Blind Eye

11

The Monday morning briefing had a carnival atmosphere to it, everyone lounging in their chairs, talking about where they were going on holiday. DC Rennie — tanned and smug — handed out a mound of bacon butties, the tinfoil packages releasing their savoury-scented steam into the crowded room. Logan's stomach growled, then lurched as Rennie stuck one under his nose, saying, 'Don't say I'm never good to you.'

'Urgh… get that bloody thing away from me!'

The constable sank into the next seat. 'God, you're not still on that vegetarian nonsense are you? Been seven months: get over it.'

'You know what you can do with your bacon buttie? You can shove it right up your-'

The door opened and everyone sat up, shut up, and prepared to pay attention. Only it wasn't DCI Finnie standing in the doorway — hauling his bra up with one hand, and carrying a plastic bag from Tesco in the other — it was DI Steel. She paused and stared at them all. 'Don't tell me he's still no' here!'

She finished rearranging herself, then took the seat on the other side of Rennie. The constable smiled and offered her Logan's rejected buttie. 'Got an extra one for you.'

She took it without a word, ripped a huge bite out of it, then sat chewing in scowly silence.

Rennie sniffed. 'You're welcome.'

'Oh don't be such a whinge.' The inspector's words were muffled by a cheek-straining mouthful. 'Is this going to take long? Only I've got a date with a rapist called Norman.'

'You know, when I was in Thailand-'

Steel made a little naked sock puppet out of her left hand and went, 'Blah, blah, blah. Look at me, I'm Defective Constable Rennie, and I went to the Far East with Gary Glitter Tours.'

The constable blushed. 'That's not funny.'

'Aye it is. Isn't it Laz?'

Logan shook his head. 'Didn't you hear? Rennie's got himself a grown-up lady friend. About twenty years older than he is.'

'Is it his mum?'

Rennie scowled. 'That's the last time I get a round of bacon butties in. Ungrateful bastards.'

'Does she make you a packed lunch in the morning and tell you not to talk to strange men?'

'Just-'

'Read you a bedtime story?'

'We-'

'Bet she gives your arse a good spanking when you've been naughty.'

And at that, Rennie's blush got even redder.

'She does!' Steel laughed, spraying out a claggy mush of half-chewed bread and bacon. 'Oh, you are such a pervert!' Five minutes later she was obviously getting bored of winding the constable up, because she shouted across the room: 'Hoy, Pirie — where's your lord and master?'

DCI Finnie's sidekick looked at his watch. 'Supposed to be here.'

'I know where he's supposed to be, what I want to know is where he actually is!'

'Em…'

'Oh for God's sake.' Steel marched down to the front of the room. 'Right, we're none of us getting any younger, so: briefing. Everyone who's on an active case, stand up.'

Tumbleweed.

'Aunty Roberta says, on your feet, you lazy bastards!'

Reluctantly, they did as they were told, the sound of rubber-soled chair legs squeaking on the green terrazzo floor.

'Better.' Steel crossed her arms. 'Right, if you can see someone else on your case who outranks you, sit your arse down.'

That left half a dozen Detective Constables and Detective Sergeants. The inspector made them all give a little report on their investigations: background, current status, and estimated chances of not cocking the whole thing up. The last one standing was DS Pirie.

He ran a hand through his wiry ginger hair, straightened his suit jacket on his skeletal frame, and brought everyone up to date on Operation Oedipus. The slideshow was set up ready for the absent DCI Finnie, and Pirie started at the beginning. The very first victim's tattered face filled the screen. 'Tolek Dobrowski, twenty-three, electrician, originally from Gdansk.'

Steel scrunched up the tinfoil her bacon buttie came in and lobbed it at the detective sergeant. 'Don't sod about, we've been over this already. Tell us something we don't know.'

Pirie flushed, filling in the space between his freckles. 'Fine…' He went scrabbling through his notes. 'The… here we are: the only thing our victims had in common, is that they're all Polish nationals, except for Simon McLeod. And none of them will tell us anything about what happened, or why.' He turned and poked the projection screen. 'Someone does that to you, and you don't talk to the police?'

Steel snorted. 'They're scared, you idiot. What do you think our eye-gouger would do to them if he found out they talked: bake them a cake? Move on!'

'Ah, yes, well…'

Rennie stuck up his hand. 'Why are we calling him Oedipus?'

