Blind Eye lm-5

by Stuart MacBride

  Blind Eye

  ( Logan McRae - 5 )

  Stuart Macbride

  Stuart Macbride

  Blind Eye

  See How They Run…

  1

  Waiting was the worst bit: hunkered back against the wall, eyes squinting in the setting sun, waiting for the nod. A disused business unit in Torry — not exactly the most affluent area of Aberdeen — downwind of a fish factory, and a collection of huge yellow bins overflowing with heads, bones and innards that festered in the hot June evening.

  Half a dozen armed police officers — three teams of two, all dressed in black, sweating and trying not to breathe through their noses — listened for sounds of movement over the raucous screams of Jurassic-Park seagulls.

  Nothing.

  A big man, nose and mouth covered by a black scarf, held up a hand. The firearms officers tensed.

  And three, two, one…

  BOOM — the handheld battering ram smashed into the lock and the door exploded inwards in a shower of wooden splinters.

  'GO! GO! GO!'

  Into a gloomy corridor: grey walls, grubby blue carpet tiles.

  Team One took the workshop at the back, Team Two took the front offices, and both members of Team Three hammered up the stairs. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae slithered to a halt at the top: there was a dust-encrusted desk upended on the landing; a dead pot plant; dark rectangles on the walls where pictures used to hang; four open doors. 'Clear.'

  PC Guthrie — the other half of Team Three — crept over to the nearest doorway, MP5 machine pistol at the ready, and peered inside. 'Clear.' He backed up and tried the next one in line. 'This is such a waste of time. How many of these things have we done this week?'

  'Just keep your eyes open.'

  'There's no bugger here,' he said, stepping over the threshold, 'it's a complete-'

  His head snapped backwards — a spray of blood erupting from his nose. Guthrie hit the floor hard, helmet bouncing off the grimy carpet tiles. There was a harsh CRACK as his Heckler & Koch went off, tearing a hole through the plasterboard at waist height.

  And then the screaming started. High-pitched and painful, coming from inside the room: 'Prosze, nie zabijaj mnie!'

  Logan snapped the safety off his weapon and charged through the door. Office: broken typist chair, rusty filing cabinet, telephone directory… woman. She was slumped back against the wall, one hand clutching at the large stain of dark red spreading out from the hole in her side. And in her other hand she had a heavy-duty stapler, holding it like a club. There was blood on the end.

  Logan pointed his machine pistol at her head. 'On the floor, now!'

  'Prosze, nie zabijaj mnie!' The woman was filthy, her long dark hair plastered to her head. She was sobbing, trembling. 'Prosze, nie zabijaj mnie!'

  Something about 'please' and 'not hurt'?

  'Policja,' said Logan, doing his best to pronounce it right, 'I'm a Policja. Understand? Policja? Police officer?' Sodding hell… this was what he got for not paying more attention during Polish lessons back at the station.

  'Prosze…' She slid further down the wall, leaving a thick streak of red on the wallpaper, saying 'please' over and over: 'Prosze, prosze…'

  Logan could hear footsteps clattering up the stairs, then someone reached the landing and swore. 'Control, this is zero-three-one-one: we have a man down; repeat, we have a man down! I need an ambulance here, now!'

  'Prosze…' The stapler fell from her fingers.

  A firearms officer burst into the room, gun pointing everywhere at once. He froze as soon as he saw the woman slumped against the wall, legs akimbo and covered in blood.

  'Jesus, Sarge, what did you do to her?'

  'I didn't do anything: it was Guthrie. And it was an accident.'

  'Bloody hell.' The newcomer grabbed his Airwave handset and called in again, demanding an update on that ambulance while Logan tried to calm the woman down with pidgin Polish and lots of hand gestures.

  It wasn't working.

  The other half of Team Two stuck his head round the door-frame and said, 'We've got another one.'

  Logan looked up from the woman's bloodshot eyes. 'Another one what?'

  'You'd better come see.' It was a slightly bigger office, the roof sloping off into the building's eaves. A dusty Velux window let in the golden glow of a dying sun. The only item of furniture was a battered desk, with a missing leg. The air was thick with the smell of burning meat, and human waste.

  The reason was lying on the floor behind the broken desk: a man, curled up in the foetal position, not moving.

  'Oh Jesus…' Logan looked at the PC. 'Is he…?'

  'Yup. Just like all the others.'

