Logan had to admit that the food was good. Much better than chocolate biscuits and red wine. 'So did you come all this way, in the snow, just to bring me takeaway?'

'Well, funny you should mention that.' Miller heaped fried noodles onto his plate. 'You see I've got this moral dilemma, kinda thing.'

Logan froze, fork halfway to his mouth, a glistening strip of chicken awaiting his attention. 'I knew it!'

'Whoa there, tiger,' Miller smiled. 'The moral dilemma is this: I've got this killer story, only it's a shoe-in to wreck someone's career.'

Logan raised an eyebrow. 'Considering what you did to DI Insch, I'm surprised you even paused for thought.'

'Aye, fair enough. Problem is, I kinda like the guy this'll ruin.'

Logan stuffed spicy chicken into his face mumbling, 'So? What's the story?' as he chewed.

'Local Police Hero Batters OAP To Death.'

30

Logan tried not to make eye contact with anyone as he went into work on Tuesday morning. No one said a word to him, but he could feel their eyes on his back, feel the gossip as it followed him through the building and into DI Insch's morning briefing. He'd slept badly, the dreams full of tower blocks, burning skies and flashing knives. Angus Robertson's face, twisted and grinning as he carved up Logan's stomach.

The inspector was in his customary place, leaning one round buttock on the edge of the desk, the strip lighting gleaming off his bald head. He didn't look at Logan, just kept his attention on a sherbet double dip. Eating with care, trying not to get red-and-orange powder all down the front of his black suit.

With his face slowly turning red, Logan took his usual place at the front of the room.

DI Insch made no mention at all of that morning's article in the P amp;-J. The one spread all over the front page, with an extra-long editorial on page twelve. Instead he told everyone about Roadkill being attacked. And how the search teams had come up with nothing more than heavy colds. Then he handed out the day's duties and called the meeting to a close.

Logan was the first to his feet, ready to run for it, but Insch wasn't letting him get away that easily. 'Sergeant,' he said in a voice like treacle. 'Amoment if you'd be so kind.'

So Logan had to stand there like an idiot as everyone filed past, looking anywhere but at him. Even WPC Watson wouldn't meet his eyes. It was probably just as well: he felt bad enough already.

When the last PC was gone, and the door to the briefing room closed, Insch produced a copy of that morning's paper and slapped it down on the table. 'Lazarus came back from the dead, didn't he?' asked the inspector. 'Well, I'm not a religious man, Sergeant, but your career seems to have performed the same trick.' He poked the headline: 'KILLER OAP ARRESTED: LOCAL POLICE HERO FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE!' And below that a picture of Desperate Doug when he was being sent down for crippling a builder's merchant with a ratchet screwdriver. With the milky-white eye, the snarl and the flaming tattoos he didn't look like anyone's granddad.

Miller had called in every favour he had at the paper to get the new front page in place. Not that it wasn't a damn sight more newsworthy than 'TILLYDRONE FUNDRAISER GETS OFF TO A FLYING START!'

'Inspector Napier is spitting nails.' A smile broke across Insch's face. 'So, as you're no longer going to be fired, DI Steel says you can get your arse over to the hospital and take Desperate Doug's statement.'

'Me? Doesn't she want to do it?' Detective sergeants didn't usually get to interview murder suspects without a DI there to hold their hand.

'No she does not. Something about "keeping a dog and barking yourself". Now hop it.' Logan commandeered another in a long line of rusty Vauxhalls and WPC Watson. She didn't say anything to him as she pulled the car out of the car park. She waited until they were nowhere near Force Headquarters before bursting out laughing.

'It's not funny.'

The laughter subsided into a smirk. 'Sorry, sir.'

Silence.

Watson took them up through Rosemount. The break in the weather was holding, beautiful blue skies sailing above the sparkling grey granite.

'Sir,' she said, stopped, cleared her throat and started again. 'Sir, about that message Ileft on your phone last night.'

Logan's pulse began to quicken.

'Well,' said Watson, joining a queue of traffic behind a bus. 'It wasn't till later I thought about it. You know, about how it might have been misconstrued. I mean, when you didn't call back I thought I might have offended you. Or something.' It all came out in one breath.

The smile froze on Logan's face. She was backing out of it. Pretending it was all a big misunderstanding. 'I was in the hospital. They don't allow mobile phones. I didn't get your message until after midnight. I tried, but your mobile was off…'

'Oh,' she said.

'Yeah,' he said.

And then they both said nothing for a while.

The sun beat down through the windscreen, warming the inside of the car, turning it into a four-wheeled microwave. At the next junction the bus went left and Watson went right. The houses here were all done up for Christmas: trees in the windows, lights round the doors, wreaths and festive gnomes. One even had a plastic reindeer with an electric nose that blinked red. Very tasteful.

Logan sat, watching the snow-covered houses slip past, staring at the decorations, thinking of his own, bare apartment. There wasn't even a single card up. Maybe he should get a tree? Last year he hadn't needed one. He'd spent Christmas at Isobel's huge home, with its two real trees, both dripping with all the most fashionable trimmings. No family, just the two of them. Roast goose bought in from Marks and Spencer. Isobel didn't believe in all that peeling and chopping. They'd made love all morning.

And this year he was probably going to have to go to his parents for Christmas. Who'd have the whole family round. Arguments, bitterness, drinking, forced smiles, bloody Monopoly…

A figure up ahead broke his train of thought. It was a man, head down, trudging along through the snow. Jim Lumley: Peter's stepfather.

'Pull over a minute, OK?' said Logan and Watson drew up at the kerb.

He stepped out into the December air and crunched along after the trudging figure. 'Mr Lumley?' Logan reached out and tapped the man on the shoulder.

Lumley turned, his eyes as red as his nose. His chin was covered with grubby stubble, his hair unkempt and wild. For a moment he just stared at Logan and then something clicked inside him. 'He's dead,' he said. 'He's dead and it's my fault.'

'Mr Lumley, it's not your fault. Are you OK?' It was a stupid bloody question, but Logan couldn't help asking it. Of course the man wasn't OK: his child had been snatched, killed and raped by a paedophile. He was dying inside. 'Can we give you a lift home?'

Something that had once been a smile clambered across the man's unshaven face. 'I like to walk.' He raised a hand and swept it around him, indicating the snowy pavements and slushy roads. 'Looking for Peter.' Tears welled up in his eyes, spilling down red cheeks. 'You let him go!'

'Let who…' It took Logan a moment to realize he was talking about Roadkill. 'Mr Lumley, he-'

'I have to go.' Lumley turned and ran, slipping and sliding on the icy snow.

Sighing, Logan watched him go, before clambering back into the car.

'Friend of yours?' asked Watson, pulling back into the traffic.

'The boy we found in the toilets. That was his father.'

'Jesus, poor sod.'

Logan didn't answer.

They abandoned the car in a space marked 'HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY' and went in to the main reception area. The lobby was wide, spacious and open plan, the hospital's coat of arms picked out on the floor. A huge, curved wooden reception desk sprawled in one corner. Logan asked politely where he could find Mr Douglas MacDuff and two minutes later they were clacking their way down a long, linoleum corridor.