Blind Eye

7

'Ah…' Rory Simpson looked up at the camera bolted to the wall of the interview room. 'That wasn't what I meant.'

Logan sat back in his seat and folded his arms. 'You said you saw them!'

'Heat of the moment. I got caught up in all the excitement: high-speed chase, the sirens… Being handcuffed bent double like that, blood must have rushed to my head.'

Rory had developed amnesia the moment he'd overheard some idiot talking about what had happened to Simon McLeod and the other victims.

'Do you have any idea how important this is? People are being-'

'Suppose I had seen them — and I'm not saying I did — but suppose I had. What do you think they'd do to me if they found out I'd identified them?' He ran a hand across his bushy grey moustache. 'I'm rather attached to my eyes. I need them for looking at stuff.'

'Rory, we can stop them. But we need to know what they look like.'

'Can't you…' He waved his hands around. 'You know, DNA, fingerprints, that kind of thing.'

'They were wearing gloves.' Logan scooted his chair closer to the interview table. 'We can protect you. Make sure they can't lay a hand on you.'

Silence.

'Hmmm…' Rory pursed his lips and stared at the camera again. 'And would it make you forget all about our little… misunderstanding at the school this morning?'

'You mean when you were trying to coax little kids into your car with drugs?'

Rory actually blushed. 'Well, it might have looked like that, but-'

'Were you shopping for yourself, or someone else?'

This time the awkward pause stretched out for almost a minute. 'I… I don't know what you mean.'

'Don't play dumb, Rory. We know someone's in the market for young "livestock" — we've been hearing rumours for years. Was the little girl for you, or were you snatching to order?'

He shifted in his seat, licked his top lip, fidgeted. 'About those men this afternoon… I may have seen them after all.'

'You know what happens to people who abduct children, don't you Rory?'

'I was looking right at them as they went past.'

'How much was that little girl worth? How much was someone going to pay you for her?'

'I… If I tell you about those men, can you make all this… go away?'

Logan doubted it. 'The Chief Constable doesn't like it when we let paedophiles go: says it doesn't look good in the papers. But…' He glanced over his shoulder at the uniformed PC standing against the wall, then dropped his voice to a whisper, 'I could have a word with the Procurator Fiscal. Let her know you're helping with a major investigation. It'd be up to her whether we prosecute or not.'

Rory wiped a hand across his sweaty forehead, and said, 'OK, let's do it.' By the time four o'clock arrived, Logan had reasonable e-fits for the men who'd blinded Simon McLeod and concussed DI Steel. He'd just finished signing Rory back into custody when DS Pirie appeared. 'The boss wants to see you.'

Which was lucky, because Logan wanted to see him too.

Detective Chief Inspector Finnie's office was one of the bigger ones on the fourth floor, with a view of the rear podium car park and the back of a row of granite buildings. DS Pirie sat back against the windowsill, flicking through a forensics report, a smug smile on his face. A couple of Eric Auld prints graced the walls above Finnie's desk, their cheerful summery colours in complete contrast with the DCI's expression as he put the phone down and glowered at Logan.

'How many times do we have to have this discussion, Sergeant?'

'Sir?'

'Did I imagine it, or did I tell you to run everything by me before you did it?'

'But you said-'

'So imagine my disappointment when I found out that you interviewed the only witness we've got to the Oedipus attacks, without even telling me he existed.'

'We caught him trying to lure children-'

'I have six people with their eyes gouged out, Sergeant McRae: six. And not only did you spectacularly fail to arrest the man who did it — don't interrupt — you also concealed a witness!' He started a slow round of applause. 'Good job. Well done. You must be so proud. I can't imagine why you haven't made DI yet.'

He held out his hand, and Logan had a sudden urge to spit in it.

'Well,' said Finnie, 'let's see these e-fits then.'

Logan gave him the printouts, and the DCI examined the two identikit faces. One was in his mid-thirties: heavy eyebrows, thickset features, broken nose, and little piggy eyes. The other looked like an ageing movie star — the kind who was still playing the hero in action films: grey hair, steely eyes.

