Blind Eye (15 page)

'In Stoneywood?' Another little snowfall drifted from his chin.

'You want to know what I think?' said Rennie, scooting forward in his seat, 'I think--'

A voice cut him off. 'What happened to all the free drink?' Samantha, the IB's pet Goth, stood with a frown and a noxious looking pint of something dark purple. 'Had to pay for this myself!' She grabbed the only free chair and helped herself to Rennie's crisps.

The constable snatched the packet away. 'Your own fault for being late.'

'It's you greedy bastards in CID more like. First sniff of free booze and you drop everything.'

'I'll drop everything for you, Sam, especially trousers.' Rennie gave her what was probably meant to be a suave smile. 'Go on, show us your tattoos.'

Two hours later they'd vacated Archie's for the Pizza Express on Union Street. By which time Rennie was making even less sense than usual, and Beattie looked as if he'd emptied a carton of desiccated coconut all down his front.

Logan topped Samantha's glass up with the last of the wine, then ordered another bottle. 'Did it turn out OK? The tattoo Twit-Boy tried to ruin?'

She smiled and rolled up the sleeve of her skull-and-crossbones T-shirt. It was a life-sized handprint in black ink, made up of little tribal squiggles, the skin still slightly red and inflamed around the design. 'What do you think?'

'That must have
hurt
.'

'Not as much as this one.' She turned her back on him and pulled open the neck of her T-shirt. 'It's OK, you're allowed to look.'

Logan peered down inside - it was a Chinese dragon and it covered pretty much everything, the bright colours only broken by the black of her bra strap. 'Wow.'

Samantha grinned at him. 'You ain't seen nothing yet.'

They giggled their way into the flat and tumbled through to the bedroom. Kissing and groping and stumbling over a cardboard box in the gloom. Logan flicked on the bedside light. 'I want you to know,' he said, trying to sound serious, 'that I don't usually do this...' He frowned. 'Come to think of it, I've not done it for...' Counting backwards on his fingers - June, May, April, March... 'Nine months!'

Sam whistled. 'Nine months? Hope you can still remember where everything goes. I better get you started.' She pulled her T-shirt up over her head, exposing even more tattoos. A pair of skeletons stretched a banner across her chest above the bra-line with, 'Q
UOTH
T
HE
R
AVEN
, "N
EVERMORE
"' on it, and a spiky tribal thing poked out from the waistband of her black leather trousers, as if a really big spider was trying to escape from her pants. Both arms had a collection of skulls and hearts and swirly things.

She looked him up and down. 'Well, don't just stand there, get your kit off.'

As Logan fumbled his way out of his shirt, Sam stripped off her stripy socks and black leather trousers, until she was kneeling on the bed in nothing but her underwear. Which was a lot more impressive than Logan's slightly baggy pair of blue Marks & Spencer briefs.

'Oh
very
sexy!'

He shrugged. 'Didn't think anyone would see them.'

The spidery tribal tattoo reached all the way down to her left knee, thick spikes of black ink forever ingrained into her skin. It was disturbing and strangely erotic at the same time. She unhooked her bra, lay back on the bed and said, 'Well, don't just stand there...'

He didn't need to be told twice.

They lay side by side, catching their breath. Samantha ran a finger across Logan's stomach - the little worms of scar tissue shining in the soft glow of the bedside light. 'Did it hurt?'

'No, you were very gentle with me.'

She hit him. 'Getting stabbed, you idiot. Did it hurt?'

'The first six or seven times are the worst. After that they all kind of blend into one another.'

She counted her way across his stomach. 'Twenty-three.'

'Think I chipped a tooth on your nipple ring.'

'Is it true you died on the operating table?'

Logan slid out of bed. Changing the subject hadn't worked, but leaving the room would. 'I'm going to get a glass of water, you want one?'

She smiled. 'Man of mystery, eh? I'll have a Coke. And then you can get your sexy scarred arse back in bed. I've still got two condoms left.'