Pirie squared his shoulders, scowling at the interruption. 'If you'd been paying attention Constable, you'd know why. Now-'

'Yeah, but Oedipus slept with his mum, murdered his dad, then gouged his own eyes out. He didn't blind anyone else.'

Steel snorted. 'And if anyone knows about sleeping with his mum, it's Rennie.'

Laughter.

The constable blushed. 'If you want a proper name we should call him Cornwall — he's the one who blinds the Earl of Gloucester in King Lear. You know, Shakespeare?'

Pirie just stared at him. 'If you don't have anything constructive to add, Constable: shut up.'

Rennie put his hand down and Finnie's sidekick nodded. 'Now, does anyone else have any stupid comments…?' Silence. 'Good. We got Dr Goulding to update the profile following the attack on DS McRae and DI Steel on Friday. I've got copies here at the front — make sure you take one and read it. Dr Goulding believes we're now looking for two men.' The e-fits appeared on the screen. 'You'll have seen these faces on posters all over town, but bear in mind they're probably wrong. No offence to DS McRae, but his source is highly questionable. Posters went up Friday evening and we've not had a single positive identification yet. So forget the e-fits: we're looking at a pair of men in their mid to late twenties. One will be older than the other — probably very charismatic — the younger man is following him and may be mentally subnormal.'

Steel made another Rennie joke.

Pirie carried on, ignoring the laughter: 'We need to start looking at the usual care-in-the-community jobs. Find out if any of them have recently fallen in with an older man.' The DS fiddled his paperwork into a neat pile. 'I would have expected the Polish community to come out in force on this one, given the fact it's them being targeted, but I get the feeling they wouldn't talk to us even if they knew. It's a conspiracy of silence out there. Keep that in mind when you're interviewing them — they don't trust us.'

The inspector let Pirie finish his briefing before she handed out the day's assignments. 'One last thing,' she said, before anyone could escape, 'the language in this department is fucking shocking. We're going to do something about that.' She grabbed her carrier bag from the floor and dragged out a big tin of Quality Street.

An excited murmur went around the room.

'Don't get your hopes up, I've eaten them all.' The tin went on the desk at the front of the room, then Steel put on a sing-song voice, as if she was speaking to very small, very thick children, 'This is our new swear box, isn't that exciting! And every time you rude bastards come out with some verbal filth, you have to put money in it.'

Everyone groaned.

'Oh shut up. When it's full the money either goes to charity or we stick it behind the bar and get blootered.'

She crumpled up the empty carrier bag and stuck it in her pocket. 'And before I forget: since his brother got blinded it looks like Creepy Colin McLeod's been doing a world tour of the local lowlife with his pet claw hammer. Harry Jordan got his kneecaps done last night — that makes six. Now I know drug dealers and affiliated scumbags aren't as cute as puppies and kittens, but that doesn't mean Creepy gets to cripple them. Eyes and ears open, people.'

She sniffed, then stared at them for a moment. No Questions. 'Right, we're done. One quick chorus of "We are not at home to Mr Fuck-Up" then you can all go catch some bloody crooks for a change.' By half past eight Logan was on the phone to the hospital, checking up on Kevin Murray — the man who'd got his nose cut in half on Friday night. Apparently he'd been given lots of stitches, lots of painkillers and was back on the street within twenty-four hours.

There was no sign of the four hoodies who'd attacked him.

'It's like a bloody jungle out there most weekends,' said the inspector in charge of the CCTV room, covering the front of his white shirt with cake crumbs. 'We've got the four little sods on tape, but there's no way to make an ID.' He called up the footage, letting it play across one of the monitors that dominated the wall opposite the control desk. 'See? They never even look at a camera. Keep their faces hidden the whole time.'

Logan helped himself to a slice of coconut sponge. 'They had Manchester accents, if that helps?'

'It doesn't.' The inspector spooled the tape forward a bit, and Logan watched Kevin Murray go down in a spray of blood. Hoodie Number One bounced in front Logan, then he and his fellow thugs were off and running. The picture tilted to follow them, then jumped to another camera. Then another one… And then they were gone, vanishing into one of the little side roads off George Street. Swallowed by granite and shadow.

Logan finished his mouthful. 'Thought Britain had more CCTV cameras per head of population than anywhere in the world?'

