Blind Eye lm-5

by Stuart MacBride

  40

  At least he'd managed to get a window seat. Logan was halfway across the North Sea, with a strange cheese and pesto sandwich and a tiny bottle of white wine. The wheezy old woman sitting next to him had lasted a whole fifteen minutes before falling asleep, twitching as she dreamed, like a cat.

  The report he'd printed out before leaving the office didn't make very scintillating reading — Goulding went on and on about 'behavioural indicators' and 'stress-point escalators', none of which made any sense to Logan. Gilchrist continues to refuse to discuss his victims, or even acknowledge their existence. By removing their eyes he has removed the very essence of their humanity; many cultures believe the eyes to be the gateway to the soul, and Gilchrist has removed that gateway, rendering them spiritually inert (an important distinction for someone with Gilchrist's strong, though twisted, religious convictions {see Appendix B, section 3.2}), as such they have no meaning to him.

  It would not surprise me if Gilchrist later admits to consuming the eyes. Possibly as part of a ritual based on his somewhat individual views on the sacrament, designed to absorb his victim's immortal soul.

  However, this remains conjecture at this point.

  Blah, blah, blah… Logan skimmed forward a couple of pages. The whole thing was a great steaming pile of conjecture as far as he could see. Certainly Ricky Gilchrist represents a very real danger to the public, and while there are no current indications that he may be suicidal, I recommend that he be kept under close observation.

  Which seemed to be a long-winded way of saying what they'd known all along: Ricky Gilchrist was a nut-job.

  Logan put the report down and stared out at the glittering blue surface of the North Sea.

  Should have brought a book with him.

  The woman sitting next to him had stopped twitching and started snoring, the noise barely perceptible over the plane's engines.

  Logan polished off his wee individual bottle of white wine, then asked for another one, and settled down for some industrial-strength brooding. First about Samantha. And then about Detective Chief Inspector Andrew 'Brown-Envelope' Finnie.

  And then he went back to brooding about Samantha again.

  Playing with his scars, then acting as if he was the one with the problem. Logan shifted in his seat. OK, so he had a problem… But that didn't mean she had to yell at him and storm off.

  Away on a trip to Poland, two high-profile arrests under his belt, a promotion to DI coming up — God knew he'd been waiting long enough — and then this had to happen. Tainting it all.

  He placed a hand on his stomach, pressing until he could feel the old familiar tug of knitted tissue, the stitches, the months in hospital.

  Bloody Angus Robertson: even after all these years he was still screwing up Logan's life. Za Nasza I Wasza Wolnosc [F OR O UR F REEDOM A ND Y OURS]

  41

  Logan stifled a yawn and joined the shuffling queue for passport control. The place was even more soulless than the one back at Aberdeen airport. Plus all the security guards were wearing drab-olive military uniforms, complete with side arms. Even after doing his firearms training, there was something about seeing policemen with guns that gave Logan the willies.

  He picked up his suitcase and slouched into the arrivals lounge — a big empty room with white walls and a glass ceiling. A couple of men held up sheets of paper with indecipherable names scribbled on them. A handful of small children squealed around a businessman, their mother hanging back. Scowling and heavily pregnant.

  There was no sign of anyone who looked like a 'Staff Sergeant Lukaszewski', or a 'Senior Constable Wiktorja

  Jaroszewicz'.

  Typical.

  Logan dumped his luggage at his feet, and stood there looking gormless for a minute. Until a balding man in a shabby grey pullover sidled up and said, 'You tourist? You want taxi, yes?'

  Alarm bells.

  Logan pulled out his warrant card. 'Policja.'

  The man backed away, stammering, 'Przepraszam, pomylilem sie…' and then froze as a hand slapped down on his shoulder.

  The woman standing behind him couldn't have been an inch over five foot five, mid-thirties, blonde hair scraped back in a severe ponytail. 'Damn right you made a mistake!' At least she was speaking English.

  Mr Shabby Pullover closed his eyes and winced. 'Cholera jasna…'

  She spun him around. 'How many times have I told you?'

  'Przepraszam: sorry, I am sorry…'

  'You are lucky I am busy, Radoslaw.' She let go. 'Go on, get out of here you dirty zboczeniec.'