  Logan squatted down and felt for a pulse, double checking.

  Still alive.

  He placed a hand on the man's shoulder and rolled him over onto his back.

  The man groaned. And Logan's stomach tried to evict the macaroni cheese he'd had for lunch.

  Someone had beaten the living hell out of the guy — broken his nose, knocked out a few teeth, but that was nothing. That barely merited a band-aid compared with what had happened to his eyes.

  Just like all the others.

  2

  'All right, that's enough.' Detective Chief Inspector Finnie slammed his hand down on the table at the front of the little briefing room, then glared at the assembled officers, waiting for quiet. With his floppy hair, jowls, and wide rubbery lips he looked like a frog caught in the act of turning into a not particularly attractive prince.

  'Thanks to last night's sterling work by Team Three,' he said, 'the press have somehow got the idea that we're all a bunch of bloody idiots.' He held up a copy of that morning's Aberdeen Examiner, the headline 'POLICE SHOOT UNARMED WOMAN IN BUNGLED RAID' was stretched across the front page.

  Sitting at the back of the room, Logan shifted uneasily in his chair. The first operation he'd been involved in for six months and it was 'Bungled'. A cock-up. Fiasco. Complete and utter sodding disaster. It didn't matter that it wasn't his fault — he wasn't even the Lead Firearms Officer.

  He let his eyes drift to the clock on the wall behind DCI Finnie. Twenty to eight. He'd spent half the night up at the hospital, and the other half filling in paperwork: trying to explain how they'd accidentally managed to shoot a civilian. Right now he was operating on two hours' sleep and three cups of coffee.

  Finnie slapped the newspaper down on the desk. 'I had the Chief Constable on the phone for two hours this morning, wanting to know why my oh-so-professional officers are incapable of carrying out a simple forced entry without casualties.' He paused for an unpleasant smile. 'Was I too vague at the briefing? Did I have a senior moment and say you could shoot anyone you felt like? Did I? Because the only other alternative I can think of is that you're all a bunch of useless morons, and that can't be right, can it?'

  No one answered.

  Finnie nodded. 'Thought so. Well, you'll all be delighted to know that we'll be getting an internal enquiry from Professional Standards. Starting soon as we've finished here.'

  That got a collective groan from the whole team, all twelve of them.

  'Oh shut up. You think you've got it bad? What about the poor woman lying in intensive care with a bullet in her?' He glanced in Logan's direction. 'DS McRae: Superintendent Napier wants you first. Please, do us all a favour and make-believe you're a policeman for once. OK? Can you do that for me? Pretty please?'

  There was a moment's silence as everyone looked the other way. Logan could feel his face going pink. 'Yes, sir.'

  'And when you're finished there, you're on chauffeur duty. Maybe that'll keep you out of trouble for a while. Next slide.' Finnie nodded at his sidekick — a stick-thin detective sergeant with ginger
hair like rusty wire wool — and the image on screen changed. An unremarkable man's face: mid-twenties, grinning at the camera in a pub somewhere. 'This is victim number five: Lubomir Podwoiski.'

  Another nod and the photo changed. Nearly everyone in the room swore. The happy face was gone, replaced by the battered nightmare Logan had seen last night. The eyes just two tattered holes ringed with scorched tissue.

  Someone said, 'Jesus…'

  Finnie tapped the screen. 'Take a good, long look, ladies and gentlemen — because this is going to happen again, and again, until we catch the bastard doing it.' He left the man's ruined face up there for a whole minute. 'Next slide.'

  Podwoiski disappeared, replaced by a letter with lots of different fonts in lots of different colours. 'It arrived this morning.' You let them in!!! YOU let them in and they RUN WILD LIKE DOGS. These Polish animals take our jobs. They take our women. They have even taken our God! And you do nothing.

  Someone must fight for what is right.

  I will do what I have to. I will BLIND them all, like I BLINDED the last one! And YOU will WADE in the burning blood of wild dogs!!! Finnie held up a collection of clear plastic evidence bags, each one containing its own little laser-printed message of hate. 'Five victims; five phone calls; eight notes. I want you all to read the profile again. I've got Doctor Goulding coming in at three to update it with the new victim, and it might be nice if we can give him some input that makes us sound like we actually have a clue what we're doing. Don't you think?' Meeting with Professional Standards was about as much fun as getting a tooth removed without anaesthetic. Superintendent Napier — the man in charge of screwing over his fellow officers the minute anything went wrong — droned on and on and on and on, letting Logan know exactly how half-baked and unprofessional Team Three had been during last night's raid. And somehow that was all Logan's fault… just because he was a Detective Sergeant and Guthrie was a mere Police Constable with a staple in his newly broken nose.

