Blind Eye

Noise. Six Days Later
50

A grey pall hung over Aberdeen, threatening rain but never quite getting around to it. A pair of plastic bags played chase across the road outside the primary school, swirling up for a moment, before disappearing over the railings and into the empty playground.

'Uh-huh.'

Logan rested his forehead on the steering wheel, mobile phone clamped to his ear as Samantha said, 'And I thought we could go out for a drink, Friday. Celebrate you being allowed back to work?'

'Uh-huh.'

'Rennie wants to go. And Steel. Maybe Big Gary and Eric?'

'Uh-huh.'

Pause.

'Uh-huh.'

'Are you OK?'

'What? Oh, sorry, yeah.' He pulled himself upright and rubbed a hand across his gritty eyes. 'You know what it's like. All this varnishing… the fumes.'

'You're not still at it are you?'

He looked across the road at the bland granite lump of Sunnybank Primary School. 'Just giving the lounge floor another coat right now.'

'The doctor said you should take it easy for a bit.'

Silence.

'Logan?'

'Sorry.'

'Is that journalist moron still camped out on your doorstep?'

A light breeze ruffled the leaves overhead, making little ovals of sunshine dance across the car's dirty bonnet. 'What? Oh… no. Guess he's got more important things to do than stalk some idiot who got himself blown up.'

Another pause. 'Logan, are you sure you're all right?'

'Sorry, I just… Look, that's the doorbell, I gotta go, OK?'

They said their goodbyes and he hung up. Slipped the phone back in his pocket. Scowled at himself in the rearview mirror. 'You're a lying bastard.' And an ugly one too: his face was a mass of scratches and white butterfly stitches. Dark purple bags under his eyes to match the bruises on his forehead and chin. Six days worth of stubble. He couldn't shave without taking the top off half a dozen scabs.

Logan reached for the glove compartment and pulled out the packet of cigarettes he'd bought from the corner shop. There was something wrong with the lighter — it wouldn't hold still, the flame trembling past the end of the cigarette until he used both hands. He dragged the smoke deep into his scarred lungs.

Coughed. Spluttered.

Then wound down the window.

At least it was a bit cooler for a change. Yesterday the ratty little car he'd picked up for two hundred pounds at Thainstone Mart was like an oven. His very first car and it was a piece-of-shit three-door Fiat in diarrhoea brown that smelled of old lady, stale cigarettes, and mould. But it'd been cheap, and it would do.

He sat there, smoke curling out of the window, trying not to shiver. Wasn't even that cold. Stupid.

Logan didn't trust the dashboard clock — half the electrics were shot — so he checked his watch instead. Nearly half ten.

Bloody doctor. What did he know? Not fit to return to work. Logan wasn't the one they should be sending home, it was that moron Beattie. Detective Inspector Beardy Beattie. How the hell could they promote Beattie? What idiot thought that was a good idea?

The cigarette tasted like burning flesh, so Logan ground it out in the car's ashtray, along with the corpses of its half-smoked friends.

He covered his mouth as a jaw-splitting yawn tore free. Then shoogled about in the lumpy seat, trying to get comfortable. Two whole days sitting outside a closed school. Must be mad… Everything goes bright.

The noise hits a fraction of a second later, and then the heat: blistering the paintwork on the door, flames billowing into the room. Screaming- Logan sat bolt upright, banged his knee on the steering wheel, then slumped back into his seat. 'Fuck!'

He sat there, clutching his leg, heart thumping, feeling sick. Struggling to breathe.

There was a packet of caffeine tablets in the carrier bag at his feet — he washed four down with a tin of Red Bull. Shuddered. Swore. Lit another trembling cigarette.

Jesus…

Every.

Single.

Time.

Someone slumped past on the other side of the road, head down, shopping bags in hand. Bowed by the weight of the world and every bastard in it. Logan toasted him with the tin of Red Bull. 'Screw them all.'

The scruffy old man stooped to tie his shoelace. Then stood and stared across the road at the empty school.

