Stuart Macbride - Blind Eye

'You knew about this from the start, didn't you? You knew

— you could have stopped it!' 'It's not like-' Logan jabbed the gun into Pirie's ear. 'I GOT BLOWN UP BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!'

Pirie backed away, hands up. 'I was just… It wasn't…' And then he turned and ran for it, bursting through the door and out into the office unit.

Kravchenko watched him go. 'Do not make worry, Grigor will catch him.'

Logan turned back. Wiktorja was lying on her side, knees curled up to her chest, dark red blood oozing out onto the concrete floor. She was shivering, moaning behind her gag. And it was all Logan's fault. 'She… wasn't working for you?'

Kravchenko leant back against the stack of I-beams, legs crossed at the ankle. 'This Pirie is weak man. Never have jajca to stand on own feet. Take money and do what is told. Man who can be bought is weak — I buy him from your Hamish Mowat, maybe someone will buy him from me too? But man like you…' Kravchenko clicked his fingers. 'What is word for "idealistyczny"?… Ah: idealistic.'

Logan couldn't take his eyes off the expanding pool of blood. Feeling sick. 'We need to get her an ambulance.'

'Why you care? She is liar, yes? Make you into fool.'

Logan could barely hold the gun still. 'Get your arse on the floor, or I will shoot you.'

'You think I am too rough with her?' He nudged Wiktorja with his toe and she groaned. Her face was unbelievably pale, the bags under her eyes standing out dark purple. Kravchenko reached down and tore the duct tape gag from her mouth.

'Aaghh, Jesus…' Her lips were turning blue. 'Kill him…' She gritted her teeth. 'Kill him… please…'

'Why would Detective Sergeant kill me? I am his friend, but you… You use him to find me, I am thinking he does not like this.' He smiled at Logan. 'She pay man in Warsaw Police to tell her if anyone ask question about me. Is clever, yes?'

'You… you blinded… my father. You carved out his eyes!'

Kravchenko shrugged. 'I make blind many men. Maybe I make you blind too, before you die?'

She recoiled, trying to squirm away from him, hands still tied behind her back, but every motion made her cry out in pain.

Logan tightened his grip on the trigger. 'Get away from her. Now!'

Kravchenko reached into his pocket and pulled out the Swiss Army knife. 'When I am finish.' The little tin of lighter fluid was next.

'I'm not telling you again!'

Wiktorja stared at the knife's curving blade. 'Please no… Please! Prosze! Prosze, nie zabijaj mnie!'

Kravchenko grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her face up. She screamed. Logan braced himself, aimed — and the door behind him flew open.

Something went BOOM and the old man ducked. Then the delicate pitter-patter of shot rained down on the concrete floor. 'Next one,' said a voice from the doorway, 'doesn't go into the ceiling.'

Thank God — the cavalry was here…

Only when Logan looked around, the guy standing in the doorway wasn't one of DI Steel's firearms team. He was massive, at least twenty stone, his face twisted with scar tissue — last seen working on an old Jaguar at Wee Hamish Mowat's place: Reuben. He'd ditched the overalls for a straining pink polo shirt, a pair of jumbo-sized jeans, and a sawn-off shotgun. Reuben lumbered into the room, forehead glistening with sweat. And right behind him came a spotty youth with green hair, dragging a blood-smeared DS Pirie into the room.

Green-Hair dumped Pirie in the middle of the floor, then pulled out an old-fashioned revolver.

Pirie looked as if his nose had exploded, leaving a flattened, bloody flap above a swollen mouth. Voice slurred and lisping, 'Please don't kill me!'

Green-Hair kicked him. 'Shut up.'

Reuben looked Logan up and down. 'We're here for the Polish guy.'

Kravchenko picked himself up from the floor. Wiktorja's blood had stained one knee of his linen trousers, turning the cream material a dark raspberry. 'I am not Polish. I am from Ukraine.' He pointed his gun at them. 'And I am going nowhere.'

The kid with the green hair grabbed Pirie by the back of the collar and hauled him to his knees. Then ground the revolver into the side of the Detective Sergeant's head. 'Put your fuckin' gun down or I kill the pig!'

Kravchenko sighed. 'We have already done the "who is make a bluff" talk.' The silvered automatic barked once. A small plume of blood burst from Pirie's stomach, a much bigger one spraying out of his back as the bullet tore straight through.

'SHIT!' Green-Hair let go and danced back, hands and feet high in the air. Pirie slumped back onto the concrete, screaming.

'Now is easier, yes? Now we-'

The fat man in the pink polo shirt said, 'Bugger this,' then shot Kravchenko in the chest with his shotgun.

The old man flew backwards, bounced off the stack of I-beams and crumpled to the floor, face-down in the pool of Wiktorja's blood.

The BOOM seemed to take forever to fade away.

Logan stared at Kravchenko's body, then back at the huge man in the pink polo shirt. 'You just-'

Reuben shook his head. 'No I didn't.' He glanced over his shoulder at his green-haired sidekick. 'That bastard Pirie still alive?'

The DS had stopped screaming, instead he was clutching onto the small hole in his stomach, face pale, mouth open, shallow breaths.

'Yeah, he's still alive.' Green-Hair kicked him again. 'Two-timing cock. Oh yeah, we know you been playin' both sides, Pirie; been followin' you for days, man. What you think Wee Hamish is gonnae do to you, eh? You're gonnae be pig food, you-'

'Jonny! Shut the fuck up, OK? We got a policeman present.' Then he smiled at Logan. 'Ignore him: this ain't got nothing to do with Mr Mowat. This is strictly personal. Understand? Now Jonny and me are gonnae take Pirie and that Polish dickhead, and get out of your hair, OK?'

'What makes you think I'm going to just let you take them?'

Reuben turned the sawn-off shotgun until it was pointing at Logan's chest.

Logan looked down at the twin barrels. 'You've fired it twice already. No shells left.'

'You think?' The big man smiled. 'Jonny, you help Mr Pirie to his feet and see him out to the car, eh? We'll… ah… drop him off at the hospital on the way home.'

'Aye, right… hospital.' The green-haired youth hauled Pirie away by the armpits, leaving a smear of bright red on the concrete.

'Good boy.' The fat man lowered his shotgun, and pointed at Kravchenko's motionless body. 'Now, I'll just take that wee shite and-'

'No. You leave him where he is.'

A short laugh. 'I'm no' leaving any-'

Logan stepped forward and stuck the barrel of his gun in the middle of the fat man's forehead. 'Yes you are.'

Pause.

'Aye, fair enough.' He waited till the door slammed shut, then hurried across the concrete to Wiktorja. She was pale, sweating, shivering, lying in an ever-expanding pool of her own blood. Logan dug out his phone, switched it back on and called for an ambulance, trying to figure out how long it had been since he'd spoken to DI Steel — how long it would be until the firearms team got here. Now that it was too sodding late for them to do anything. Maybe they'd be just in time to stop Reuben and his little green-haired friend from getting away with Pirie?

Drop him off at the hospital. Yeah, right.

But somehow Logan didn't care — the two-faced bastard deserved everything coming to him. Besides, Logan had more than enough to feel guilty about already. Whatever happened to Pirie was his own fault.

Wiktorja lay on her side, making little pedalling motions with her legs, smearing them round and round in the dark red slick. Logan picked up Kravchenko's Swiss Army knife, unfolded a serrated blade, then sawed through the cable-ties holding her wrists behind her back.