Stuart Macbride - Blind Eye

'Get the bastard back here!'

'How are we meant to do that?'

Kravchenko was back. 'Well done, Detective Sergeant. You are good man. But Grigor, he is disappointed, yes?'

Logan watched DI Steel clamber out of the Fiat and hammer a fist down on the thing's rusty roof. 'I don't know, do I? Call the sodding coastguard: do something!'

He turned down the volume on the Airwave handset, so he wouldn't have to listen to her rant. 'I've proved you can trust me. Now let Wiktorja go.'

'You only cooperate because Grigor hurt her, I am thinking. So I keep hold of Senior Constable Jaroszewicz for moment.'

'I did what you wanted!' And now Logan was responsible for a boatload of automatic weapons getting away. They'd bring it in somewhere else, up or down the coast and when people started dying it would be all his fault. He was going to be sick again…

'Next time we see if you can cooperate without her have bones broken, yes? Perhaps then there is trust.'

'But-'

'I will speak later.' And then Logan was listening to the dialling tone: Kravchenko had hung up.

Logan closed his eyes, swore, and stuck the mobile back in his pocket. He stood for a moment, taking deep breaths, hands on his knees, trying to settle his roiling stomach. Finally it passed and he straightened up. It was time to go back to the car and suffer the consequences. 'Well I don't sodding know, do I?' DI steel slumped back in one of DCS Bain's visitor's chairs and scrubbed at her face, pulling the wrinkles about in a strange, moving topographical map. 'Someone must've leaked the info, told the Polish gitbag we were waiting on him.'

Behind the desk, Bain looked as if he'd been dragged into work at two in the morning to shout at people. Baggy, tired, and angry. 'I hand-picked the operational team myself.'

'Aye, well you screwed up on one of them then, didn't you?'

Standing at the back of the room, Logan tried not to look as guilty as he felt.

'You…' Bain pointed across the desk at Steel. 'You're in enough trouble as it is, Inspector: you promised me you could look after Rory Simpson-'

'Oh don't give me that, Bill, we've been over this.'

'-and he turns up with both eyes gouged out! I had to stand up at that press conference and tell the world a Polish police officer's been kidnapped, and the key witness in the Oedipus case has been blinded when he was supposed to be under your protection! Do you have any idea what kind of lawsuits we're looking at? The Media are having a field day!'

Logan stepped forward. 'It wasn't her fault — it was mine. I was the one in charge when they broke into the inspector's house. DI Steel-'

'Aye, and they wrecked the sodding place and all!'

'DI Steel isn't responsible for what happened to Rory Simpson, I am.'

Bain scowled at him. 'Shut up. And sit down.'

Logan did as he was told.

'Right now you're both looking at suspension.'

Steel bristled. 'That's no' bloody fair!'

'If you'd actually managed to get something out of this Buckie Ballad nonsense it might have been different, but you didn't. There's only so much I can cover for, and you passed that point the minute Rory Simpson was attacked and blinded.'

The inspector looked as if she was about to say something else, but Bain slammed his hand on the desk, cutting her off. 'You will both report to Professional Standards at oh-seven-hundred hours. You will cooperate fully with their investigation. And then you will hand over all your open investigations to Detective Chief Inspector Finnie.'

'What?' Logan sat forward in his seat. 'You can't do that, he's-'

'DCI Finnie has been investigated and cleared of any wrongdoing, Sergeant, which is more than we can say for you. I kept him out of the loop on this operation, on your word, and look what a disaster that turned out to be.'

'But he-'

'Enough! No more. Go home. And have a serious think about whether or not you're actually suited to police work.'

Logan slumped back onto the clammy sheets, slapped both hands over his eyes and swore. He lay there until the shaking stopped, then hauled himself out into the kitchen. The vodka bottle was empty, and so was the litre of Bells his brother had given him for Christmas. All he had left was an inch of OVD rum. He swigged it straight from the bottle.

It wasn't even enough for a warm fuzzy feeling. So he made a cup of tea, then sat at the kitchen table, trying to figure out when it was that his life had gone down the crapper.

According to the microwave it was five in the morning. Two hours to go till his bollocking from Professional Standards, and already the sun was up: golden highlights slowly spreading across the old granite buildings outside his kitchen window, pushing the deep blue shadows back into their corners. What was the point of getting fired on a lovely day?

It should have been pouring with rain. 'Where you been? Going to be late for the morning briefing.' Detective Constable Rennie bounced up and down on his heels, grinning like the happy little idiot he was.

Logan had one last go at getting the tip of his vibrating cigarette to meet up with the flame from his lighter.

Success. He pulled in a deep lungful, then coughed it all back out again.

'Anyway,' said Rennie, 'come on: briefing.'

Logan settled back against the wall. Ten to seven and the rear podium car park was still in shadow. High up above, the sky was blue, but down here it was miserable and grey, like his mood. 'Why the hell are you so cheerful?'

'Ah… all will be revealed at the morning briefing!'

'I'm not going.'

'Eh?' The constable deflated a bit. 'But it's the morning briefing.'

'Don't care.' Logan took a long draw on his cigarette. At least this time he didn't bring up a lung. 'I'm off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Professional Fucking Standards.'

'But I've got a thing…'

'Congratulations.'

'No, I really have — I caught the Sperminator. The bloke smearing his spunk on the handrails? Arrested him last night. Had to go through seven gazillion hours of CCTV footage, but I finally got him climbing into a car in the Bon Accord Centre car park. Ran the number plate and: Bob's shagging your mother's sister.' He paused, hands out, obviously waiting for applause.

'I'm actually impressed.' Logan flicked the first flurry of ash from the end of his cigarette. 'Not like you to use your initiative.'

'Yeah, well, now Beattie's made DI, it means there's a Detective Sergeant's job going begging, doesn't it? Emma thinks I can-'

'Emma says, Emma thinks. You're like a broken record.' He stuck his fag back in his mouth and made a pair of naked sock-puppets with his hands. 'Blah, blah, blah, blah.'

Rennie pouted. 'You're getting as bad as Steel, do you know that?'

Logan blew a stream of smoke at the sky. 'Your arse.'

Silence.

'So… you coming to the briefing then?'

'Are you deaf?' He ground his cigarette out against the wall and turned towards the back door. Then stopped. 'And don't worry about that DS's job, there's going to be another one free by lunchtime.' 'You look like shite.' DI Steel collapsed into the uncomfortable chair next to Logan's, outside Superintendent Napier's lair. 07:00 precisely.

Logan raised an eyebrow. 'You can talk.' She was wearing a dark grey trouser suit that wouldn't have looked out of place on Worzel Gummidge. Neither would her hair. Scarecrow chic, if you were feeling generous. The bags under her eyes belonged on an airport carousel.

She punched him in the leg. 'Didn't get any sodding sleep, did I? Susan won't come home, says I'm an "insensitive cow". Says, first I won't give her a baby, and now I'm turning the house into a B &B for perverts.' The inspector pulled out a packet of nicotine gum and popped a couple out of their foil packaging. Stuck them in her mouth and chewed as if they were live wasps. Then offered the pack to Logan.