Blind Eye lm-5

by Stuart MacBride

  And stopped dead.

  Rory was in there, bent nearly double over the bathroom sink. Trousers around his ankles. Pounding away. And then he froze: one hand wrapped around his erection, the other clutching a thick catalogue. Children's clothes. Little girls running around, grinning for the camera. 'It's… it's not what you think…'

  Logan stepped inside and closed the bathroom door.

  55

  '… further protests expected this morning as part of the ongoing budget crisis at Aberdeen City Council. Here's our business correspondent Craig Connel…'

  'Do you want another cup of tea?' Susan sat on the opposite side of the breakfast bar, and handed Logan a floral plate with a slice of hot buttered toast on it. She watched him nibbling on a corner. 'Are you feeling OK?'

  Logan shrugged. Paused. 'Think I've got a cold coming on.'

  At least Susan didn't pick him up on the lie.

  The man on the radio babbled on about 'strike action', and 'disruption to public services'.

  Logan crunched toast and wallowed in his hangover. DI Steel had been long gone by the time he'd crawled out of the spare bed and into the shower. Right now, the clock on the microwave said 07:30 — half an hour after he was supposed to report for duty — but Rennie still hadn't turned up to watch Rory. And it wasn't as if Logan could leave a wanted paedophile to his own devices.

  'I…' Susan put her mug down. 'I'm sorry about last night. It's just… We… Well, we're sort of going through a bit of a bad patch.'

  He shook his head. 'It's OK.'

  'I don't know what else to do. She won't sell the house. Stupid isn't it? House like this: should have children running through it.' Susan wiped a hand across her eyes, smudging the mascara. 'It's so unfair.'

  Logan took her hand as the radio news came to an end. 'She really loves you.'

  'I know, it's just… We want this so badly.' She stared at him, her eyes pink and needy. It was the same look he'd seen a thousand times before, usually from emaciated junkies, sitting on the opposite side of the interview table, desperate for their next fix.

  He let go of her hand.

  The DJ said something about a concert at the Music Hall that evening, and then he stuck a record on: Walking on Sunshine, by Katrina and the Waves.

  Dizzy. Mouth full of bees. Heart pounding. Nausea.

  Logan staggered back from the breakfast bar, the stool clattering down against the floor. 'Don't feel so good…' He turned and sprinted for the downstairs bathroom, locking himself in, wrapping his arms around the porcelain until tea and toast exploded from his throat. Vomiting and shivering until there was nothing left but bile.

  God, how much did he drink last night?

  He lay on the bathroom floor, waiting for the tremors to pass.

  Must've been something wrong with that vodka.

  He closed his eyes, resting his cheek on the cool tiles. Definitely the vodka… The whole room shakes, chunks of concrete smashing against the bath, making it ring like a bell. The smell of burning rubbish and blistering paint. Singed hair. The deafening roar that went on and on and on and-

  He jumped, bashing his forehead on the underside of the toilet bowl. Then rolled over onto his back, clutching his throbbing head and swearing.

  There was a voice in the hall. 'Logan? Logan are you all right?'

  He lay there, tears squeezing out from the corners of his eyes. 'I'm fine.'

  Susan paused. 'I've got to go to work… will you be OK?'

  He gritted his teeth. 'Never better.'

  '… OK, if you're sure.' Logan knocked on the bedroom door. Waited. Then tried again. 'Rory?'

  It'd taken nearly quarter of an hour for the trembling and tears to subside. Fifteen minutes of lying on the bathroom floor feeling like an idiot.

  'Rory? You awake?'

  The response was muffled. 'Leave me alone.'

  Logan opened the door and stepped into a cocoon of pink fluffiness. Everything was pink: walls, ceiling, bedding, wardrobe, curtains, desk, comfy chair. Even the carpet was pink. It was kind of creepy: like being inside someone, but not in a good way. The only thing not pink was a faded poster of the Bay City Rollers, cheesy pop-star grins with big, seventies hair and tartan trim.

  Rory Simpson was a lump beneath the duvet, not a single portion of his anatomy sticking out into the land of pink.

  Logan sat on the end of the bed. 'Brought you a cup of tea.'

  More silence.

  'Look, I'm sorry… I shouldn't have done that.'

  'You hit me.'

  'I know, I'm sorry it was-'

  'You're just like all the rest of them.'

  'You were wanking over a catalogue of little girls!'

