Stuart Macbride - Blind Eye

'Make it thirty.'

Pirie nodded. 'Be a pleasure taking your money, McRae.' Then he was off, dragging out his mobile phone and shouting at someone on the other end.

Logan listened until Pirie's voice faded away down the corridor.

Silence.

He unearthed the Kravchenko file again. It was all still gobbledygook, but right at the bottom was a sheet of pale-violet notepaper, covered in the same childish handwriting as the address on the envelope. 'DEAR MR SERGEANT,

UNCLE RAFAL IS SORRY YOU ARE BLOWNUP. HE SAYS T HIS WAS A XIDENT ACCIDENT MEANT FOR BAD MENS WITH GUN WHO TRY KILL UNCLE

RAFAL. HE HAPPY YOU STILL ALIVE. I HAPPY YOU STILL ALIVE ALSO. THIS IS COPY OF FILE ON KURWA MAC KRAVCHENKO. IF YOU FIND HIM, PLEASE TO KILL HIM AND SEND ME PHOTOGRAPH. THANK YOU.

LOVE, ZYTKA X

P.S. UNCLE RAFAL SAYS THERE IS BOAT GO TO WHERE YOU LIVE WITH MANY GUN FOR KRAVCHENKO. IT CALLED "BUCKIE BALLAD " AND IT GO ABERDEEN 15 J ULY.

P.P.S. PLEASE TO REMEMBER PHOTOGRAPH.'

Logan sat back in his seat and whistled. A boatload of weapons on their way to Aberdeen… Probably replacements for the ones they'd found in that caravan in Stoneywood. Finnie wasn't going to like that, and neither was his paymaster: Wee Hamish Mowat. An all-out drug war was getting closer, and a lot of innocent people were going to get caught in the crossfire.

But the worst part of all was that Logan would have to go speak to DI Steel. The inspector was in her office, glowering at her computer screen as Logan entered — bearing two cups of coffee and a peace offering from the canteen. 'Got you a bacon buttie.'

She looked at the tinfoil-wrapped parcel and sniffed. 'You were a complete shite last night.'

He settled into a visitors' chair. 'If you're not hungry, I can give it to someone else.'

She snatched it up. 'Didn't say that, did I?'

He watched her tear into the thing, tomato sauce making a bid for freedom at the side of her mouth, then unwrapped his own mid-morning cholesterol treat. A booby-trap buttie: two fried eggs in a buttered roll, ready to explode yolk all over the place

They ate in silence for a minute, then Logan pulled out his notebook, flipping though it with floury fingers to the correct page. 'Buckie Ballad. It's a fishing boat registered out of Peterhead, belongs to one Gerry McKee. It's been out at sea since last Tuesday, due back early Friday morning.'

Steel washed down a chunk of buttie with a mouthful of coffee. 'Big deal. This is Aberdeen: fishing boats come and go the whole time.'

'Not with a hold full of ex-Soviet weaponry they don't.'

She stopped, halfway into a bite. 'Seriously?'

'Seriously.' He dropped a clear evidence pouch onto her desk: Zytka's note. 'I spoke to the Harbour Master this morning — the Buckie Ballad always comes into port when there's nobody about. I got him to go through the surveillance footage of its last visit and he's got blokes unloading fish boxes in the dead of night, straight into the back of an unmarked Transit Van.'

Steel picked up the note and peered at it. 'A boat full of guns? Bloody, God-damned, bastarding…' She frowned, polished off her buttie, then sucked at her teeth for a minute. 'Number plate on the van?'

'Image is too grainy.'

'You're dripping egg yolk on my desk.' She swivelled back and forth on her chair, while Logan mopped the wrinkly yellow drops up with his thumb. 'Right, who else knows about this?'

'Just you and me. And that's two quid you owe the swear box.'

'Oh… bloody hell!' She was scowling again. 'I was swearing all day yesterday, how come you didn't whinge then?'

