Blind Eye. Stuart MacBride

magnolia.

      Rory’s flat was right where the computer said it would be. The front door was hanging from a single hinge, wide open, exposing a hallway cluttered with broken furniture and crockery.

      ‘That’s it,’ Logan dragged out his phone, ‘I’m calling for backup.’

      But Steel was already heading inside.

      ‘Damn it.’ He snuck in after her, mobile clamped to his ear, waiting for Control to pick up.

      The hallway led onto a lounge that looked like a bombsite. Everything was smashed. The small bedroom was the same, drawers torn from the bedside cabinets, their contents scattered about the place. A loose mosaic of Polaroids spilled from the upturned bed onto the floor – all little girls in their school uniforms. Albyn School, Robert Gordon’s, Springbank Primary, Victoria Road, Hamilton… All these and many more. Rory seemed to like it best when they were running around the playground, especially if he could capture a flash of white pants.

      Steel picked her way through the devastation to the window, looking out at the magpies and their collage of nappies and takeaway food containers. ‘You know what I think? I think our Rory’s nasty little habits finally caught up with him. Some outraged parent finds out there’s a paedophile living next door and decides to do something about it.’ She looked down at the Polaroids. ‘Can’t say I blame them.’

      They searched the rest of the flat, but there was no sign of its owner. Or his battered body. The inspector found a brand-new half bottle of supermarket brandy lying on the carpet behind the broken front door. ‘It’s no’ been touched… Better get a couple of uniforms over here sharpish. I want everyone in the building given the full Spanish Inquisition, and don’t spare the thumbscrews.’

      Logan took another look around the lounge. ‘You’d think there’d be signs of a struggle.’

      Steel pointed at the broken picture frames, the upturned sofa, the smashed CDs, the television set with a coffee table embedded in it. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

      ‘No. You attack someone, they fight back, a couple of things get knocked over; broken. This place has been trashed. If they had Rory, why do all this? And why isn’t there any blood?’

      Shrug. ‘Maybe… Well… How the hell am I supposed to know?’

      ‘I think they broke in, but he wasn’t here, so they took it out on the furniture. He comes home, sees the mess and does a runner.’

      Steel groaned, rubbing at her eyes with nicotine-yellowed fingers. ‘So now we’ve got a paedophile on the run. The sodding media are going to have a field day.’

      ‘Look on the bright side, maybe he’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere.’

      BANG – the incident room door bounced off the wall and Finnie stormed in, face like a bad day in Chernobyl. ‘Is this some sort of joke to you? Is it? Do you think it’s funny, Inspector? Rory Simpson was a key witness in the Oedipus case, and you thought it’d be a giggle to let him get away!’

      Steel didn’t even look up from her copy of that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner: ‘DRUG VIOLENCE AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH’.

      ‘Morning, Andy.’

      ‘Don’t you “morning Andy” me.’ Finnie thrust a finger in Logan’s direction. ‘And you: why haven’t you been to see Dr Goulding yet?’

      ‘Tomorrow afternoon, sir. He’s been away at a conference in Birmingham.’

      Steel put her paper down on the desk. ‘Laz, why don’t you go get the teas in, eh? Milk and two for the DCI here. Go on, run along like a good wee boy.’

      Logan didn’t need to be told twice; if there was going to be an explosion he wanted to be as far away as possible.

      As soon as the door was closed behind him, the shouting started. He stood there for a minute, listening to Steel and Finnie having a go at each other, then sloped off somewhere safer.

      He was up in CID, working his way through a pile of incident reports, when Steel finally put in an appearance. She didn’t say anything, just marched straight over to the swear box and stuck a pile of cash in it.

      Everyone in the room looked up to watch her feed in the coins.

      Clatter, clang, clink, clink, clatter, clink – sounded like about a fiver’s worth.

      And then she turned on her heel and marched back out again, pausing only to tell Logan to get his backside in gear, they were going out.

      ‘You want to talk about it?’ Logan inched the pool car forward. Mounthooly roundabout looked more like a huge bronze-age burial mound than a roundabout, and it was just starting to get busy as people sneaked out for an early lunch.

      ‘What the hell do you think?’ Steel folded her arms, and sat there like a wrinkled gargoyle, while Logan waited for a break in the traffic.

      The inspector shoogled in her seat. ‘I hate these new pool cars. What the hell was wrong with the old ones?’

      ‘Falling to bits, remember?’

      ‘Well … the new ones don’t smell right.’

      ‘That’s because they’ve not been used as rubbish tips for years. Anyway, it’s nice not having to worry about rats hiding under the seats for a change…’

      Steel scowled at him. ‘Are you planning on sitting here all day, or should I just get out and bloody walk?’

      He put his foot down and they joined the rush, all the way round to the other side. ‘There’s no point taking it out on me, OK?’

      ‘You know what that sanctimonious, cock-faced, fuck-weasel said to me – and if you tell me that’s another quid I owe the swear box I’m going to batter you one – he said it was my fault Rory Simpson walked. Like I had any sodding choice in the matter?’ She put on her best DCI Finnie impersonation. ‘“He was a key witness in the Oedipus case, Inspector.” “Why did you let him go, Inspector?” “Why can’t you do anything right, Inspector?”’

      Logan kept his mouth shut. No point throwing petrol on a burning building.

      ‘And Oedipus is his bloody case!’ she said. ‘If anyone should’ve been keeping an eye on Rory Simpson, it was him.’ She slammed her hand down on the dashboard. ‘Pull over at that wee shop. Sod the “new me” I want a packet of fags.’

      Logan didn’t stop, just kept on going.

      ‘Hoy!’

      ‘You’ll thank me later.’

      ‘I’ll bloody murder you now!’ She watched the little shop slide past, then thumped back in her seat as they drove deep into darkest Froghall.

      Two minutes later, Logan pointed through the windshield. ‘That’s it up there, second from the end.’

      The street was all council owned, a pair of matching terraces running down both sides. They were broken up into blocks of six flats, three on each floor, arranged around a communal door and stairway. White harling walls shone in the noonday sun, but there were no mad dogs or Englishmen about, just a couple of evil-looking children jumping up and down on an old brown sofa someone had hauled to the kerb.

      Steel stared at the scenery. ‘No’ exactly Butlins, is it?’

      Logan climbed out into the sunshine, leant on the roof of the car, and watched the bouncing children watching him. Then one – a snottery-faced girl of six or seven – stuck her middle finger up at him and shouted, ‘Fuck you lookin’ at, pervert?’

      The inspector slammed her door, and yelled back, ‘Bugger off you ugly wee shite, or I’ll come over there and ram my boot so far up your arse the Tooth Fairy will be picking up your molars for weeks!’

      The little girl froze for a moment. Then ran off crying.

      And