15

Torry sat just south of the River Dee, its whorl of old granite tenements and concrete council housing making a three-quarter-mile-long fingerprint in shades of grey. The scene was a two-bedroom flat halfway along Victoria Road, with views out across the fish factories and storage sheds to the harbour. Sun sparkled off the mud and fuel storage tanks in the middle distance, a collection of huge, neon-orange supply boats lolling in the blue-grey water beyond. It was almost pretty.

A pair of white gulls circled in the clear blue sky, squawking obscenities at each other.

FLASH - and the small bedroom lit up. Green patterned wallpaper. Brown carpet. Double bed. MFI wardrobe. Dead body.

FLASH.

Three figures in breathing masks and white SOC coveralls. A cloud of bluebottles frozen mid-flight.

FLASH.

'And one more for luck...' The Identification Bureau photographer hunkered down for a close-up.

FLASH.

'Right, that's me. You can shift the body if you like.'

Logan shook his head. 'Better leave it till Doc Fraser gets here.'

'Okey-doke.' The photographer dug in the pocket of his white paper oversuit, pulled out a business card and handed it to Logan. 'Listen, if you know anyone getting married, I'm doing homers, OK? Wedding albums, family gatherings, that kind of thing.'

Logan looked down at the body oozing out into the carpet and said he'd think about it.

Luboslaw Frankowski lay on his front, head turned to face the open door. He was swollen: bloated with internal gasses fermented over the week and a half he'd lain there un disturbed. His skin was mottled purple and black with flecks of white mould. Crawling with fat, black flies.

The whole room stank - the sickly sour-sweet odour of rotting meat.

'Bloody hell!'

Logan looked up to see DCI Finnie standing in the doorway, one hand clamped over his nose and mouth.

'Morning, sir.'

Finnie gagged. 'Open a window!'

Logan did as he was told, but it didn't make any difference to the smell.

The Chief Inspector stared down at the corpse. 'Is it him?'

'Far as we can tell.' Logan pulled a photo from the folder he'd dumped on the bed earlier: Luboslaw Frankowski sitting up in a hospital bed, the bandages removed from his ravaged face. Not a pretty sight, but the way he looked now was a damn sight worse. 'We'll take fingerprints soon as Doc Fraser's been.'

'You taking my name in vain again?'

The elderly pathologist was peering around the door frame. He was swamped by his SOC oversuit, the crinkly white paper covering everything except the tired circle of his face - large nose, lined cheeks, watery eyes. Eyebrows like elderly toothbrushes, their bristles pointing in random directions. 'Come on then - everybody out, give a man some space to work.'

They did as they were asked, Finnie grabbing the excuse to get away from the smell. But he was nice enough to tell Logan to stay behind and help.

Doc Fraser levered himself slowly down beside the body. 'Death been declared?'

Logan nodded. 'Any idea what killed him?'

'Give us a chance. Only just got here.' He ran his fingers over the body's head. 'No sign of blunt trauma, no blood on the clothes... Help us turn him over, eh?'

Logan grabbed the man's stained sweatshirt and heaved. The body came away from the carpet with a sticky sound and a fresh eruption of flies - buzzing into the air like a pall of smoke. Logan let go and the body flopped down on his back with a wet belch of escaping gas. 'Ah ... God's sake!'

Doc Fraser waved a hand in front of his face. 'At least it wasn't me this time.' More prodding. And then the pathologist stood and snapped off his gloves. 'Right, no obvious signs of external trauma--'

'Except for the eyes.'

'--but we'll have to get him on the slab to tell for sure. Can't rule out foul play
yet
, but as a wild guess,' the Doc pointed at an empty litre bottle of supermarket whisky lying on the floor by the bed, 'it was drink related.'

'Oh...' Logan stared at that bloated face again. 'Any chance you could take a look at the eyes, you know, while you're here?'

'I've taken off my gloves.'