'Wasn't on duty. And it's two fifty, now: I'll let you off with the "hell".' They spent the next twenty minutes working out Operation Creel on the whiteboard, then Steel got Logan to type up everything and get rid of the evidence while she went to the toilet. He was wiping the board clean by the time she got back. Everything else was done: requisition forms, risk assessment, contingency plan, and warrant application. She shuffled through the lot, then wandered off to look for the head of CID.

Logan didn't tell her there was nearly a foot of toilet paper sticking out of the back of her trousers.

There was no point just sitting there waiting for her, so he wandered outside for a cigarette. A clump of uniforms had gathered on the rear podium, laughing and drinking tea, so Logan went out the front instead, wandering down Queen Street, listening to the rumble of traffic, and the screech of seagulls.

He pulled out his cigarettes, but his fingers were so twitchy the damn things went everywhere. Half a packet, all over the pavement at his feet. No way he was smoking those now.

Stupid bloody habit anyway. Wasn't even as if he enjoyed it.

He carefully winkled the last remaining cigarette from the packet and stuck it in his mouth. Then reached into his jacket pocket for his lighter. He scritched the wheel, but nothing happened. Tried again. Gave the lighter a shake. This time sparks burst from the lighter's tip, tiny explosions, bright and painful, then there was flame.

Logan shivered.

Closed his eyes.

Listened to the thump and swirl of the blood in his veins.

Wrinkled his nose at a sudden, pissy smell.

'Are you no' needin' them then?'

Logan peered out at a dishevelled man: swollen nose, red eyes, bushy black beard; monk-tonsure bald patch; blue parka jacket with half the fur trim missing; trousers that had seen better days and some sort of curry, going by the stains; filthy grey trainers. Robert Danavell, AKA: Dirty Bob.

'What do you want, Bob?'

Karim's favourite tramp gave Logan a gap-toothed smile. 'Yer fags.' He pointed at the fallen cigarettes with a grimy finger. 'You no' needin' them oany mair?'

'Knock yourself out.'

'Ah, cheers min, yer a fine loon.' Dirty Bob creaked his way down to his knees. 'No' like that fat bugger yesterday. Tellin' me I'm stinkin' up his reception. Me! Wie ma best pal lyin' deid in the morgue…'

Logan watched him picking through the gutter. It wasn't much of a life, but at least Dirty Bob knew what mattered to him: drink, fags and the occasional half-eaten fish supper, or discarded kebab — whatever he could forage from the bins.

No life-or-death decisions. No moral or ethical dilemmas. No screaming heebie jeebies, just because some stupid song comes on the radio.

It probably said something about your life when you started envying people like Dirty Bob.

Bob was sitting on the pavement now, one of the windfall cigarettes clamped between his lips, patting round his pockets until he found a little book of matches. Lighting up with a sad little smile on his face. He looked up at Logan. 'Kin yeh spare oany money fer an aul mannie tae have a wee drink tae his best mate's memory?'

'Aul mannie? You're forty-two Bob, not seventy.'

Dirty Bob shrugged. 'Aye, but forty-two's a lot older in tramp years. Lookit poor Richard.' He sniffed and wiped a sleeve across his nose, leaving a clean-ish streak. 'Deid afore his time…'

Half past ten. Some of the pubs down on Regent Quay would have been open for hours, catering for the nightshift crowd and early morning drinkers. Tempting. Logan produced his wallet and dug out a fiver. Then changed his mind and made it a twenty instead. 'Here.'

Dirty Bob eyed it suspiciously. Then grinned and grabbed the note. 'Aye, that'll dae Richard proud.' He grunted his way upright, threw Logan a salute, then turned and hobbled away in his filthy trainers.

Twenty quid wouldn't make a dent in a seasoned alcoholic like Dirty Bob, not in a pub anyway. But it would probably buy a whole load of white spirit.

Logan ran a hand across his chin, feeling the stubble scritch. Maybe Bob had the right idea, burying his troubles in a bottle. Fuck the outside world. Make everything go away…