Blind Eye

III

HER MAJESTY'S PRISON CRAIGINCHES — TWO WEEKS LATER

The exercise yard is busy, even with the thin drizzle drifting down from a grey July sky. The outside world invisible behind high granite walls.

He folds his arms and leans back against the equipment locker, enjoying the fresh air. Five days stuck inside in solitary, just because someone accidentally got their hand trapped in one of the heavy cell doors. Six times.

Not his fault, is it? Not that they could prove anyway. No, he was real fucking careful about that. Two months for aggravated assault is quite enough, thanks.

Two months… God he could murder a joint.

Instead he settles in and watches the game.

It's supposed to be a football match — blues versus reds — but there are too many players, and half the buggers don't have a clue what they're doing. Bunch of Muppets. The score's twenty-three to fifty-two. That's coz no one wants to stay in goal, they all want to be strikers. Morons.

Don't understand the importance of taking one for the team…

He straightens up.

The Russian bloke's here — Russian, Polish, something like that — limping along with a face like a skelpt arse. Two weeks since that cop put a bullet in him, and he's already up and walking. That's one tough bastard.

Russians, eh?

Someone boots the ball out of play. It bounces a couple of times, then comes to rest at the Russian's feet. Should be a throw in, but the halfwits in blue and red all rush to see who can get to it first, hooting like fucking monkeys.

Right on cue.

Colin McLeod saunters across the scrappy grass behind the red team goal, looking dead casual, you know? Closing the gap.

The players hustle around the limping Russian, jockeying for position — 'Come on, pass the fuckin' thing!' / 'Gerroff!' / 'Fuck you!' / 'Hey, it's my turn!' — obscuring Colin from view as he slides the shiv from his sleeve.

Nothing fancy, just a toothbrush, sharpened to a point on the floor of his cell. He rams it into the Russian's back. Three times in the kidneys, and twice in the throat.

The old man doesn't even cry out, just sinks to the ground with blood bubbling out of his mouth. Be dead in a minute. Now who's tough, eh?

Creepy Colin McLeod leans in and passes on the message he's spent the last five days practicing. Sounding it out in his cell every night until it's right.

'Do widzenia, you stupid Russian fuck.'

Goodbye.

And then the crowd yells and shouts its way back to the football pitch, taking Colin with it, leaving the old man's body to twitch and shudder, and finally lie still.

That's what happens when you fuck with Aberdeen.