Blind Eye

31

Logan listened to Finnie's mobile bleeping over to voicemail. He left a message as he marched across the Castlegate, making for FHQ. He tried the DCI's office phone instead. No luck there either. According to the clock, perched high on the Town House tower, it was nearly half past six. By now the dayshift had been over for almost ninety minutes, and given the afternoon's fiasco at the Krakow General Store, Finnie had probably given up and gone home.

Or to the nearest pub. He'd been first in with Superintendent Napier and the other trolls from Professional Standards. God knew Logan would have needed a stiff drink after that.

Maybe he should phone Pirie?

But that DI's position was coming up and it might not be a good idea to share the credit with someone after the same promotion. Assuming it wasn't all just a waste of time. So he gave DI Steel a call. Let it ring three times. Changed his mind and hung up.

Finnie wanted initiative. Logan could do initiative.

He hurried back to Force Headquarters.

Big Gary was on the front desk, chewing on a blue biro as he perused the duty roster. 'Sodding sod-monkeys of Sod…' He scribbled something in the book, then looked up to see Logan. 'Oh no: tell me you're just back because you forgot to sign out!'

'I need a couple of uniform, got anyone spare?'

The huge sergeant rolled his eyes. 'You got any idea what you're doing to my overtime calculations? I'm supposed to be-'

'Rennie'll do if he's about.'

'No. You can't have anyone. We're throwing a surprise party for some Yardies later, I need everyone making paper streamers and blowing up balloons.'

'Come on, Gary. Just one. Don't care who it is, as long as they can walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time.'

'All three at once?' His eyebrows shot up. 'Jesus, you're not asking for much, are you?'

'An hour. Two, tops.' Logan put on his best lost puppy face. 'Please?'

The big man sighed, his huge shoulders rising and falling, making his white shirt creak at the buttons. 'All right, all right. You can have Guthrie. Just try to bring him back in one piece this time, OK?'

'Cheers.' Logan gave the reception area a shifty once over. PC Karim's favourite tramp, Dirty Bob, was slumped in one of the corner seats fast asleep, a line of dribble disappearing into a thick mat of bushy black beard. Other than that they were alone. 'You heard anything about this DI's position coming up?'

Big Gary scribbled something down in the roster. 'Think you're in with a chance, do you?'

'Might be.'

'With your reputation?'

'Oh ha, ha. Come on, what've you heard?'

The sergeant leant across the desk, a roll of stomach annexing one corner of the day book. 'Pirie's odds on favourite, if you fancy a flutter? Or I can give you two to one on Beattie?'

Logan wasn't about to throw his money away. DS Beattie had more chance of being elected Miss World than making Detective Inspector. 'What about me?'

'Eighteen to one.'

Logan pushed away from the reception desk. 'You're all a bunch of bastards, you know that?'

'We do our best.' Guthrie poked his head over the balustrade and peered down at a bicycle chained up at the bottom of the stairwell. 'How far you think it is?' he asked. His voice still had a slightly bunged-up edge to it, but at least they'd taken the staple out of his nose. 'Fifty feet? Sixty?'

He howched, then spat. Watching the drop dwindle in size.

Logan told him to stop spitting on other people's bicycles.

'Was just checking.'

'Well, just don't.' Logan made sure they had the right address. A top-floor flat in a little block on Balnagask Road, part of a group of seven identical buildings overlooking off-green playing fields, East Tullos Industrial Estate, and the bracken-covered hill behind it.

They'd sneaked into the block using the services button, convincing a pregnant woman with a sticky child that they were there to check the fire extinguishers.

Guthrie took one more peek over the handrail. 'You sure we shouldn't have a warrant? Armed backup? That kind of thing?'

'We're just going to ask a few questions.' Logan pressed the bell. Nothing seemed to happen. 'Besides, all we're doing is following up a lead.' And there was no way they'd have given him a firearms team after this afternoon's disastrous showing at the Krakow General Store.

Someone downstairs was listening to EastEnders: cockney accents drifting up the stairwell. The window-ledges were covered in drifts of junk mail advertising Stanna Stairlifts, over-fifties' life insurance, and things to help you get in and out of the bath.

