A blonde four-year-old girl, slightly overweight, with numerous bruises on her shoulders and thighs, the contusions dark on her waxy skin.

A photographer Logan didn't recognize was snapping away as Isobel worked.

'I'll need a good head and shoulders shot,' Logan told him.

The man nodded and perched over the cold, dead face.

Flash, whirr, flash whirr.

'There's a deep incision between the left shoulder and upper arm. It looks like…' Isobel pulled at the arm, opening up the deep gash. 'Yes: it goes all the way down to the bone.' She prodded the cut surfaces with a gloved finger. 'It was inflicted some time after death. A single blow from a sharp, flat blade. Possibly a meat cleaver.' She moved in so close to the incision that her nose was almost touching the dark-red flesh. She sniffed. 'There is a distinct smell of vomit in the region of the cut…' She stuck out a hand. 'Pass me those tweezers.'

Her assistant did as he was told and Isobel ferreted around in the wound, finally emerging with something grey and gristly.

'There are signs of partially-digested food in the wound.'

Logan tried not to picture the scene. Failed. 'He was trying to cut her up,' he sighed. 'Trying to get rid of the body.'

'And what makes you think that?' Isobel asked, one hand resting lightly on the little girl's chest.

'God knows there's enough talk of dismembered bodies in the papers. He wants to get rid of the evidence, so he tries to hack it up. Only it's not as easy as it sounds. Just trying it makes him sick.' Logan's voice was hollow. 'So he wraps her up in packing tape, stuffs her in a bin-bag and puts her out for the scaffies to take away.' In London they might be refuse disposal operatives, but in Aberdeen they were scaffies.

The Procurator Fiscal actually looked impressed. 'Very good,' he said. 'You may well be correct.' He turned to Isobel's assistant, Brian, who was busy popping the bits of gristle into a little plastic tube. 'Make sure that gets sent off for DNA analysis.'

Ignoring them, Isobel opened the child's mouth, peered in with a tongue depressor and recoiled. 'She appears to have ingested some form of household cleaner. Quite a lot of it from the state of her mouth. The teeth and skin all show signs of corrosive bleaching. We'll get a better idea when we get to the stomach contents.' Isobel closed the child's mouth with one hand, the other supporting the back of the blonde head. 'Hello…' She beckoned the photographer closer. 'Take one of this. The back of the head has suffered a severe concussive blow.' Her fingers moved, probing the hair just above the spot where the skull met the neck. 'This wasn't a blunt object, but something wide that tapered to a point.'

'Like the corner of a table?' asked Logan, not liking where this was going.

'No, it would have to be sharp, solid, like the edge of a fireplace, or a brick.'

'Was it the cause of death?'

'If drinking bleach didn't kill her…I won't be able to say until I've opened up the skull.'

There was a bone-saw lying on the trolley by the table. Logan didn't want to watch what was going to happen next.

Damn Detective Inspector Insch and his little bloody daughter. He should have been the one standing here watching a four-year-old getting cut up into little chunks, not Logan.

Isobel ran the scalpel blade from behind one ear, all the way across the top of the head to the other, slicing through the skin. Without even flinching, she dug her fingers into the wound and pulled, peeling the scalp forward like a sock. Logan closed his eyes, trying not to hear the sounds as the skin separated from the underlying muscle structure: like breaking up a head of lettuce. Exposing the skull.

The teeth-rattling shriek of the bone-saw echoed around the tiled room and Logan's stomach lurched.

And all the way through it Isobel kept up her detached, emotionless narrative. For once he was glad they weren't seeing each other any more. There was no way he could have her touch him tonight. Not after this.

9

Logan stood outside the front door of Force Headquarters under the concrete canopy, looking out at the dreary buildings. The rain looked as if it was settling in for another night and this end of the town was virtually deserted, enjoying the post-nine o'clock lull. The shoppers had gone home hours ago, the drinkers were all in the pubs, where they'd stay till closing time. The crowds outside the Sheriff Court dispersed for another day.

Force HQ was pretty quiet too. The day shift were long gone: off enjoying a pint, or the arms of a loved one. Or, in DI Steel's case, someone else's loved one. The back shift were drowsy and bloated after a heavy lunch, coasting the last three hours towards midnight and home-time. The night shift still another hour away.

The air was clean and cold, with just the slightest hint of traffic fumes: which was a damn sight better than the smell of burning bone. He never wanted to see the inside of a child's skull again. Grimacing, he clicked the top off the painkillers and swallowed another one. Last night's punch was still making his stomach ache.

Taking one last breath of fresh air, Logan shivered and made his way back into the tiny reception area.

The man behind the glass frowned at him, then recognition dawned and he beamed a welcoming smile. 'It is you!' he said. 'Logan McRae! We heard you was coming back.'

Logan did his best to place the middle-aged man with the rapidly receding hairline and wide moustache, and failed.

The man turned and shouted over his shoulder, 'Gary, Gary, come see who it is!'

An overweight man in an ill-fitting uniform stuck his head round from behind the mirrored partition. 'What?' He had a big mug of tea in one hand and a Tunnocks Tasty Caramel Wafer in the other.

'Look!' The moustached one pointed at Logan. 'It's himself.'

Logan smiled uncertainly. Who the hell were they? And then it clicked…'Eric! I didn't recognize you.' Logan peered at all the scalp on display above the desk sergeant's glasses. 'What's happened to everyone's hair? I saw Billy this afternoon: he's bald as a coot!'

Eric ran a hand through his thinning locks and shrugged. 'It's a sign of virility. Anyway, look at you!'

Big Gary grinned at Logan, little flakes of chocolate falling from his caramel wafer down the front of his black uniform like dirty dandruff. 'DS Logan McRae, back from the dead!'

Eric nodded. 'Back from the dead.'

Big Gary took a slurp of his tea. 'You're like that bloke that comes back from the dead. Whatsisname, you know, the one from the bible?'

'What,' said Eric, 'Jesus?'

Big Gary smacked him lightly on the back of the head. 'No not bloody Jesus. I think I can remember Jesus' bloody name. The other one: leper or something. Comes back from the dead. You know.'

'Lazarus?' said Logan, starting to inch away.

'Lazarus! That's right!' Big Gary beamed. Bits of chocolate biscuit were stuck to his teeth. 'Lazarus McRae, that's what we'll call you.' DI Insch wasn't in his office, or the incident room, so Logan tried the next logical place: interview room three. The inspector was still closeted with Watson, Slippery Sandy and Norman Chalmers. There was a look of utter disgust on Insch's face. Things obviously weren't going well.

Logan politely asked if he could have a word and waited outside until the inspector suspended the interview. When he came out, Insch's shirt was almost transparent with sweat. 'God, it's boiling in there,' he said, wiping his face with his hands. 'Post mortem?'

'Post mortem.' Logan held up the thin manila folder Isobel had given him. 'Preliminary results. We won't get the bloodwork back till later this week.'

Insch grabbed the folder and started flicking through it.