Blind Eye

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]