Logan tried the bell again.

Still nothing.

Guthrie said, 'Maybe he's not in? We could-'

'Shhhhh!' Logan held up a finger. He stuck his ear to the door and after a short pause, the constable did the same. There was music playing inside, something with too much bass and not enough melody. The two of them stood like that for about a minute, and then a loud voice behind Logan made him jump.

'Can I help you?'

He scrambled round to see a woman in her mid-fifties, hair dyed a fiery orange, greying at the roots and thinning at the crown. She was weighed down with shopping bags.

'We… tried the bell,' Logan pointed at it.

'The bell doesn't work.' It was almost a shout. She looked them up and down, paying particular attention to PC Guthrie in his black uniform. 'Are you Jehovah's Witnesses, then?'

'Er… no. We're police officers.'

'We've not had Jehovah's Witnesses for ages. I think our Daniel scares them off. Of course, he's dead now, but he wouldn't let a little thing like that stop him.' She rummaged in her handbag and produced a big bunch of keys, working her way through them until she found one that fitted in the front door lock. 'Here we go.'

The door opened on a small hallway. A rack full of fleeces and coats, an umbrella stand with three golf clubs in it. A picture of the Virgin Mary. One door led off to a bathroom, drowning in pink, the other through to a small kitchen/living room.

The music was louder now. Bmm-tchhh, bmmm-tchhhhh, bmmmm-tchhh…

Logan watched her heft a collection of carrier bags up onto the working surfaces. 'Mrs Gilchrist, we'd like a word with your son, if that's OK?' Pause. 'Mrs Gilchrist?'

She was busy stacking tins of sweetcorn into a cupboard.

Logan tapped her on the shoulder. 'Mrs Gilchrist?'

She jumped. Turned. Stared at him for a moment. 'Do I know you? How did you get into my house?'

'You let us in, just a minute ago? Remember? You thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses?'

She smiled. 'We've not had Jehovah's Witnesses for ages. I think our Daniel scares them off. Of course, he's dead now, but he wouldn't let a little thing like that stop him.' She nodded towards a framed portrait on the windowsill, of a stern-faced man with eyes like cigarette burns. 'Sometimes he comes to the shops with me.'

Logan's gaze drifted past the portrait to the view beyond. From here you could see the boxy houses on Burnbank Place. He scanned the rows until he found the one with a skip outside it, where Doc Fraser had done a living post mortem on one of the Oedipus victims. 'We need to speak to your son, Mrs Gilchrist.'

She looked blank for a moment. 'Sorry, I'm a bit deaf. "Deaf and daft," my Daniel used to say. He's dead now.' She pulled a clunky beige hearing aid from a kitchen drawer and waggled it at them. 'Would you like a cup of tea? Jehovah's Witnesses are allowed tea, aren't they?'

'We're not…' Logan stopped. 'Yes, we'd love one, thanks.'

'That's nice.' She smiled. 'We've not had Jehovah's Witnesses for ages. I think our Daniel scares them off.'

'Can we speak to your son, Mrs Gilchrist?'

'Of course he's dead now. Got the cancer, didn't he? Terrible shame… He was always such a sweet man.'

'Your son, Mrs Gilchrist?'

'Hmm? Ricky?' She seemed to stare at them from very far away. 'Oh, he'll be in his room.' She pointed at a door with a little skull-and-crossbones sticker on it. 'Would you like some tea?'

Logan tried the handle — it wasn't locked. The door opened on a dingy little bedroom. The curtains were closed, but a huge television set cast a flickering pink glow over the debris-strewn room: unwashed plates; piles of dirty washing; a small stack of newspapers; some lad-mags; a laptop, monitor and printer. A CD player on a bookshelf thumping out what could almost pass for music.

The occupant, Ricky Gilchrist, was slumped on a beanbag in front of the telly, earphones on, trousers round his ankles, hammering away one-handed at his erection.