  A smile scrambled onto his face. 'Dziekuje, dziekuje bardzo!'

  And then he all but ran for it, her parting shot ringing around the arrivals hall as he scampered away: 'Next time I catch you, you will not be thanking me, you will be clutching your balls and crying like a little baby: stay away from the airport!'

  There was silence as her threat echoed away, everyone staring at Logan and the woman. 'Come on.' She grabbed Logan's bag and strode for the exit. 'I am parked outside.'

  They stepped through the sliding doors and emerged under some sort of flyover, surrounded by grey concrete on all four sides. Rain poured down a set of stairs. The distant rumble of thunder. Welcome to Warsaw.

  Her car was a right-hand-drive Opel hatchback in grubby silver. She threw Logan's luggage in the boot, and jumped in behind the wheel. It wasn't until Logan walked around to the passenger side that he saw the damage — it was one long collection of dents and scrapes. The door squealed as he hauled it open, and groaned when he pulled it shut.

  The woman shook her head. 'You have to slam it hard, or it will pop open every time we go over a pothole.'

  Logan did as he was told.

  'Piece of shit, yeah?' She stuck the car in gear, and floored it.

  'Jesus…' Logan grabbed onto the handle above the door as she roared around the corner and nearly into the back of a bus.

  She didn't seem to notice, just shifted down and swerved round the outside, bumping up onto the kerb on the way past. And then they were out from under the flyover, swapping grey concrete for an even greyer sky.

  Rain hammered down, making the tarmac shimmer, reflecting back the car headlights, even though it was only ten to five on a Monday afternoon.

  She took one hand off the steering wheel and offered it to Logan. 'Senior Constable Wiktorja Jaroszewicz. You say it: Yahr-oh-SHAY-veetch.'

  'I know, you told me when-' Logan tried not to close his eyes as she threw them around the roundabout and onto a tree-lined dual carriageway, but she was still shaking his hand while she did it. 'Detective Sergeant Logan McRae.' Forcing his voice down the two octaves it had suddenly jumped.

  'Look at this idiot…' She leant on the car's horn and raced up the back end of a mouldy Volvo estate. 'Move it grandfather!' BRRRREEEEEEEP! 'I tell you, rush-hour brings them all out.'

  And then she accelerated past, nipping between an articulated lorry and a telecoms van. 'You were lucky I turned up,' she said, swerving back into their original lane, 'Radoslaw would have taken you for everything you had.'

  'I wasn't going to-'

  'He turns up at the airport, pretends to be this helpful old taxi driver, and if you go with him you end up on the wrong side of the river.'

  'Not a very good taxi driver then?'

  'Not unless you like being robbed at gunpoint, no. We think he gets two or three tourists a month, but we can't prove anything.'

  Lightning flickered across the clay-coloured sky, silhouetting the trees and ugly concrete buildings on either side of the road. Then came the deep, bass rumble of thunder.

  Senior Constable Jaroszewicz hunched closer to the steering wheel. 'Bloody rain. What happened to summer?'

  She launched into a stream of weather-related invective, but Logan was too scared to listen to it, holding on for dear life as she leapt from one lane to the other.

  A horn blared at them, Jaroszewicz ignored it. 'I checked the records again. We have twenty-three
victims since 1974; most of them happened after we kicked the Communists out. I brought everything I found with me, you can read it on the train.'

  'Train? I thought we were going to-' He closed his eyes as the rear end of a truck suddenly appeared in front of them. 'Oh God.'

  The tyres squealed on the wet road. Jaroszewicz leant on the horn: BRRRRREEEEEEEEP! 'Asshole! Are you trying to kill everyone?'

  And then she was roaring past on the inside, sticking one finger up at the old lady behind the wheel. 'There are no living victims left in Warsaw, so we are going to Krakow.'

  'Can we slow down please?'

  'No.'

  Logan tried not to think about what his body was going to look like when the Polish fire brigade finally cut it out of the wreckage. 'What happened to the other victims?'

  'Dead. Some had accidents, some got ill, some died of old age, and some killed themselves.' Shrug. 'It must be a hard thing to live with.'

