Stuart Macbride - Blind Eye

'OK, first off,' said Logan, 'since when did you start using words like, "Insufferable"?'

'Emma says I need to improve my vocabulary if-'

'And second: what drug bust?'

'Big consignment of heroin from Leeds. Couple of old farts in a motor home packed with the stuff. Been dropping off consignments for dealers every couple-hundred miles. Finnie caught them making a delivery to our friendly neighbourhood Triads.'

Logan frowned. 'He did?'

'Aye, Metropolitan Police and SOCA are going mental: been trying to crack that supply chain for three years. Finnie's so full of himself it's not real!'

Steel grabbed Logan and dragged him towards the door. 'All right, that's enough of the Frog-Face Appreciation Society. We've got work to do.' 'And you're sure about this, are you?' Detective Chief Superintendent Bain sat back against the windowsill in his office, arms crossed.

Logan nodded and laid the e-fits side by side on the DCS's desk. 'Positive.' He poked the picture with the receding mullet. 'That's the man who shot at us in Torry.'

'And the other one?'

'I can't be a hundred per cent, but I think it's the man we were warned about in Poland. Just before the… Well…' He coughed. Tried not to fidget. One leg starting to tremble. 'The… em… The only photo I saw was about forty years old. But…' Shrug. 'Maybe. The eyes are right.'

'Name?'

'Vadim Mikhailovitch Kravchenko. Worked for the Secret Police in Krakow and Nowa Huta under the Communists: torturing dissidents. Word is he's freelancing for Warsaw gangsters now.'

'Hmm…' Bain ran a thoughtful hand over his shiny head. 'Inspector?'

'Makes sense. Been hearing rumours of Eastern Europeans trying to muscle their way in for ages. Simon McLeod won't play nice, so they carve his eyes out and burn the holes. Same crap they've been pulling back home since the seventies. It's no' revenge, it's a warning to everyone else.'

'Right.' The DCS picked up his phone and started to dial. 'Let's get Finnie in here and-'

Logan stabbed his finger down on the cut-off button. 'Actually, sir, it might be better to keep this low-key.'

Bain stared at him. 'Sergeant McRae, I understand you've been through a lot recently, but DCI Finnie needs to be here.'

'You can't-'

'One: he's in charge of the Oedipus investigation. And Two: until DI McPherson gets back from sick leave, Finnie's looking into that caravan full of guns.'

'That's got nothing to do with-'

'They finished processing all the prints from our weapons cache. The fingerprint recovered from that empty shell casing at the Krakow General Store matches latents on weapons and the caravan. If you've got an ID, he needs to know.' Bain looked down at the phone, then up at Logan again. 'Now move your finger.'

'We…' Logan licked his lips. 'I think Finnie's dirty.'

'Don't be ridiculous-'

'I saw him taking a brown envelope from one of Wee Hamish's goons. I–C-One male: green hair, spots, late teens, early twenties.'

Steel whistled. 'Johnny Urquhart? Thought he was still in borstal?'

Bain put the phone down. 'Are you seriously accusing Detective Chief Inspector Finnie of taking bribes from Hamish Mowat?'

Silence.

'I know what I saw.'

'Finnie's got the highest rate of drug busts in the force, he's like a sniffer dog. Last week: three-quarters of a million in heroin from that motor home case. If he's on the take, why does he arrest so many people?'

'I don't know… maybe he's overcompensating?'

'Aye,' said Steel, 'and how comes he drives that crappy Mondeo? It's an estate, for God's sake.'

DCS Bain shook his head. 'I don't see it.'

'Well… what about Rory Simpson? He said he heard a police officer talking to Kravchenko when they wrecked his flat, and-'

'Sergeant McRae, I will not let Polish gangsters run amok in my city, just because a wanted paedophile is feeling a little paranoid. Now I gave you considerable leeway in allowing you to keep Rory Simpson at DI Steel's house, but enough is enough. If we don't nip this in the bud, we're looking at all-out gang warfare. With machine guns!'

'But-'

'I said no, Sergeant.'

'This is stupid!' Logan's voice was getting louder and louder. 'You have to-'

'No I don't!' Bain was on his feet, leaning on the desk. 'I'm beginning to wonder if you're really ready to come back to work.'

Logan opened his mouth, but Steel slapped a hand down on his arm before he could speak.

'Tell you what, Laz,' she said, 'why don't you go get us all a nice cup of tea.'

'I don't want a-'

'Cup of coffee then. Rowie with jam. Photo of Gloria Hunniford with her boobs hanging out. I don't care, just sod off for ten minutes.'

'Fine.' Logan stood and stomped out. Slamming the door behind him.

He kept up the strop all they way out to the rear podium car park, then sparked up a cigarette in the last remaining square of early evening sunlight. Five to five and people were heading back to the station. Beat officers wandering up the steps from street level, patrol cars and CID Vauxhalls competing for Aberdeen's daily 'Who Can Park The Worst' award.

Logan smoked his cigarette right down to the stub, grunting and nodding hellos at the people he knew. Ignoring those he didn't. Brooding the whole time about DI Steel and DCS Bain. Probably up there working out how to get him permanently signed off on the sick.

Indefinite leave, a sorry-to-see-you-go handshake, and a partial pension.

He ground what was left of his cigarette into the tarmac with the toe of his shoe.

Maybe it'd be for the best anyway. Sodding police force. Wasn't as if it was a dream career was it? Getting shouted at, spat at, threatened… and that was just the senior officers, the bloody public were even worse.

Screw the lot of them.

He checked his watch. It'd been eleven minutes since he'd been banished. Time to go back upstairs and face the music.

He didn't bother to knock, just pushed straight into Bain's office. The head of CID was sitting behind his desk, scowling, mouth clenched like an angry chicken's bum.

But Steel smiled as Logan entered. 'Ah, about time.' She stood. 'We'll be off then. Don't worry, Bill, you've made the right decision.'

And as they left, Logan could have sworn he could hear the man grinding his teeth from the other side of the room.

Steel led the way down to her own office, waiting until the door was closed before deflating like a week-old party balloon. 'Dear God…'

'What happened?'

'You got any more fags on you?' She waved her hands at him. 'Come on, faster, faster.'

Logan handed one over and she lit it, drawing in a deep lungful before cracking open her window. 'You and me,' she said over the sounds of distant traffic, 'are now running a separate investigation into these Polish gangsters. Finnie knows nothing about it, and no one else gets to either.'

Logan settled onto the edge of her desk. 'How the hell did you manage that?'

She shuddered. 'You don't want to know. But you sodding well owe me one, understand? Maybe two.'

'What did you say to him?

She took another drag and grimaced. 'Next time you go back on the fags, try a man's brand, eh? These are like smoking my granny's pubes.' She picked a thread of tobacco from her lip. 'You're lucky I didn't let Bain fire you: handing out crap cigarettes like these…'

It didn't stop her smoking them though.

'What next?'

'Normally I'd get your e-fits done up as big posters, plaster them all over the place, in the papers… maybe on the telly. This time?' She smoked and frowned. 'Never done a low-key manhunt before.'

They spent the next twenty minutes trying to work out how to run the investigation with no resources, no staff, and no backup, and no one finding out about it. 'It's just no' possible,' said Steel, feet up on her desk as Logan scribbled things on the whiteboard. 'We need at least one uniform. Who's going to make the tea?'