There was a light switch beside the door. Logan flicked it on and brilliant white filled the room, followed a heartbeat later by screaming as Ricky exploded out of his beanbag and tried to cover the enormous television screen with his half naked body. His skin was the colour of yoghurt, sprinkled with dark red freckles, ribs clearly visible. He fumbled for his trousers, shouting, 'Jesus, Mum, you're not allowed in here!'

Logan pulled out his warrant card. 'Jehovah's Witnesses: we understand you might be having improper thoughts.'

Ricky span around, cock bobbing in the breeze, framed in a bramble patch of orange pubes. 'You… what… NO!' He covered himself up, still standing in front of the television. Then pulled off his headphones. 'You can't come in here, you've got no right!'

'Detective Sergeant Logan McRae, Grampian Police.' Logan tried not to watch as Ricky did up his flies. 'I won't shake hands, if it's all the same to you.'

A blush turned Ricky's pale skin hot pink. 'It's not illegal, OK? It's personal… Privacy of your own home… I'll sue.'

'Yeah, let's all go to court and you can tell the jury how we barged in on you playing with yourself. That'll do your reputation the world of good.' He leant against the door-frame. 'I hear you've been harassing members of the Polish community, Ricky. Following them home from Mass. Making a nuisance of yourself.'

The young man pulled a T-shirt on over his scrawny chest. 'They're liars. They're all bloody liars. Look.' He pointed at his face, where the last hint of a black eye was slowly fading. 'They hit me. I was assaulted. I should press charges!'

But Logan wasn't listening any more: when Ricky bent over to pick up the T-shirt, Logan had got a clear view of the TV screen. It was Krystka Gorzalkowska, the woman Guthrie had accidentally shot. She was on her knees, biting her lip, trying not to cry out, tears running down her face as the two men behind her kept on going. Krystka was naked, but the men wore cheap plastic Halloween masks — a bulldog and an Alsatian.

Logan grabbed the headphone cable and yanked it out of the socket.

'Hey, you can't just-'

A man's voice boomed out of the television's speakers: 'You like that, don't you bitch? Eh?' A slap. 'That's right, take it you dirty whore!'

Krystka let out a sob, but that only seemed to excite them even more. 'Yeah, you fucking love it! Say it, bitch! SAY IT!'

'Where did you get this?'

Ricky fumbled for the remote control and the screen went black. 'Just a bit of fun, OK? It's private. You can't just-'

Logan shoved him hard, and Ricky fell back into the beanbag. 'She's being raped! Think that's "just a bit of fun"? Do you?'

Ricky looked away, his voice barely audible over the music. 'Fucking Polish bitch deserves it, doesn't she?'

Logan closed his eyes and tried really hard not to cross the room and smack the living hell out of him. Instead he turned his back, and stared at the laptop in the corner. There was a collage of newspaper articles pinned to the wall behind it, all about the Oedipus case. Newsprint pictures from the Aberdeen Examiner of the victims, their eyes scribbled out in angry red biro. 'You don't like Polish people, do you, Ricky?'

No reply, just the thump-thump-thump of another dreadful song. Logan switched the CD off, then walked over to the television. A DVD player sat on top of it, covered in a thick layer of dusty grey fluff. Logan pressed eject and a shiny home-recorded disc slid out. The kind you could buy blank in any supermarket. A laserprinted label read, 'KRYSTKA GET'S F*CK~D DIRTY 3-WAY!!!*!'

'Where did you get this?'

'I didn't do anything.'

Logan pulled on a pair of evidence gloves, then slid the DVD into an evidence pouch. 'We know, Ricky.'

There was a long pause. And then the pale man said, 'They're animals. They roam the streets, marking their territory. Worse than dogs. Someone had to do something.'

Logan nodded. 'I want you to come down the station with me, Ricky.'

'Someone had to make the streets safe.' He levered himself out of the beanbag. 'Someone had to make them pay.'

'Are you going to come quietly?'

'Do I need a lawyer? I don't have a lawyer.'

'You're not under arrest, you're coming down to the station voluntarily.'

'Oh…' He seemed to think about it for a minute. 'I did it. All of it.' He stuck his hands out, wrists together, waiting for the cuffs. 'I cut their eyes out. It's me. I'm Oedipus. I did it because you wouldn't.'