  After two hours of having to explain every mistake he'd made for the last seven months, Logan was free to go. He stomped down the stairs, muttering and swearing his way out through the back doors and into the morning. Going to pick up a car so he could enjoy the privilege of ferrying DCI Finnie about.

  The rear podium car park behind FHQ was a little sun-trap full of banished smokers sucking enough nicotine into their lungs to keep them going for another half hour. Logan worked his way through the crowd, making for the fleet of CID pool cars.

  Bloody Finnie.

  Bloody Finnie and Bloody Superintendent Napier.

  And Bloody Grampian Bloody Police.

  Maybe Napier was right? Maybe it was time to 'consider alternative career options'. Anything had to be better than this.

  'Hoy, Laz, where do you think you're going?'

  Damn.

  He turned to find Detective Inspector Steel slouched against the Chief Constable's brand-new Audi, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, big wax-paper cup of coffee resting on the car's bonnet. Her hair looked as if it had been styled by a drunken gorilla — which was an improvement on yesterday. She tilted her face to the sun, letting her wrinkles bask in the glow of a glorious summer's morning. 'Hear you had a spot of bother last night…?'

  'Don't start, OK? I got enough of that from Napier this morning.'

  'And how is everyone's favourite champion of Professional Standards?'

  'He's a ginger-haired cock.' Logan stared at the shiny blue Audi. 'Chief Constable's going to kill you if he finds out you're using his pride and joy as a coffee table.'

  'Don't change the subject. What did Napier say?'

  'The usual: I'm crap. My performance is crap. And everything I touch turns to crap.'

  DI Steel took a long draw on her cigarette and produced her own private smokescreen. 'Have to admit he's got a point with the "turning to crap" thing. No offence, like.'

  'Thanks. Thanks a lot. That's really nice.'

  'Ah, don't be so sensitive. You're having a bad patch, it happens. No' the end of the world, is it?'

  'Seven months isn't a "bad patch", it's a-'

  'Anyway,' she said, 'it's your lucky day: you get to accompany me on a tour of local primary schools. Some dirty old git's been trying to lure kiddies into his car with the promise of puppies and assorted sweeties.'

  'Can't today,' said Logan, backing away, 'got to go visit the hospital and speak to our latest Oedipus victim, and that woman we-'

  'Shot?'

  'It was an accident, OK?'

  'Aye, aye, Mr Tetchy-Trousers. Maybe I'll tag along? Show you how a real police officer questions witnesses.'

  'Fine, you can ride in the back with Finnie.'

  Steel clamped her mouth shut, sending a small cascade of ash spiralling down the front of her blouse. 'I'd rather have cystitis.'

  'You're going to have to work with him eventually.'

  'My sharny arse.' She took the last inch of her cigarette and ground it out against the Chief Constable's wing mirror. 'You have fun with DCI Frog-Face, I'll give someone else the benefit of my brilliance. Where's Rennie?'

  'Not back till Friday.'

  'Oh for God's… Fine. I'll take Beattie, you happy now?' She turned and stomped her way back through the rear doors, swearing all the way. Aberdeen Royal Infirmary wasn't a pretty building. A collection of slab-like granite lumps — connected with corridors, walkways and chock-a-block car parks — it had all the charm of a kick in the bollocks.

  DCI Finnie hadn't said a word all the way over, he'd just sat in the back, fiddling with his BlackBerry. Probably sending bitchy emails to the Detective Chief Superintendent in charge of CID.

  'If you don't mind me asking, sir,' said Logan, taking them on their second lap of the car park, looking for somewhere to abandon the shiny new Vauxhall, 'why didn't you take DS Pirie?'

  'Believe me, you weren't my first choice. Pirie's got a court appearance this morning; soon as he's free you hand this over to him, understand? That way we might actually get a result.' Finnie watched as yet another row of badly parked vehicles went by. 'Well, much as I'm enjoying your magical mystery tour, I haven't got time. Drop me off at the main entrance, you can catch up later. Think you can handle that without screwing it up?'

  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 s
omething 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.