  The bland communistic apartment blocks opened up, revealing central Warsaw. It was a vista of skyscrapers: huge chunks of glass and steel reaching up into the downpour. A big Marriott hotel sat in the background, the top seven floors covered in white lights that flashed messages out across the gloomy, rain-drenched city. The other skyscrapers were slightly less vulgar, but everything paled into insignificance next to the huge Palace of Culture: an evil wedding cake in rain-blackened sandstone, dominating the skyline.

  Jaroszewicz must have seen him staring, because she said, 'A gift from Uncle Stalin. Are you hungry?'

  'Kind of. Are we-'

  'We will eat on the train.'

  The Palace of Culture sat in the middle of a vast square, surrounded by buildings that looked as if they'd been thrown up by some city planner who'd had one too many vodkas. And the closer they got to Uncle Stalin's gift, the slower the traffic got, until they were crawling along. Rain drumming on the roof, windscreen wipers going full pelt, watching the people stomping past on the pavement.

  Everyone looked suicidal.

  Aberdeen could be miserable in the rain, but it was nothing compared to Warsaw.

  Jaroszewicz jerked the steering wheel and squealed the car across a set of lights and down a little alleyway, threading round behind an ancient-looking hotel. Parking next to the bins.

  'Now,' she said, reaching through into the back of the car and pulling out a large shoulder bag, 'train station.'

  They got Logan's luggage out of the boot and tramped back to the main square in the pouring rain, across four lanes of traffic, and down into the station.

  It didn't look too bad from the outside, but inside it was Bedlam. A collection of low-ceilinged concrete corridors, lined with booths selling everything from science fiction novels, to doughnuts, to hardcore pornography. The smell of kebab meat and hot falafel, the smoky tang of grilling sausages and frying onions. Voices. Shouting. People bumping into one another. Yellow and red lights blazing out of every shop front.

  Up till now, it hadn't been too bad — pretty much like any modern European city — but suddenly Poland was a very foreign country.

  Jaroszewicz marched up to a booth with a handwritten sign saying 'NIE INFORMACJA' Sellotaped to the glass. No information. He couldn't understand a word of the ensuing argument as Jaroszewicz and the man behind the counter shouted at each other, but eventually she stomped away from the booth with a pair of tickets and seat reservations.

  'Bloody place.' She wandered through the throngs of people and joined a small crowd staring at a poster covered in a bewildering array of stations and times. Two minutes later she said, 'Peron five.' And then headed off for a dirty grey escalator down to a dirty grey platform.

  Logan hurried after her. 'What do you know about the victims?'

  She shrugged, settling back against an information board. 'Before 1989 it looks political. We do not have much detail, but all the victims were accused of undermining the Communist regime: union leaders, clergy, activists, people like that. After 1989 there is a gap, then it starts up again: mostly small-time crooks.'

  The platform started filling up, a mixture of businessmen and students.

  Jaroszewicz dumped her bag at her feet. 'What about yours?'

  Logan went through the Oedipus victims one by one, finishing up with the fact that none of them would talk to the police. 'They're all still terrified, even though we've got the guy in custody.'

  She shrugged. 'I am not surprised.'

  An announcement crackled out of the platform speakers — and everyone started shuffling towards the edge of the platform. Then a battered green diesel engine rumbled out of the dark tunnel, dragging behind it ten lilac-and-white carriages, the bright orange 'ICC PKP INTERCITY' logo painted on the side.

  A whistle blast and the doors opened. Jaroszewicz pulled out their tickets and squinted at them. Then dragged Logan down the platform and onto carriage number nine.

  Inside, it was like something out of a transport museum: a corridor stretched down one side of the carriage, lined with sliding glass doors that opened onto little individual eight-seat compartments.

  She checked the tickets again, then hauled a door open and stepped inside. It was already crowded. Six students sprawled on the seats, laughing and sharing a loaf of bread — ripping off handfuls and popping them in their mouths.

  Jaroszewicz swore, hauled her bag up onto the overhead rack and told a man with long brown hair to get out of her seat. Then told his girlfriend to get out of Logan's. They just shrugged, then moved.

