'I thought he hired them out…'

Miller laughed sourly. 'Aye he does. Hires and sells. You get discount on the shop-soiled ones.'

The disbelieving look on Logan's face made him sigh. 'Look: most of the times it's pimps doin' the buyin'. One of your tarts pops an overdose so off you go to Malkie's Cash amp; Carry. Get yourself a replacement. One nearly-new Lithuanian whore at bargain basement prices.'

'Jesus!'

'Most of the poor bitches can't even speak English. They get bought, hooked on smack, hired out, used up and chucked back on the street when they're too skanky to turn a decent trick.'

They sat in silence, just the dull hiss of the cappuccino machine and the faint sounds of the storm outside filtering through the double-glazing. Logan wasn't going back to the office. That's what he told himself when Miller dropped him off at the Castlegate. He was going to nip along to Oddbins, pick up a couple of bottles of wine, some beer, and then settle down in front of the fire in the flat. Book, wine, and a carryout for tea.

But he still found himself standing in the dreary front lobby of Force Headquarters, dripping melting snow onto the linoleum.

As usual there was a pile of messages from Peter Lumley's stepfather. Logan did his best not to think about them. It was Sunday: he wasn't even supposed to be here. And he couldn't face another of those desperate phone calls. So instead he sat at his desk staring at the picture of Geordie Stephenson. Trying to read something in those dead eyes.

Miller's tale of women for sale had set him thinking. Someone in Aberdeen wanted to buy a woman, and here was Geordie, representing one of the biggest importers of flesh in the country, up on business. Maybe not the same business – property not prostitution – but all the same…

'You really screwed up, didn't you, Geordie?' he told the morgue photograph. 'Come all the way up from Edinburgh to do a wee job and end up floating face down in the harbour with your knees hacked off. Couldn't even manage to bribe a member of the planning department. I wonder if you told your boss someone was interested in buying himself a woman? Cash. No questions asked.'

Geordie's post mortem report was still sitting on Logan's desk, unread. What with everything that had gone on this week, there just hadn't been time. He picked the manila folder off the tabletop and started to flick through it when his phone blared into life.

'Logan.'

'Sergeant?' It was DI Insch. 'Where are you?'

'FHQ.'

'Logan, don't you have a home to go to? Didn't I tell you to take a nice WPC out and show her a good time?'

Logan smiled. 'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.'

'Well, it's too late for any of that now.'

'Sir?'

'Get your arse over to Seaton Park. I've just got the call: they've found Peter Lumley.'

Logan's heart sank. 'I see.'

'I'll be there in about…God, it's blowing a blizzard out here. Make it thirty minutes to be safe. Maybe forty. Keep it low profile, Sergeant. No blue lights, no sirens and no fuss. OK?'

'Yes, sir.'

*

Seaton Park was a pretty place in the summer – wide banks of green grass, tall mature trees, a bandstand. People picnicked on the grass, played an impromptu game of football, made love beneath the bushes. Got mugged after dark. It wasn't a stone's throw away from Aberdeen University's student halls of residence, so there was a steady stream of naive newcomers with money in their pockets.

Today it was like something out of Dr Zhivago. The sky hadn't lightened as day went on but just hung there, throwing snow down over everything.

Logan trudged across the park, trailing a PC wrapped up like an Eskimo behind him. The rotten sod was using Logan as a windbreak as they fought their way through the snow. Their goal was a low concrete building in the middle of the park, the walls on one side coated with a crust of white. The public loos were closed during the winter. Anyone caught short would have to make peecicles behind a bush. They went around the side, glad to get out of the bitter wind, to where the ladies' entrance was hidden behind a small recess.

The door was open, just a crack, the wood splintered and torn where a padlock was meant to keep it shut. Instead the big brass lock hung uselessly from its metal clasp. Logan pushed the door open and stepped into the female toilets.

It actually seemed colder in here than it had outside. A pair of uniform kept an eye on three well-wrapped-up children between the ages of six and ten, their breaths fogging the air. The kids looked excited and bored in turn.

One of the uniforms looked up from his charges. 'Cubicle number three.'

Logan nodded and went to take a look.

Peter Lumley wasn't alive any more. Logan knew it as soon as he opened the black-painted cubicle door. The child was lying on the floor, curled up around the bottom of the toilet, as if he were giving it a cuddle. The fiery red hair was dull and pale in the cold light, the freckles almost indiscernible against the waxy, blue-white skin. The little boy's T-shirt was pulled up, covering his face and arms, leaving the pale skin of his back and stomach exposed. He wasn't wearing anything else.

'You poor wee sod…'

Logan frowned, peering at the child's exposed body, unable to get any closer in case he contaminated the crime scene. Peter Lumley wasn't like the little boy they'd found in the ditch. Peter Lumley was still anatomically intact. The loos were getting a little crowded. Insch had turned up red-faced and swearing just after the duty doctor and the Identification Bureau. The IB lads had turned up, as instructed, in their own clothes, leaving the white van with all its gear in the car park next to St Machar's Cathedral where it wouldn't draw attention to itself.

As Insch stomped the snow off his boots, the IB team and everyone else struggled into their white overalls, shivering in the frigid air and bitching about how cold it was.

'So what's the score?' asked Insch as the duty doctor peeled off his paper coveralls and tried to wash his hands in one of the sinks.

'The poor little lad's dead. Dunno how long for. He's pretty much frozen solid. Weather like this plays merry hell with the old rigor mortis.'

'Cause of death?'

The doctor wiped his hands dry on the inside of his fleecy jacket. 'You'll have to get confirmation from the Ice Queen, but it looks like ligature strangulation to me.'

'Same as last time.' Insch sighed and dropped his voice so the children who weren't dead couldn't hear him. 'Any sign of sexual assault?'

The doctor nodded and Insch sighed again.

'Righty ho.' The doctor wrapped and tucked and zipped himself into his many-layered thermal insulation. 'If you don't need me any more, I'll bugger off somewhere warmer. Like Siberia.'

With death declared the IB team set about collecting everything they could get their glove-covered hands on. Lifting fibres, dusting for prints. Photographer clicking and whirring away, video operator recording everything and everyone. The only thing they didn't do was move the body. Not one of them wanted to incur the wrath of the pathologist. Isobel had got herself quite a reputation since Logan had returned to the force.

'One week today, isn't it?' asked Insch as they stood against the wall and watched the Identification Bureau work. Logan admitted that it was. Insch dug a packet of jelly babies from his coat pocket and offered them around. 'What a great bloody week it's been too,' he said, chewing. 'You thinking of taking a holiday anytime soon? Let the crime statistics get back to normal again?'

'Ha bloody ha.' Logan stuck his hands in his pockets and tried not to think about how Peter Lumley's stepfather would look when they told him what they'd found.

Insch nodded at the three children, slowly turning blue in the crowded ladies lavatory. 'What about them?'