Stuart Macbride - Blind Eye

'You can tell me who did it.'

'Four men, they come in here. Loud, shouting at each other, laughing. They throw bottles across shop, smash on the floor. Then they tell me I have to pay them for "damages". That if I don't, more things will get damaged.' The shopkeeper stuck out his chest. 'I tell them I am not afraid! And they show me knives.' He looked away, sliding the cash register drawer shut again. 'I tell them I already pay for shop to be safe…'

'So they trashed the place.'

'They say I have to pay them or I am never safe. Five hundred pounds every week.'

Logan pulled out his notebook. 'What did they look like?'

Shrug. 'Those tops with hoods. One have tattoo on his hand. Thin face, big nose? Fancy knife that folds up. Not sound Scottish.'

'English?' Logan pulled on his best Manchester accent, 'Did dey sound a bit like dis, den?'

Another shrug. 'All English sound the same to me.'

The shopkeeper produced a broom and pushed a chinking clump of broken glass across the linoleum. 'Everything is violence these days. Everyone want money, but no one want to work for it.'

Logan watched him sweeping up his broken merchandise, the pickle juice turning the spilled breakfast cereal into a brown vinegary mush. A red-top tabloid was pulled from the rack and thrown down to sop up the mess. The cover photo of a girl in an unfeasibly small bikini slowly disappeared into the saturated newsprint. Now they'd never find out what 'PERKY POLISH PETRA'S PARTY PIECE' was. It looked as if Zander Clark wasn't the only one importing attractive women.

There was a bottle of Polish brandy lying underneath a stack of soggy paperbacks. Logan pulled it out; it wasn't even broken. 'Ever heard of a company called Kostchey International Holdings?'

The man froze. 'No. Never.'

'You sure?'

'Yes. Now you have to leave, I have lot of cleaning to do.'

'But we were-'

'Please, I am very busy.'

Logan put the bottle back on the shelf. 'OK… One last thing before I go.' He unfolded three printouts from his pocket and held the first one up. It was the Oedipus victim they'd found that morning, the IB technician had done a pretty decent job painting in the eyes. 'Do you know this man?'

The shopkeeper took the printout, stared at it for a bit, then handed it back. 'No.'

'What about these two?' Logan showed him the e-fits he'd put together with Rory Simpson of the men who'd blinded Simon McLeod.

This time there was a flicker of recognition in the shopkeeper's eyes. 'This one,' he said, pointing at the old man's picture, 'I know him!'

Ha — Finnie would have to put him up for that DI's job now. 'Who is it?'

'Is Clint Eastwood.'

Logan turned the sheet around and stared at the face. The shopkeeper was right — it was Clint Bloody Eastwood.

If Logan ever got his hands on Rory Simpson, he was going to throttle him.

The pool car smelled horrible. Booze, bad breath, and BO, all underpinned by the eye-nipping odour of old vomit. Steel was snoring away beneath her makeshift blanket, the sleeves dangling down into the footwell.

Logan slammed the car door, and she shot up in her seat, jacket still draped over her head. 'Mmphhh? What? Eh?'

'Bloody Rory Bloody Simpson! He lied about the e-fit.'

Steel yawned, squinted, then ran a hand through the electrocuted mop on top of her head pretending to be hair. 'Why does my mouth taste of sick?'

'Clint Eastwood!' Logan dragged the car key out of his pocket and rammed it into the ignition.

'I'm thirsty…'

'That's what you get for drinking a whole bottle of whisky on your own.'

'No I didn't…' She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her head. 'Oh God, yes I did.'

'There's a big thing of Irn-Bru at your feet. I can't believe that tosser Simpson lied to me!'

'He's a kiddie fiddler, not George Washington.' There was the distinctive hissssss of the top being unscrewed from a plastic bottle of fizzy juice, and then the distinctive swearing of it going all over someone's lap. 'Aaaagh! Rotten bastarding… it's everywhere!'

'Well, hold it out the window.'

'I'm all sticky!'

Logan turned in his seat. 'We have to find Rory. Make the lying little sod give us a proper description.'

The inspector took a deep swig from the bottle, then belched.

'Maybe,' said Logan, 'we should get onto Tayside and Edinburgh? If he's not here, he's got to be somewhere.'

'Give it a rest, would you?'

'He lied to us!'

'And stop bloody shouting. Head hurts bad enough as it is.'

'I'm just saying-'

Steel clamped her hands over her ears and screamed, 'SHUT UP! YOU'RE BREAKING MY HANGOVER!'

Outside, on the pavement, a small group of locals was staring at the car.

The inspector groaned, face creased up in pain. 'Why'd you make me do that?'

'Sorry. I'm just… I'm tired of letting the bad guys get away, OK?'

Steel squinted at him. 'I'll forgive you if you get us some paracetamol and a packet of fags.' There was a pause. 'And maybe a bacon buttie?' The sweeping granite tenements of Victoria Road sparkled in the sunshine, but that didn't make much of a dent in Logan's mood. Why did it always have to come down to running sodding errands for sodding DIs? Bloody Steel. Just because she got hammered last night, why did he have to play nursemaid?

He got the paracetamol and a small pack of Lambert and Butler from a little corner shop that hadn't been trashed by hoodies, and the bacon buttie from the Torry Fish Bar, just down the road. It'd probably bounce as soon as it hit Steel's stomach, but Logan didn't care, as long as she wasn't sick in the car. And if she was, she could clean it up herself.

Logan got himself a portion of chips: thick fingers of crisp, golden potato slathered in salt and vinegar, in a little polystyrene tray. He ate them as he wandered back to the car, taking the long way round. Hoping that if he took long enough, Steel's bacon buttie would be cold.

He strolled down Walker Road, took a left just before the primary school, up a small lane, and out onto Grampian Road.

Maybe he could persuade Steel to put his name forward for that promotion? Ingratiate himself…

Damn.

Letting her bacon buttie go cold probably wasn't such a good idea after all. He felt it through the carrier bag they'd given him at the chip shop. It wasn't exactly hot, but it would still be edible.

He stuffed the last couple of chips into his mouth, and hurried down Grampian Road back towards the car.

And then stopped dead, staring up at the fortress-like hulk of Sacred Heart.

Torry's only Catholic church had a strangely Spanish look to it, even if it was built out of granite and the terracotta pantiles had a thick layer of green and grey moss. Sacred Heart sat on top of a small hill, looming over the surrounding streets like a drunken uncle. Threatening them all with eternal damnation.

A flimsy outer skin of scaffolding and tarpaulins covered the east side of the building, and the whole place was sealed off by an eight-foot-tall cordon of temporary fencing.

What was it Goulding had said? 'All that, "They're stealing God" stuff means he's very religious…' And Oedipus was probably a local boy with an intimate knowledge of Torry.

Logan crossed the road.

A laminated sheet of A4 was fixed to the fence, with 'CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT. OPENING FOR THE LORD'S WORK IN OCTOBER!' printed on it, and 'IN CASE OF EMERGENCY CONTACT REV. J BURNETT.' Then what looked like the same message in Polish. And right at the bottom was an Aberdeen telephone number.

Logan dialled, let it ring for nearly a minute, then left a message after the beep.

There was a man in paint-stained overalls sitting on one of the scaffolding boards, twenty foot off the ground, legs hanging over the edge, drinking a can of coke and smoking a cigarette.