He was wearing a brown corduroy jacket with frayed cuffs, a pair of faded jeans with turn-ups. Scrappy beard. Grey hair sticking out at all angles. Glasses.

'Ah…' Logan smiled. 'About time you showed up.'

He waited for the old man to shamble across the road, then stepped out of the car; not bothering to lock it — what self-respecting thief would be seen dead stealing something like that?

The old man stopped at the playground fence, looking wistfully through the railings at the dark, silent building beyond. And then he turned and started to walk away again.

Logan shouted, 'Want to see some puppies, Rory?'

The old man dropped his carrier bags and ran for it.

He didn't get far. Logan grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and rammed him into the nearest tree, hard enough to make the man's glasses fly off into the gutter.

'Aaaagh… get off me! I'm not-'

'The schools closed last week, you idiot: summer holidays. No kiddies for you.' Logan pulled him back and slammed him into the tree again, bouncing the little sod's forehead off the bark.

'Aaaaagh. Jesus…'

When Logan let go, Rory Simpson slumped to the pavement, holding his head as if it were about to split in two. Up close he stank of BO, greasy hair, and unwashed clothes.

'You look like shit.'

He scowled up at Logan. 'You can talk… attacking innocent people like that…'

'Innocent?'

'I think I'm bleeding. Am I bleeding? I need to go to the hospital.' He pulled his hands from his forehead and checked them for signs of blood. Nothing. 'Probably got a concussion. I- Hey!'

Logan hauled him to his feet. 'The glasses your idea of a disguise, Rory? What, you think you're Clark Kent? That shite might work on the good people of Metropolis, but you're in Aberdeen now.'

The little man went back to massaging his forehead. 'That's police brutality, you know.'

'It's called resisting arrest.' He tightened his grip on Rory's collar and dragged him towards the car.

'Wait! Wait — my shopping! My glasses…' Hands flapping towards his fallen possessions.

Logan didn't let go, but he did let him pick up his stuff. Then marched him back to the ratty little Fiat. 'Get in.'

Rory stopped, peered in through the window, curled his top lip. 'Doesn't look very clean.'

Logan yanked the door open, hauled the driver's seat forward, and shoved him between the shoulder blades. Rory sprawled across the back seat, face down.

'Wrists together, behind your back.'

'But-'

'Don't fuck with me, Rory, coz I've had a shitty week and I'm just dying for someone to take it out on. Understand? Now put your bloody hands behind your bloody back!'

He did as he was told, and Logan slapped the handcuffs on.

'Ow! Do you have to be so rough?'

Logan slammed the driver's seat back into place, then climbed in behind the wheel as Rory struggled upright again. 'Where are we going?'

'Skipping bail, failing to appear, and resisting arrest. Where do you think?'

'No.' He shuffled forwards, eyes wide in the rear-view mirror. 'You can't take me back to the station! They're waiting for me!'

Which was stating the bloody obvious.

'Of course they are: with jelly and ice cream, because you're so fucking popular.' Logan started the engine — it sounded like a washing machine full of ball-bearings — then fought with the groaning gearbox. 'Now sit still and shut up.'

Rory managed to do as he was told for a whole two minutes. Then he was leaning forwards again, his head poking between the front seats, bottom lip trembling. 'Please! I'm begging you. You can't take me back there. Please.'

Logan pulled up at the junction, waiting for the lights to change. 'Not going to happen, Rory.'

'Please… It was… A policeman tried to kill me.'

'Bollocks.'

'That's why I ran: I swear on my sainted mother's grave. A policeman and that Russian you were after: they tried to kill me!' The wind had picked up. Logan sat in the driver's seat, watching the North Sea churn against the beach, smoking another cigarette he didn't really want. A seagull lurched past on the pavement outside, giving him the evil eye on its way somewhere important.

There was a knock on the passenger window and DI Steel peered in. 'Where'd you get this piece of junk? A skip?'

Logan got out of the car. 'You took your time.'

'Don't you bloody start — I get enough of that from DCI Frog-Face.' She pointed at the cigarette still smouldering in his hand. 'Thought you'd given up the demon cancer sticks?'

