'Think I'm goin' tae let you spill greasy crumbs all over my nice new motor? This interview goes well an' I'll buy yous an Egg McMuffin. OK?'

Logan told him he'd sooner eat a deep-fried turd. 'And how come you can afford a flash car like this? Thought all you reporters lived in penury.'

'Aye, well,' Miller shrugged and pulled away from the kerb. 'I did this bloke a favour once. Didn't publish a story…'

Logan raised an eyebrow, but Miller wouldn't say any more.

Traffic was light at this time on a Sunday morning, but the weather slowed what little there was down to a crawl. Miller slotted his car in behind a once-white truck, the top covered with a foot of icy snow, the rest of it covered with three inches of dirt. Some wag had scrawled the usual 'I WISH MY WIFE WAS THIS DIRTY' and 'WASH ME' in the grime. The writing glowed in Miller's headlights as they slowly made their way across town to Summerhill.

The safe house didn't look any different to the others in the street: just another concrete box with a small garden out front, buried under a growing blanket of white. Asagging willow tree stood forlorn in the middle, bent under the weight of snow and ice.

'Right,' said Miller, parking behind a battered Renault. 'Let's go get us an exclusive.' The reporter's attitude towards Roadkill had changed dramatically since Logan told him about the road accident. Bernard Duncan Philips was no longer to be strung up by his balls until they popped. Now he was a victim of society's disposable culture, in which the mentally ill could be thrown out into the community to fend for themselves.

Bernard Duncan Philips was roused from his bed by a large, plainclothes policewoman and prodded downstairs to perform for the reporter. Miller's questioning technique was good, making Roadkill feel relaxed and important, while a snazzy digital recorder whirled silently in the middle of a coffee table that had seen better days. They went over his glittering academic career, ruined by his mother's ill health, then delicately tiptoed around the descent into mental illness and the death of Mrs Roadkill Senior, God rest her soul. There was nothing there Logan hadn't got from the files, so he spent his time drinking over-strong tea, poured from a cracked brown pot. And counting the roses on the wallpaper. And the blue silk bows. Between the pink stripes.

It wasn't until Miller got onto the subject of Lorna Henderson, the dead girl in steading number two, that Logan started paying attention again.

But, good though he was, Miller wasn't getting that much more out of his subject than DI Insch had. The whole topic made Roadkill twitchy. Agitated.

It wasn't right. They were his dead things. They were taking them away.

'Come on now, Bernard,' said the plainclothes WPC, womanning the teapot again. 'There's no need to get excited, is there?'

'My things. They're stealing my things!' He jumped to his feet, sending a plate of chocolate digestives clattering to the ground. A pair of wild eyes darted at Logan. 'You're a policeman! They're stealing my things!'

Logan tried not to sigh. 'They have to take them away, Bernard. You remember we came round with the man from the council? They were making people sick. Like your mum. Remember?'

Roadkill screwed up his eyes tight. Teeth gritted. Fists pressed hard against his forehead. 'I want to go home! They're my things!'

The large policewoman put down the teapot and made soothing noises, as if the grubby, ranting man was a small child with a skinned knee. 'Shoosh, shoosh,' she said, stroking Roadkill's arm with a plump hand covered in rings. 'It's all right. Everything will be all right. You'll be safe here with us. We won't let anything happen to you.'

Slowly, uncertainly, Bernard Duncan Philips sat back down on the edge of his seat, his left foot crunching a chocolate digestive to crumbs on the carpet.

But the interview went downhill from there. No matter how clever, or careful, Miller's questions were they still managed to upset Roadkill. And he just kept coming back to the same thing, time and time again: he wanted to go home: they were stealing his things. Aberdeen beach was desolate and freezing. The North Sea raged, dark grey, between the whipping curtains of snow. The boom of granite-coloured waves smashing into the concrete beachfront punctuated the howling storm, sending spray twenty feet into the air, where the wind threw it against the shopfronts.

Most of the businesses hadn't bothered opening this morning. It wasn't as if there was going to be a lot of passing trade for the tourist shops, amusement arcades and ice-cream parlours. But Miller and Logan were ensconced at a window table in the Inversnecky Cafe, wolfing down smoky bacon butties and drinking strong coffee.

'Well that was a waste of bloody time,' said Miller, picking a rubber band of bacon fat from his roll. 'You should be buyin' me breakfast after that. No the other way around.'

'You must've got something!'

Miller shrugged and curled the fat into the unused ashtray. 'Aye: he's off his friggin' trolley. I got that loud and bloody clear. Mind you, no exactly news, is it?'

'I'm not looking for much,' said Logan. 'Just something that lets everyone know he didn't kill that little girl. He didn't do it so we had to let him go.'

The reporter wrapped himself around a large bite, chewing thoughtfully. 'Your bosses must be bricking it if they've asked you to come beggin' for a puff piece.'

Logan opened and shut his mouth.

Miller winked at him. 'It's OK, Laz, I can run with this. Give it the patented Colin Miller Midas Touch. We slap a copy of the X-rays on the front cover. Get the graphics department to knock us up some "kiddie gets smacked by Volvo" pictures. Bob's your uncle. But that's no going to come out till Monday. You see the telly this mornin'? They're havin' a field day. Your pantomime dame's going to be out of a job by then. Letting Roadkill go. Twice.'

'He didn't kill that kid.'

'That's no the point, Laz. The public sees all these nasty things happenin': dead boys in ditches, dead lassies in bin-bags, children abducted left, right and centre. Cleaver goes free, even though we all know he did it. And now Roadkill's out too.' He ripped another bite from his buttie. 'As far as they're concerned he's guilty.'

'But he didn't do it!'

'No one gives a toss about the truth any more. You know that, Laz.'

Gloomily Logan had to admit that he did. They sat and ate in silence.

'So how's your other story coming?' he asked at last.

'Which one?'

'When you told me you were backing off Geordie No-Knees you said you had safer fish to fry.'

The reporter took a slurp of coffee. 'Oh aye. That.' Miller paused, gazing out through the window at the snow and the waves and the battling sea. 'No that well.' He lapsed into silence.

Logan let the pause go on for long enough to make sure the details weren't going to come out of their own accord. 'Well? What was it?'

'Hmm?' Miller dragged his attention back into the cafe. 'Oh right. There's this rumour that there's a bloke in the market for somethin' special. Somethin' no many people sell.'

'Drugs?'

The reporter shook his head. 'Nah. Livestock.'

Well that sounded bloody daft. 'What? Pigs and chickens and cows and things?'

'No that kind of livestock.'

Logan sat back in his seat and examined the taciturn reporter. His face, usually an open book, was closed and lined. 'So what kind of livestock is this buyer after?'

Miller shrugged.

'Difficult to tell. No one's sayin' bugger all. Nothin' that makes sense anyway. Maybe a woman, man, boy, girl…'

'You can't just buy people!'

The look Miller gave Logan was a mixture of pity and contempt. 'You sail up the Clyde in a banana skin? Course you can bloody buy people! Take a stroll down the right streets in Edinburgh and you can buy anythin' you like. Guns, drugs. Women too.' He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. 'Did I no tell you Malk the Knife imports tarts from Lithuania? What you think he does with them?'