'And do we believe these are accurate?'

'Simpson's done time in Peterhead before, he knows what'll happen to him if he gets sent down again.'

'You're cutting him a deal?'

'He thinks I am.'

'I see…' Finnie settled back in his chair, fingers steepled together as he considered the ceiling for a moment. 'Pirie?'

His sidekick barely glanced at the printouts. 'I don't like it. The profile says we're looking for a single white male in his mid-twenties.'

Logan said, 'Well, the profile's wrong then, isn't it?'

Pirie held up the e-fit of the older man. 'Are you positive this is what he looked like?'

Logan opened his mouth. Then closed it again. Coughed. 'Technically I didn't actually see either of them — well, I did, but it was dark and I had a face full of pepper-spray — but Rory Simpson-'

'Is a paedophile looking at some serious jail-time for breaking his parole conditions. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit him: he's just telling you what you want to hear.' Pirie smiled — patronizing sod. 'The profile clearly says our boy's local and he works on his own. So this-'

'Don't be an idiot, Pirie.' Finnie pursed his rubbery lips, and swivelled back and forth on his seat a couple of times. 'We're not ignoring evidence just because it disagrees with the profile. Email those faces to Dr Goulding, tell him I need an update ASAP. And get some posters made up: I want them all over Aberdeen by close of play. "Have you seen these men?" etcetera.' He looked at Logan. 'Anything else?'

'The older one had an Eastern European accent. He definitely wasn't local.'

Pirie curled his top lip. 'Every time there's a new victim we get an anonymous phone call. Usually on the victim's own mobile. Voice is muffled, Slavic accent. We're pretty sure it's a put on: he sounds like Mr Chekov from Star Trek. Dr Goulding thinks our boy's either mocking his victims, or using them as a cipher.'

Finnie waved a hand at him. 'Oh, thank you, that's very helpful. A "cipher": that's really going to help us catch the bastard.' He snatched the printouts from Pirie and stuck them in the middle of the desk. 'DS McRae, I want you to set up a meeting with Dr Goulding. Go through everything that happened today.'

Logan groaned. 'But, sir-'

'As soon as possible, Sergeant.' He stared off into the distance for a moment. Then smiled. 'Has anyone spoken to Simon McLeod's next of kin yet?'

'Ah…' Logan could feel the blush rising in his cheeks — he'd been putting that particular task off since getting back from the hospital. 'Actually I thought that would be better… coming from someone more senior.'

'Excellent.' Finnie levered himself to his feet. 'I think it's time for us to indulge in some real police work, don't you gentlemen? Pirie, get a pool car sorted. We're going to pay our respects.' The traffic was dreadful, a stop-start procession of people trying to beat the rush hour and failing miserably. 'Lazy bastards,' said DS Pirie from the driver's seat. 'Look at them all. Why does no one work till five o'clock any more?'

Logan sat in the back, watching the sunshine glinting off a pale white blob in skinny jeans and an 'UP THE DONS!' T-shirt. Her arms were already starting to go lobster-red. Aberdonians just weren't designed for the sun.

Finnie turned round in the passenger seat and handed Logan a clear plastic evidence pouch with a sheet of paper in it. 'We received this in the morning post.' You still will not do anything!! You are CORRUPT. You sit there in your tower of SIN and you let THEM run around free from consequence. You complain when the SHEEP do not behave themselves, but you do nothing about the foreign wolves!

The last one screamed like a woman when I cut out his eyes. The next one will too!!! You will wade in the blood of dogs!!! 'Fingerprints?'

'Same as all the others.' Pirie's voice was clipped, his face an ugly shade of pink that clashed with his hair. Still sulking — it probably didn't help that Finnie had made him drive, instead of Logan. 'No prints on the letter or the envelope, and no fibres either.'

Finnie handed over a second evidence bag. This one had the envelope in it. 'Posted day before yesterday in Aberdeen.'

Logan read through the letter again. 'So are the Polish people supposed to be dogs or wolves now?'

