Blind Eye. Stuart MacBride

over the place, but there was no sign of them. Probably breaking up a fight somewhere.

      ‘I Fookin’ told yeh, Murray, but you wouldn’t Fookin’ listen, would yeh? Had to act the cunt?’ He was trembling, spittle flying from his mouth.

      Logan dug about in his jacket for his warrant card. ‘OK, let’s all calm down.’ He snapped his ID open and held it up. ‘No need for anyone to get—’

      Murray took a swing at Hoodie Number One. The punch went wide.

      The hoodie’s blade didn’t.

      ‘AAAGGHH!’ Kevin Murray fell to his knees, hands clasped over his face. Blood spilling out between his fingers to spatter on the cobbled street.

      The queue disintegrated, everyone retreating to a safe distance to watch the fight. Not one of them stepped in to help break it up. So much for community spirit.

      Logan shouted, ‘POLICE! You’re all under arrest!’ And then wished he hadn’t.

      The three back-up hoodies pulled their weapons out – a cleaver, a combat knife and a machete. All Logan had was a drunk Detective Constable Rennie.

      ‘OK, everyone’s in enough trouble as it is, don’t make it any worse.’

      Hoodie Number One laughed. ‘You think you’re so fookin’ big, don’t yer? Well you know wha’? I eat pigs like you for breakfast…’ He snaked his knife through the air in front of Logan’s face. Back and forth in curving loops, his hand covered in blue DIY prison tattoos.

      Logan felt his stomach clench. Why did it have to be a knife? Why did it always have to be a knife?

      Well, Logan had a nasty surprise for him: pepper-spray beat a knife any day of the week. He felt in his pocket, then remembered it was sitting on his desk back at FHQ, waiting to be refilled.

      Damn.

      He held up his hands, trying to keep his voice level: sound as if he was in control. ‘Come on, it doesn’t have to be like this…’

      Murray was sobbing, lying curled up on the ground between them. ‘My face!’

      Hoodie Number One grinned, wiped his blade clean on a KFC napkin, then flipped the butterfly knife shut. ‘See you round, Mr Pig.’ He bounced back a couple of steps, then he and his cohorts were off, bounding down Belmont Street, whooping and laughing.

      Logan pulled out his mobile phone and called Control – telling them to get the CCTV team to look out for four white males in hooded tops and baseball caps running onto Schoolhill.

      And send an ambulance.

      Logan scowled at Rennie. ‘You were a lot of bloody help!’

      The constable shrugged. ‘I’m actually quite pished.’ He staggered on the blood-slicked cobbles. ‘Aren’t we going … going to chase them?’

      ‘Two of us against four armed men? That’s a great idea.’ Logan pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, folded it into a square, and handed it to Kevin Murray, telling him to keep the pressure on.

      Dark red seeped through the white material, saturating it.

      Logan sent Rennie to fetch some napkins from the kebab shop, then squatted down beside the injured man.

      ‘You want to tell me what that was all about?’

      ‘Ma fuckin’ face!’

      Logan snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and pulled Murray’s hands away. His nose was split in two, the lower half hanging loose. A deep gash stretched across his right cheek with bone glinting away in the depths, and then it all disappeared in a wash of dark scarlet.

      ‘Is it bad? It’s bad, isn’t it? Fuckin’ tell me!’

      ‘It’s … just a scratch. Couple of stitches and you’ll be fine.’ Lie. Lie. Lie. ‘Who were they?’

      But Murray just clutched his nose back together and started to cry, tears mingling with the blood of his slashed face.

      Rennie reappeared with a big stack of napkins. They were better than nothing, but it didn’t take long before all they had left was a pile of sticky red papier-mâché.

      By the time an ambulance arrived their patient had passed out on the cobblestones.

       9

      The phone sounded like an aluminium hedgehog trapped in a tumble-drier. Logan groaned, rolled over onto his side and checked the alarm clock – nearly half past nine. He flopped an arm across his eyes and waited for the answering machine to kick in.

      Blessed silence.

      And then his mobile got in on the act – the ‘Danse Macabre’ warbling out from somewhere on the other side of the room.

      ‘Bloody hell…’ He struggled out of bed, padded across the bare floorboards, and rummaged through the pile of clothes dumped on the chair in the corner. His suit jacket was at the very bottom, all crumpled and wrinkly. He pulled his phone out of the pocket, checked the display, and swore. It was DI Steel.

      ‘Hello?’

       ‘Aye, Laz, where the hell are you?’

      He pulled the bedroom curtains back, blinking out at the sparkling granite buildings and the perfect sapphire sky. ‘It’s Saturday morning…’ He yawned, and sank down on the edge of the bed. ‘I’m knackered. Watching CCTV tapes till God knows when o’clock this morning.’

       ‘Get your arse in gear. They’re discharging me, I need a lift.’

      He groaned, fell back on the rumpled duvet, and stared at the freshly painted ceiling. He’d missed a bit. ‘Get Susan to do it.’

      ‘Susan has a … she has a thing this morning.’ Steel’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, ‘And the nurses are acting all weird, like I’m a serial killer or something.’

      ‘But it’s—’

       ‘You can pick up my car from the station. Keys are in my desk.’

      Logan rubbed his eyes with the ball of one hand, enjoying a fleeting fantasy of feeding the inspector through a wood-chipper. ‘OK,’ he said at last, ‘twenty minutes.’

      The ward was nearly empty, just a grey-haired old woman in the corner, babbling on about Aberdeen Royal Infirmary being a front for the IRA. And people with bird heads trying to steal her biscuits.

      The inspector was stuffing yesterday’s clothes into a little pink suitcase, muttering away to herself.

      Logan called out from halfway across the ward, ‘Madame, your carriage awaits.’

      She scowled up at him. ‘You’re late.’

      ‘You’re not even packed yet.’

      ‘Can’t find my bloody wedding ring.’ Then she started stripping the bed. ‘Got to be here somewhere…’

      She was still at it five minutes later, when a young woman appeared with a trolley laden with tea and coffee. The lady in the corner got fussed over for a bit, but Steel was totally ignored, the trolley making a pointed detour around where the inspector scrabbled on the floor beneath the bed.

      Logan pulled on his best smile and asked if there was any chance of a cuppa.

      The trolley’s guardian looked him up and down, then asked if he was taking that – she pointed at DI Steel’s waggling bum – home?

      ‘Problem?’

      ‘She’s been a nightmare: they had to check her every two hours last night, because of the concussion, and everyone got their arse pinched or their breasts groped.