  Rory's head poked out from under the duvet. His left eye was swollen almost shut, skin the colour of ripe aubergine. Another bruise sat on the right side of his face, giving his head a lopsided look, as if it hadn't been put on properly. 'I can't help it, OK? I'm sorry, but I can't.' He sniffed, and turned his head into the pillow. 'This is what I am.'

  'You want breakfast?'

  'Think you cracked one of my teeth.'

  'Rory, I said I'm sorry.'

  'Go away.' The older man buried his head beneath the pink duvet again. Retreating into his shell. 'Please… just leave me alone.' It was half past eight before Rennie turned up — dropped off at DI Steel's front door by a petite brunette in an open-topped Jaguar. The driver gave the constable a long, slow kiss, then he hopped out and round to the boot, emerging with the same holdall he'd been dragging behind him yesterday. He waved and the car pulled away, the driver blowing him another kiss as she disappeared.

  Rennie stood there with a soppy smile on his face for a moment, then hefted the lumpy holdall over his shoulder. Turned, and spotted Logan leaning against the front door, smoking a cigarette and drinking tea.

  'Morning.'

  Logan sucked the last gasp from his cigarette, then pinged it away into the street. 'That your mum then?'

  Rennie stuck two fingers up at him. 'You you look like crap, by the way.'

  'You're late.'

  'Yeah, well, blame Steel.' He clumped up the garden path. 'She's in a right grump this morning. What did you do to her?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Well, she's making little effigies of you out of Blu-Tack and whacking them in the balls with a stapler.'

  Logan swigged back the last mouthful of tea, handed the empty mug to Rennie, and made for the garage. 'Keep an eye on Rory this morning, OK? He's feeling a bit delicate.'

  He hauled the door up and slipped inside.

  Rennie followed.

  The crappy Fiat looked as if it had aged overnight; it was covered in a thin film of dust, fresh cobwebs stretching from the wing-mirrors to the windows.

  'This yours?' Rennie wandered around Logan's car, kicking the tyres. 'Nice colour: looks like a motorized turd.'

  'It was cheap. And shut up.' Logan climbed in behind the wheel. The key skittered around the ignition before finally going in. The engine started the long squealing grind into life. Then died.

  Rennie leant on the roof and peered in through the driver's window. 'Want a push?'

  'Go away.'

  'Just being nice.' He stood back as the Fiat's engine finally resurrected itself with a loud backfire and a cloud of black smoke. 'Jesus, this thing doesn't need a push, it needs a decent burial.' He waved a hand in front of his face, coughing. 'And before I forget: someone's waiting for you at the station. Woman called Branding?'

  'Branding?'

  'Branding, Branson? Something like that. Blonde, pretty, about this tall, nice boobs. Got a little dog in a stupid-looking coat?'

  Wonderful. As if today wasn't going to be bad enough. She was pacing up and down in reception, picking the varnish off her scarlet nails. The terrier scurried along in her wake, wagging its tail, and sniffing the passers-by. Today the dog was wearing pastel blue with lime-green diamonds, as if it was heading off for a round of golf later.

  All the interv
iew rooms were in use, so Logan steered her through the front doors and out into the sunshine.

  She peered up and down the street. 'Can we not go somewhere private?'

  'Still haven't told me what you're doing here.'

  'A whole hour I've been waiting!' She stooped and picked up her Westie, clutching it to her chest. 'What if someone sees me talking to you?'

  'Hilary: what — do — you — want?'

  'It's…' She looked at her dog, a passing car, the strange little shop across the road with its windows jammed full of shoes and boots and jackets and hats. Everywhere but at Logan. 'You have to let Colin go.'

  'No I don't.' He hopped down from the wall and started walking back towards the station. 'Bye, Hilary.'

  'Wait!' She grabbed his arm. 'It wasn't him; he wasn't even there. He was… He was with me.'

  'It's an offence to give a false alibi, you know that don't you? Attempting to pervert the course of justice: look what happened to your mum-in-law.'

  'It's not a false anything, we were together, OK?' A blush raced all the way up from her cleavage to her forehead. 'Simon was still in hospital and we… It was…' Silence.

  'Your husband's in hospital with his eyes gouged out and you're at home shagging his brother?'

  She let go of Logan's sleeve, turned away. 'It wasn't like that.'

  'How long's it been going on?'

  'You can't tell anyone. He'll kill me if he finds out. And I don't mean figuratively: I mean he'll kill me.'