DS Pirie glanced over his shoulder. 'I think the fact this guy has a tendency to mix his metaphors is the least of our problems, don't you?'

Finnie smirked. 'So, tell me: does the great Detective Sergeant Logan "Lazarus" McRae have any startling insights to share with the class? Come on, this is why I brought you on board, remember? Chance to redeem yourself?'

'Well… He's definitely unhinged. No sane person uses that many exclamation marks.'

'That's your startling insight? The man who gouges people's eyes out and burns the sockets is "unhinged"? Pirie, call the Press and Journal: tell them to hold the front page.'

Bastard.

'OK… Postage dates. This was posted day before yesterday, right? What about the others? Is there a pattern?'

'Pirie?'

Finnie's ginger-haired sidekick shrugged. He was tailgating a Renault Megane with a 'HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY' sticker in the back window. 'The letters arrive pretty much at random. Dr Goulding thinks they're a coping mechanism, by writing to us he makes us complicit in his acts. That's why he keeps telling us it's our fault: if we didn't want him to keep on blinding people we'd have caught him by now.'

'I suppose…' Logan handed the evidence bags back to Finnie. 'Then why attack Simon McLeod? He's not Polish.'

The DS leant on the horn: BREEEEEEEEEEEP! 'Come on: move it!' The Megane lurched forward and Pirie accelerated up behind it again. 'Who knows with whack-jobs? The McLeods run a stable of hoors, maybe our boy was after a nice piece of local ass and ended up with a Polish bird instead? Doesn't like them mucking up our good Aberdonian gene pool with their filthy foreign ways. Or maybe Simon McLeod was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?'

Finnie smiled again. 'Serves him bloody right too — whole family's been a pain in my arse for years.' Twenty minutes later, DS Pirie parked outside a rose-encrusted bungalow in Garthdee. Not really the kind of place you'd expect a criminal mastermind to operate out of, but for forty years that's exactly what Tony McLeod did. Right up until his third heart attack. CID sent a wreath, then threw a party.

'Right,' said Finnie, climbing out into the warm afternoon, 'Sergeant McRae, do you think you could keep your eyes open and your mouth shut in there? Hmmm? Just for me?'

Logan sighed. 'Yes, sir.'

They opened the gate and marched up the path, bathed in the scent of roses. A little old woman answered the door on the second ring, smiling up at them. She had a pair of bright-yellow Marigold gloves on and smelt of furniture polish.

'Can I help you?'

'Morning, Doris.' Finnie showed her his warrant card, and the smile disappeared from her face. 'Agnes about?'

She turned and shouted back into the house, 'Mrs McLeod, the pigs are here! Again.'

Simon McLeod's mother appeared: a hard-faced woman with short blonde hair, dressed in black cashmere and white silk. She was clarted in gold jewellery, every finger encrusted with rings of bling: diamonds and sapphires and rubies and sovereigns. A magpie with a credit card.

She took one look at Finnie and said, 'What the hell do you want?'

'Mrs McLeod, can we come in please?'

'You got a warrant?'

Finnie tried on a smile. 'Wouldn't be asking if I did.'

'Then you can bugger off back where you came from.' She let her eyes drift from the Chief Inspector to Logan and Pirie. 'Aye, and you can take your pet poofs with you.'

'It's about Simon, Mrs McLeod.'

She folded her arms, hoisting her bosoms up a notch. 'You should be ashamed of yourself — there's perverts out there walking the street and you're round here harassing us. My Simon's a legitimate businessman, and he's-'

'He was attacked this morning.'

'Don't be stupid, who would be daft enough to-'

'Simon's up at A &E. He's been blinded.'

All the colour drained from her face. 'But… We…'

'Someone gouged his eyes out.'

'Oh God…' Mrs McLeod stumbled and the old woman rushed to her side, holding her up.

Finnie's voice softened. 'Can you think of anyone who'd want to harm your son?'

Doris pulled Mrs McLeod gently back into the house, turning her back on the policemen on the doorstep. 'Go away. Can't you see she's had a terrible shock?' And then she slammed the door.