Logan shrugged and took another drag. 'You going to give me a hard time?'

'No' if you lend us one.'

He did and she lit up, then blew a long stream of smoke across the roof of the car. 'You know this stuff'll kill you, yeah?'

'It can join the queue.' Logan walked round to the Fiat's boot. 'Got a present for you.'

She followed him, stepping forward as Logan unlocked the lid and swung it open. She looked inside. Looked at Logan. 'Why is there…?' Looked back inside again. Rory Simpson lay on his side in the boot, tucked in beneath the parcel shelf, next to the threadbare spare tyre. Hands still cuffed behind his back. He blinked up, eyes squinted against the light.

Steel poked him. 'Rory, you daft sod: normal people ride up front in the seats. The boot's for dead bodies.' She puckered up for a moment. Then said to Logan, 'Mind you, we could always drive him out to the middle of nowhere: do the world a favour? I've got a shovel in my car.'

Rory blinked, grumbled something about pins and needles, then tried to sit up. Steel pushed him back down again and slammed the hatchback shut.

'Laz, why have you got a kiddy-fiddling scumbag handcuffed in the boot of your crappy car?' The inspector slumped back into the passenger seat, brushed the rust and dust from her hands, and said, 'This better be good.'

Rory Simpson's voice whined out behind them, 'I'm getting cramp in here.'

Logan turned, staring through the gap where they'd put one of the back seats down so they could see into the boot. 'Shut up and tell the inspector what you told me.'

The old man wriggled, probably trying to get comfortable. 'Can you at least take these things off?'

Steel popped a pellet of nicotine gum in her mouth, talking and smoking and chewing all at the same time. 'Clock's ticking Rory.'

'Fine…' Big sigh. 'They were waiting for me when I got home. You know, from court. The building's front door was kicked in. "Oh-ho," I thinks, "bloody kids up to no good again." And then I go upstairs and someone's broken into my flat.' He shuddered. 'If I hadn't gone past the shop on the way…'

'Should've called the police.'

That got her a dirty look. 'I could hear two men talking in the lounge, and I'm about to leg it — just in case it's… you know, concerned parents or something — when I realize they're talking about how to get rid of my body. My body! Like I'm already dead… One of them sounds Russian, but the other's a policeman.'

'Who?'

Rory went silent, staring down at the grubby surface of the back seat.

'Rory, who was it?'

'I didn't see him.'

'You're such a liar.' Steel stretched her gum with the tip of her tongue, then popped it. 'If you didn't see him, how do you know he was a police officer?'

'Because the other man said so, OK? That's how I know. He said, "You call yourself a policeman and you can't even catch one little…" He called me the "P" word. And the other one said he'd get patrol cars looking for me. So I snuck back out and ran for it.'

Rory started fidgeting again. 'Are you sure you can't take these handcuffs off?'

Steel said, 'Positive.'

'But my nose is itchy.'

'So I'm supposed to believe some anonymous Russian and a bent copper are trying to kill you?'

'He's not anonymous: I saw him. When I got back outside I looked up, at the flat. The Russian was standing at the window, talking to someone on the phone. It was him — the man from the house when that gangster got blinded. Grey hair, eyes like a rapist.'

There was a thunk on the bonnet and Logan looked around. A fat seagull was glaring at them through the windscreen. Logan honked the horn, but the bird didn't even blink. 'You lied when we put together that e-fit, didn't you.'

'Didn't want to get involved. And now look…' He sagged, until his head was resting on the spare tyre. 'If you take me back to the station, they'll kill me.'

Steel chewed in silence for a minute. Then turned back to face the front. 'Sounds like a load of old bollocks to me.'

Logan cleared his throat. 'Actually… I think he's telling the truth.'

'You soft git.' She pulled the gum from her mouth, rolled down her window, and pinged it at the seagull, then did the same thing with her cigarette butt. Missed both times. 'Fine, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt.' Steel turned back to scowl at Rory. 'Looks like it's your lucky day. But if you're lying to me, you'll be digging your own shallow grave, understand?'