'Quick look. Two minutes tops. We haven't got a clue what he's using to gouge their eyes out. Or burn them. We need to know what we're looking for.'

Doc Fraser furrowed his hairy eyebrows. 'I'm not a detective or anything, but I would have thought the obvious answer would be to ask the victims who're still alive.'

'They won't talk to us. Terrified of reprisals.'

He shifted from foot to foot. 'All right,' he said at last, 'two minutes.' Doc Fraser pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and went back to the body again. He peered at the flesh around the eyes. 'Skin's been cut away and stitched back ... most of the upper and lower lids missing ... presumably that was the hospital getting rid of any burnt tissue. Can't see inside.'

He stuck his finger in one of the eye sockets and started flicking out little wiggly things. 'Off you go...' More followed. Then Fraser pulled out a pen-sized torch, shone it in the hole, and hummed and hawed for a bit. 'No,' he said at last, 'this is totally pointless. Any evidence was erased by the surgical team. The whole site's been cleaned and sterilized.'

He tried to stand, but didn't manage. 'Little help please?'

Logan hauled him to his feet.

'Thanks.' Fraser clicked off his torch and slid it back into the pocket of his SOC oversuit. 'If you had a fresh victim, I mean
before
they wheeched him off to A&E, I might be able to tell you something...' Shrug. 'Get this one back to the mortuary, post mortem will be half twelve, one-ish? Depends what's for lunch.'

Logan watched the IB roll the bloated, stinking remains of Luboslaw Frankowski into a body-bag. Somehow lunch had lost its appeal.

His appetite still hadn't returned by the time he made it back to Force Headquarters. Half eleven and the canteen was gearing up for service; the smell of sausage, beans and chips wafting through the building just made him feel even more queasy.

Steel was sitting in her office, rummaging through a stack of printouts.

Logan slumped back against the wall. 'You seen Finnie?'

The inspector didn't look up. 'If I had I'd be bankrupt by now. That flipping swear box is costing me a fortune.'

'Did you just say, "flipping"?'

'Oh shut up.' She stuffed the printouts back in her in-tray. 'What do you want that ... Finnie for?'

'We found one of the old Oedipus victims dead this morning. Doc Fraser thinks he probably drank himself to death.'

'Can't say I blame him. If some bast... If someone gouged
your
eyes out, would you no' want a wee bit of alcoholic oblivion?'

'Poor sod was face-down on the carpet for a week and a half before anyone found him.'

'In this heat?' She stared at Logan, then at his clothes. 'Thought I smelled something rank, but I was too polite to mention it. Might have been your new aftershave.' She sniffed. 'What is it with you and mouldy corpses?'

'Well, at least I'm not at the post mortem this time. Got an appointment with that criminal psychologist, Dr Goulding. Finnie's orders.'

'Yeah? Think I'd rather go to the PM myself.' She stood. Sat down again. Picked the pile of printouts back out of her in-tray. Shuffled through them. Put them down on her desk. 'Any chance of a cuppa?'

Logan stared. 'Are you wearing a
skirt
?'

'Milk two sugars.'

'You are, aren't you? You're actually wearing a skirt.' It was blue with little yellow dots.

Steel yanked open one of her desk drawers and pulled out an Airwave handset. 'Can you believe Finnie wants everyone in CID to carry one of these damn things now? Aye, and no' just the plebs: DIs as well!'

'Stop avoiding the subject. What's got into you today?'

She produced a moth-eaten handbag and dropped the handset inside. 'Like carting a brick round with you.'

And that was when it clicked. 'Ahhhh. You've got your adoption social work interview thing this afternoon. I told you: don't sweat it, you'll be fine.'

Steel laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. 'Bollocks I will. I've no' had a fag for two days, I'm off the booze, I'm wearing a skirt, and I'm no' allowed to swear. You got
any
idea how unnatural that is?' She fidgeted with the collar of her blouse. 'Feel like somebody's mum.'