  Logan apologized his way between everyone's knees to the window seat, and manhandled his suitcase up onto the rack.

  Another announcement. Then a clunk. And slowly the train pulled away from the platform, through another dark tunnel, and out into the rain-soaked evening.

  Senior Constable Jaroszewicz made small talk for a while, mostly about movies she'd seen, and then lapsed into silence, staring out of the window as the graffiti-covered sidings drifted past.

  A girl sitting across from Logan, slumped down in her seat, exposing pale thighs as her skirt rode up. Tattoos poked out of the top of her V-neck jumper.

  Samantha. How was he supposed to know she had scars high up on the inside of her thighs? What was he, a mind reader? He shifted in his seat. And how the hell did you get scars there anyway?

  The student looked up and saw him staring at her tattooed chest. Their eyes met and Logan looked away, embarrassed. Great, now she thought he was a pervert.

  'Bilet.'

  Logan looked up. An official-looking man in a dark blue uniform was standing in front of him.

  'Erm…'

  Jaroszewicz dug about in her handbag, 'He wants to see your ticket.'

  'Oh right…'

  The conductor made his way around their little compartment, stamping everyone's ticket, before lurching back out into the corridor, pulling the sliding glass door shut behind him. As soon as he was gone, Jaroszewicz stood and rattled off something in quick-fire Polish to the students.

  They complained, but she didn't seem to care. She pulled out a police ID and flashed it at them, then gave them another earful.

  The students got to their feet and shuffled out of the compartment, full of bad grace, angry backward glances, and mutterings of, 'Kurwa, komucha…'

  Jaroszewicz waited till the door was closed before dragging her bag out of the rack and collapsing back into her seat, grinning. 'They say I am a Communist bitch.' She pulled a swollen, green folder from her bag and handed it over. 'This is everything I could find.'

  Logan removed the elastic band holding the file together, and opened it up. A bundle of photographs sat at the front

  — each one showing someone's mutilated face in graphic close up. Most were taken pre-hospital as well, the sight making Logan's stomach lurch in time with the train on the tracks. The damage was identical to the Aberdeen victims: Ricky Gilchrist had copied the MO perfectly.

  He flipped past, finding dozens of reports, statements, interview transcripts… Somewhere in t
his lot would be the connection between Gilchrist and whoever mutilated these poor sods.

  And Logan couldn't read a word of it.

  42

  Outside the carriage window there was nothing but fields and trees. Every now and then they'd pass a village — little more than a handful of houses with wooden outbuildings slumped in defeat. Chickens strutting back and forth in the mud.

  The rain had stopped about an hour out of Warsaw, but the landscape still lay beneath a lid of heavy grey clouds.

  'And this was the last one.' Jaroszewicz poked the file in Logan's hand. 'He was a baker in Sromowce Nizne. Arrested two times for drug dealing. They found him in the garage: he hanged himself six months after he was blinded.'

  There was a photocopy of the note he'd left, and a police photo of the body dangling from a roof beam.

  Logan stuck them back in the file. 'Twenty-three victims since 1974. So if it's the same man doing them he's got to be, what… mid fifties, early sixties by now?'

  'If it is the same man.' Jaroszewicz accepted the folder and put it back in her bag. 'Before 1989 all our victims are dissidents, and after 1989 they are all criminals.' She snapped her bag shut and hefted it into the overhead rack. 'I think the men who are doing this are copying what happened under the Communists. It is a warning to everyone who will not do what they are told. In Poland it is not a serial killer, it is mob enforcement.' By quarter past eight they were in the dining car, getting scowled at by the evicted students. Jaroszewicz sat with her back to them at one if the five long tables that stuck out from one side of the carriage, leaving an aisle at the end just big enough for the waitress to walk down, carrying plates of food from the little kitchen by the door. The smell of frying chicken filled the air.

  A couple of businessmen sat at the other end of their table, poking away at laptops and drinking bottles of lager. Everyone had to perch on little bar stools that had been bolted to the floor, as the train swayed and rattled its way across Poland.

  'It will be too late to do anything when we get to Krakow,' Jaroszewicz was saying, 'so we will start first thing tomorrow morning. Hit the local police for information.'