wiktorja with the buttons and zippers she couldn’t get at because of her arm being in a sling. They collapsed onto the bed, wrapped around each other. Kissing, groping, fondling. She’d been telling the truth – not a real blonde after all…

  And then it all went wrong.

  Logan let go and rolled over onto his back. ‘I can’t do this.’

  She lurched up until she was looming over him, breasts brushing the scars on his torso. ‘You do not like me any more?’

  ‘I do. I just… I can’t do this.’ He let out a little grunt as she grabbed him somewhere private.