'Don't you bloody start — I get enough of that from the wife.' The inspector pointed at a stack of VHS videos in their black cases. 'Got about forty hours' worth of drug-related stabbings and fights there, if you want it?'

Logan patted him on the shoulder and said he'd think about it. DI Steel was slumped in her office with her feet up on the desk, a cup of coffee sitting in front of her, while she fiddled about in her cleavage. Logan settled down into the only visitor chair that didn't look as if it was covered in pee-stains. 'Is it just me,' he said, 'or is Pirie a total wanker?'

'Yup…' The inspector kept on rummaging.

'I mean, can you believe all that rubbish? "The profile says this, the profile says that." Idiot.' There were copies of the e-fits on the inspector's desk, Logan picked them up, staring at the two faces. 'We know Oedipus isn't in his early twenties — Rory saw him — he had grey hair… And what kind of serial nut-job goes after Simon McLeod?'

'Suicidal one?' She managed to get two hands down the front of her shirt.

'Would you stop doing that?'

'Lost a bit of nicotine gum…'

Logan took another good long look at the e-fit of the older man. Short grey hair, chiselled jaw, stern eyes… 'Does he not look a bit… familiar to you?'

Steel snatched it off him, one hand still well and truly rammed down her cleavage as she squinted at the composite photo. 'No.' She handed it back. 'Susan and me watched that Indiana Jane and the Temple of Dildos last night. Brilliant. Tell you, she can raid my forbidden palace any time she likes.' Steel gave up on the rummaging, stood, and untucked her grey blouse.

'If you're getting naked, I'm leaving the room.'

'Don't flatter yourself…' She jiggled up and down until a small white rectangle of gum fell out onto the carpet. 'Aha! Knew it was in there somewhere.' She bent to retrieve her spoils.

'What if Rory screwed us over?'

'Nah,' said Steel, brushing the fluff off her nicotine gum, before popping it in her mouth, 'the wee shite only likes little girls.'

'No — I mean what if this isn't the guy who attacked us in the house? Rory didn't want to ID them in the first place, was scared in case they found out. What if Rory fiddled the description so he'd be in the clear?'

'I'll bloody kill him!'

'Maybe that's why no one's recognized the pictures yet?'

Steel grabbed her coat and tucked her blouse back into her trousers. 'Well, come on then: let's go pay Mr Rory Simpson a visit. Dirty wee bastard should still be in the cells.'

'And that's one pound fifty you owe the swear box.'

'No I don't.'

'Yes you do. One "bloody" one "bastard" and a "shite". Fifty pence each.'

The inspector opened her mouth, then closed it again. 'You are such a…' Scowl. 'Well, you called Pirie a wanker!'

She had him there. Down in the cell blocks, the sound of someone yelling echoed around the concrete and breezeblock walls. 'POLICE BRUTALITY! HELP! SOMEONE CALL A LAWYER! FUCKING BASTARD FUCKERS! HELP!'

Steel stopped on the stairs. 'Maybe we should come back when things are a bit less shouty?'

'You want me to do it?' asked Logan, one hand on the stairwell door.

'Oh aye, and take all the credit? No thank you.' She pushed past him into the depressing grey corridor.

'POLICE BRUTALITY!'

One of the Police Custody and Security Officers was standing in the middle of the cellblock, grinding her teeth.

'What's all this then?' said Steel. 'You been beating up our prisoners again? How often do I have to tell you that's CID's job?'

'POLICE FUCKING BRUTALITY!'

The PCSO gave cell number six a filthy look. 'Says he found a pubic hair in his tea. As if! Lucky we give the bastards breakfast at all. Next time he's brought in I'm farting on his rowie.'

'Come on then, Celebrity MasterChef, which one's Rory Simpson in?'

'He's not-'

'WHAT ABOUT MY BLOODY HUMAN RIGHTS?'

The PCSO banged on the cell door with the palm of her hand. 'WILL YOU SHUT UP!' There was a moment of blessed silence. 'Rory Simpson's been here since Friday afternoon so he got dibs on an early court hearing. They took him first thing. Got released on bail — trial date's been set for three weeks.'

'Oh for fff…' Steel ground to a halt. 'I mean, oh dear.' She turned and marched back towards the rear doors. 'Rory's a creature of habit: he'll go straight home from court, pausing only to pick up a wee bottle of brandy and a packet of custard creams to make himself feel better. We'll pick him up there. Not a problem.'

Wrong.