  Logan gave her a small round of applause, and she stared at him.

  'Got to hand it to you, Hilary: that was a great performance. "He'll kill me!" Classic. You should try for tears next time though, give it a bit of realism.'

  'It's true!'

  'No it's not. You're lying to get Colin out of prison. You McLeods are all the bloody same. If he was with you all night, playing hide the sausage, why did he have a hammer in his garage with Harry Jordan's blood on it?'

  'Because… That was from before, when…' She went back to staring at the shop across the road. 'When he did Harry's knees.'

  'So you're saying Colin crippled him, but didn't go back for seconds?'

  Hilary laughed, short and bitter. 'If he had, Harry wouldn't be a coma, he'd be in a coffin.'

  Logan ran a hand across his stubbly chin. 'I still can't believe you're having an affair with Creepy Colin McLeod.'

  'Six years, off and on. It was… Simon's not the easiest man to live with. People always think gangsters are all violence and virile, but he's…' Her eyes sparkled, rimmed in red. 'Thank God for Viagra, eh?'

  'Well-'

  'He wakes up screaming in the middle of the night now. Ever since…'

  Logan put a hand on her shoulder. 'Come on, we'll go inside. You can make a statement and-'

  'No! No statements!' She clutched her scabby dog even tighter and the thing barked at Logan. 'I told you: he'll kill me!'

  'What's the point of giving Colin an alibi if you won't do it properly?'

  'Can't you just… you know: investigate, or something? If it wasn't Colin it must've been someone else. That's who you should be doing for attempted murder. Not him!'

  56

  The CID office was empty except for Logan and a single bluebottle. It buzzed and battered against the window, then disappeared up behind the Venetian blind, the plastic amplifying the noise. According to the duty whiteboard by the door, everyone else was off on a job: burglaries, muggings, fire raising, drug dealing, assaults, prostitution. The whole colourful pageant of big city life.

  Logan made himself a cup of tea and slumped behind his desk. The paperwork had backed up while he'd been off on the sick, piles of forms, reports, spreadsheets and statistics all needing urgent attention so some government idiot could pretend they were tough on crime…

  But really Logan was just hiding from DI Steel.

  And besides, how much of an idiot did Hilary Brander think he was? Having an affair with Creepy Colin McLeod? Who was she kidding? Everyone knew the man had a hard-on for junky prostitutes. She wasn't even a good liar.

  Logan took a mouthful of tea, looked at his pile of paperwork, sniffed, then made a start.

  Half an hour later he unearthed a padded envelope addressed to 'DETECTIVE SERGEANT LOGAN MCRAE, GRAMPIAN POLICE, FORCE HEADQUARTERS, QUEEN'S STREET, ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND' in a child's painstaking block capitals.

  He fought his way through the straightjacket of Sellotape and poured the contents onto his desk: photocopied bits of paper in Polish and Russian. Rafal Gorzkiewicz's file on the man who blinded him: Vadim Mikhailovitch Kravchenko.

  There was even a copy of the army photograph they'd seen at the flat. Rory's e-fit had been spot on. Kravchenko hadn't changed much. Obviously he was older and had a few more wrinkles, but other than that he was exactly the same, right down to the scar on his chin.

  'Still alive then?'

  'Hmm?' Logan swivelled his chair.

  DS Pirie was standing in the doorway, running a hand through his curly red hair. 'Not seen Rennie have you?'

  Logan picked a pile of burglary reports from the pile and dumped them on top of the Kravchenko file, burying it from view. 'No. Well, not since this morning. Think he's off questioning security guards for DI Steel again. Or something.'

  'Ah… Finnie's not going to like that. He's already pissed off she's got you assigned full time. Says it's pandering to the sick-note culture: we should all be thrown in at the deep end, not mollycoddled.'

  'That's nice.'

  'If this was the First World War, he'd probably have you taken outside and shot.' Pirie settled back against the door frame. 'Seriously though: you OK?'

  'Why does everyone keep asking that?'

  'Only you look like a pile of shite with a hangover.'

  Logan stiffened. 'I've got a cold!'

  The DS snorted. 'Yeah, good luck with that. Might work better if you eat a pack of Lockets though, menthol might cover the smell of stale booze.' He pulled himself upright. 'We all know Beattie's going to screw up sooner or later. And when he does, they'll bust his beardy arse back to sergeant, and that DI's post will be up for grabs again. Twenty quid says I get it.'

