Blind Eye. Stuart MacBride

you like to see them? Maybe you could take one home? Would you like that?’ And all the time the trouser rummaging was getting faster. Sweat beaded on his forehead. ‘Would you like to see my… oh God… puppies?’

      ‘Jesus, Rory,’ said Steel, slouching back against the man’s car, ‘could you be any more of a cliché?’

      Rory stood up fast, and hurled a handful of little paper wrappers over the playground fence. ‘I never did anything! You can’t prove I did anything, I—’

      Logan placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Rory Simpson, I’m arresting you under section five point one of the Criminal Justice Scotland Act—’

      ‘No – I didn’t do anything! I was just—mmmph!’

      Steel had clamped a hand over his mouth. ‘Wee kiddies, Rory: let’s no’ corrupt their innocent little ears with your filthy lies. Now, you want to go quietly this time, or kicking and screaming like a girl?’

      Rory bit his bottom lip, frowned, then said, ‘I think I’ll go quietly this time.’

      ‘Good choice, much more dignified.’ The inspector nodded at Logan, ‘Pick up whatever he threw to the lions.’ Then she marched Rory Simpson along the road to the CID pool car.

      Ten minutes later, Logan climbed in behind the wheel of the shiny new Vauxhall he’d signed for that morning. Rory and the inspector were sitting in the back, like a pair of elderly relatives waiting to go for a nice Sunday drive.

      ‘Here,’ Logan passed a clear evidence pouch back between the seats – a small handful of white paper wrappers sat in the bottom, about the size of pound coins, ‘that was all I could find. There’s probably more, but the little buggers weren’t talking.’

      DI Steel opened the bag and sniffed the contents. ‘Come on then, Rory, what we going to find when we send this lot to the lab: icing sugar? Washing powder? Crack cocaine?’

      Rory shrugged. ‘You know how it is, Inspector, kids these days…’

      ‘Yeah, yeah: six-year-olds are all Playstations, tattoos, and gang-rape. Spit it out.’

      ‘It’s not like it was in our day, is it? Then they’d get in your car for a Sherbet Dib-Dab. Now they all want drugs, booze and cash.’ Rory shook his head. ‘They look like butter wouldn’t melt…’ A soft smile flitted across his face.

      ‘Rory, if you’re thinking about melting butter on wee kiddies, I’m going to have my sergeant here drive us out to the middle of nowhere and kick the shite out of you.’

      ‘Just an expression… I mean look at that little tease back there,’ he said, pointing at the troupe of uniformed monkeys screeching their way back to class, ‘she knew exactly what she was doing, didn’t she? Wasn’t going to give me anything for free. It’s depressing really.’

      A tinny Banff and Buchan accent jangled out of the radio: ‘Alpha Three Sivin, from Control—’

      ‘Oh buggering hell.’ DI Steel fumbled for the handset. ‘We… with … non … over?’ Then she went into an Oscar-winning hissing noise: ‘Kshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…’

       ‘Aye, nice try. Incident: Primrosehill Drive. Sounds like a domestic disturbance. I’ve no’ got any patrol cars free and yer closest so—’

      Steel grimaced. ‘Sorry, Dougie, but we’re in Altens, miles away, you’ll just have to find someone else.’

       ‘You do know these new cars have GPS in them, don’t you? I can see you right here on the screen: Sunnybank Road.’

      Pause.

      ‘Bugger.’

       ‘Aye, so: Primrosehill Drive. And get a shift on – neighbour reported screams coming from the hoose opposite.’

      Steel gave it one last try, ‘But I’ve got prisoner in tow—’

       ‘Some poor sod’s probably getting murdered, and you’re buggering about wasting time!’

      Steel took her thumb off the transmit button and indulged in the kind of language that would make a social worker blush. ‘Fine, we’re on our way. You happy now?’

      Logan started the car, drowning out the sarcastic response.

      Primrosehill Drive was a curving line of large, semidetached houses with big gardens and four-by-fours in the driveways, sweltering beneath the hot sun. Logan killed the siren, and asked Steel for the address again.

      She squinted out at the street. ‘There, on the left: that one. Looks like a building site.’

      Two storeys of grey granite, almost invisible behind a forest of scaffolding and tarpaulins. The garden was home to a cement mixer, a JCB digger, a pile of rubble, and a bright blue porta-potty. A battered green skip sat on the road outside, orange cones and planks of wood blocking anyone from parking in front of the house. Logan pulled up as close as possible.

      ‘What now?’

      Steel smacked him on the arm. ‘What do you think? We charge in and save the day. Picture in the paper. Medals. Dancing girls.’ She turned in her seat and poked at Rory. ‘You stay here. Don’t move. If I think you’ve so much as farted while we’re gone I’m going to take your goolies off with a potato peeler. Understand?’

      She took out a pair of handcuffs and slapped one side on Rory’s right wrist, then dragged him forwards until he was bent double in the foot well.

      ‘Hey!’

      ‘Oh don’t be such a whinge.’ She poked the cuffs through the metal struts securing the driver’s seat to the car floor, then fixed Rory’s other wrist in place. He was well and truly stuck.

      ‘Surely there’s no need for this, Inspector, you know I won’t—’

      ‘Shut up before I change my mind and lock you in the bloody boot.’

      She smacked Logan again. ‘What you waiting for?’

      They climbed out into the sunshine.

      The only sound was the distant drone and rumble of traffic on Great Northern Road. No screams.

      They picked their way through the churned-up dirt, skirting a stack of breezeblocks. The front door was poking out of the skip at the kerb, leaving the hallway a gaping black hole.

      Logan pulled out his Airwave handset. ‘DS McRae to Control, I need backup to Primrosehill Drive—’

      ‘You are such a bloody Jessie…’ Steel took another look at the dark hallway. ‘Come on then,’ she said, pushing Logan ahead of her, ‘you go first.’

      Logan swore and pulled out his little canister of pepper-spray. According to Control there still weren’t any patrol cars free. They were on their own.

      Steel gave him another shove and he stumbled over the threshold.

      Gloom.

      The builders had ripped everything back to the bare granite, and started again from scratch. Wooden stud-frames had been fixed in place with enormous masonry screws, lining the walls. Stiff ribbons of grey mains wiring were laced through holes in the joists, stretching out in hanging loops across the ceiling.

      The chipboard flooring creaked beneath Logan’s feet as he crept inside.

      First left: the living room was empty. A green tarpaulin had been stretched over the glassless window, shrouding everything in mouldy shadows. No sign of anyone. Dining room: empty. Downstairs toilet: empty, just the hole where a WC was supposed to go and a couple of plastic pipes poking out through the floor. The kitchen was little more than a storeroom for piles of wood, boxes of tiles, bags of concrete, thick rolls of Rockwool insulation, and sheets of plasterboard.

      Logan worked his way back to the stairs and started to climb. If