  'Make it thirty.'

  Pirie nodded. 'Be a pleasure taking your money, McRae.' Then he was off, dragging out his mobile phone and shouting at someone on the other end.

  Logan listened until Pirie's voice faded away down the corridor.

  Silence.

  He unearthed the Kravchenko file again. It was all still gobbledygook, but right at the bottom was a sheet of pale-violet notepaper, covered in the same childish handwriting as the address on the envelope. 'DEAR MR SERGEANT,

  UNCLE RAFAL IS SORRY YOU ARE BLOWNUP. HE SAYS T HIS WAS A XIDENT ACCIDENT MEANT FOR BAD MENS WITH GUN WHO TRY KILL UNCLE

  RAFAL. HE HAPPY YOU STILL ALIVE. I HAPPY YOU STILL ALIVE ALSO. THIS IS COPY OF FILE ON KURWA MAC KRAVCHENKO. IF YOU FIND HIM, PLEASE TO KILL HIM AND SEND ME PHOTOGRAPH. THANK YOU.

  LOVE, ZYTKA X

  P.S. UNCLE RAFAL SAYS THERE IS BOAT GO TO WHERE YOU LIVE WITH MANY GUN FOR KRAVCHENKO. IT CALLED "BUCKIE BALLAD " AND IT GO ABERDEEN 15 J ULY.

  P.P.S. PLEASE TO REMEMBER PHOTOGRAPH.'

  Logan sat back in his seat and whistled. A boatload of weapons on their way to Aberdeen… Probably replacements for the ones they'd found in that caravan in Stoneywood. Finnie wasn't going to like that, and neither was his paymaster: Wee Hamish Mowat. An all-out drug war was getting closer, and a lot of innocent people were going to get caught in the crossfire.

  But the worst part of all was that Logan would have to go speak to DI Steel. The inspector was in her office, glowering at her computer screen as Logan entered — bearing two cups of coffee and a peace offering from the canteen. 'Got you a bacon buttie.'

  She looked at the tinfoil-wrapped parcel and sniffed. 'You were a complete shite last night.'

  He settled into a visitors' chair. 'If you're not hungry, I can give it to someone else.'

  She
snatched it up. 'Didn't say that, did I?'

  He watched her tear into the thing, tomato sauce making a bid for freedom at the side of her mouth, then unwrapped his own mid-morning cholesterol treat. A booby-trap buttie: two fried eggs in a buttered roll, ready to explode yolk all over the place

  They ate in silence for a minute, then Logan pulled out his notebook, flipping though it with floury fingers to the correct page. 'Buckie Ballad. It's a fishing boat registered out of Peterhead, belongs to one Gerry McKee. It's been out at sea since last Tuesday, due back early Friday morning.'

  Steel washed down a chunk of buttie with a mouthful of coffee. 'Big deal. This is Aberdeen: fishing boats come and go the whole time.'

  'Not with a hold full of ex-Soviet weaponry they don't.'

  She stopped, halfway into a bite. 'Seriously?'

  'Seriously.' He dropped a clear evidence pouch onto her desk: Zytka's note. 'I spoke to the Harbour Master this morning — the Buckie Ballad always comes into port when there's nobody about. I got him to go through the surveillance footage of its last visit and he's got blokes unloading fish boxes in the dead of night, straight into the back of an unmarked Transit Van.'

  Steel picked up the note and peered at it. 'A boat full of guns? Bloody, God-damned, bastarding…' She frowned, polished off her buttie, then sucked at her teeth for a minute. 'Number plate on the van?'

  'Image is too grainy.'

  'You're dripping egg yolk on my desk.' She swivelled back and forth on her chair, while Logan mopped the wrinkly yellow drops up with his thumb. 'Right, who else knows about this?'

  'Just you and me. And that's two quid you owe the swear box.'

  'Oh… bloody hell!' She was scowling again. 'I was swearing all day yesterday, how come you didn't whinge then?'

  'Wasn't on duty. And it's two fifty, now: I'll let you off with the "hell".' They spent the next twenty minutes working out Operation Creel on the whiteboard, then Steel got Logan to type up everything and get rid of the evidence while she went to the toilet. He was wiping the board clean by the time she got back. Everything else was done: requisition forms, risk assessment, contingency plan, and warrant application. She shuffled through the lot, then wandered off to look for the head of CID.