Desperate Doug was in a private room, guarded by a young PC reading a book. With a guilty jump he stuffed the Ian Rankin under his seat.

'It's OK, Constable,' said Logan. 'I won't tell anyone. Get us three coffees and you can go back to your tales of police derring-do.'

Relieved, the PC scuttled off.

It was hot in Desperate Doug's room, sun streaming through the window, dust motes drifting lazily in the early December sun. A television, high up on the wall opposite the bed, flickering away soundlessly to itself. The room's occupant was propped up on the bed, looking dreadful. Bruises ran rampant all over the right hand side of his face and his milky white eye was swollen almost shut; but even with the swelling, Desperate Doug looked gaunt. It was hard to believe this was the man who had almost killed him yesterday with his bare hands.

'Morning, Dougie,' said Logan, dragging the visitor's chair out of the corner and plonking himself down at the end of the bed.

The patient didn't even acknowledge his presence. He just lay there staring up at the silent, iridescent screen. Logan glanced over his head and then at WPC Watson. She picked the remote off the bedside cabinet and clicked the telly off.

A slow, rattling sigh escaped the old man in the bed. 'I was watchin' that.' The words came out loose and sibilant and for the first time Logan noticed the set of teeth floating in a glass at the side of the bed.

'Urrgh, put your teeth in, Doug, for God's sake! You look like a turtle!'

'Fuck you,' said Doug, but his heart didn't seem to be in it.

Logan smiled. 'Well, now that we've got the pleasantries out of the way, why not get down to business? You killed George "Geordie" Stephenson.'

'Bollocks.'

'Come on, Doug. We've got all the forensic evidence we need! Your dog's teeth match the bite-marks on his legs. His kneecaps were hacked off with a machete! That's got Doug MacDuff written all over it. What happened? The McLeod boys hold him down while you hacked away?'

Doug snorted.

'Come on, Dougie, you're not telling me you could hold a great big bruiser like that down on your own? While you de-kneed him? You're what: ninety?' Logan settled into the seat, resting a foot on the end of the bed. 'Let me tell you how I think it went down, OK? Just jump in if I get anything wrong.'

Standing quietly in the corner WPC Watson was taking notes, keeping a low profile.

'Geordie Stephenson comes up from Edinburgh all full of himself, looking to do a bit of business. While he's up he fancies a bit of a flutter. So he does the rounds of the bookies, losing big time. Only he can't cover his debts. And they don't take kindly to that at the Turf 'n Track.' Logan paused. 'How much did they slip you to do him, Doug? More than a week's pension? Two weeks'? A month's? Hope it was a lot, Dougie, because Geordie Stephenson worked for Malk the Knife. And when he finds out that you've snuffed one of his men, he's going to skin you alive.'

A smile played round Doug's toothless mouth. 'You are so full of shite.'

'You think? Hell, Dougie, I've seen some of the things left behind after Malkie's boys have finished with somebody. Arms, legs, willies…You don't stand a chance.' Logan gave a friendly wink. 'But tell you what: you tell us all about Simon and Colin McLeod and their debt collection methods, and I'll make sure you get locked away somewhere Malkie can't get at you.'

And at this Doug actually started laughing.

Logan frowned. 'What?'

'You haven't-' The word was interrupted by a cough, a dry wheeze that shook the old man's frame. 'Haven't got-' Another cough, this one deeper, working its way slowly into his chest. 'Got a-' Again. 'Got a fuckin' clue-' This time the whole bed rattled as Doug racked back and forth, a shaking, thin hand almost covering his mouth. Finally he slumped back into his pillows, wiping his hand down the front of his pyjamas. It left a black and red smear. 'Have you, Mr Pig?'

'Do you want me to get a doctor?' Logan asked.

The old man laughed bitterly, the laugh dissolving into yet more coughing. 'No point,' he wheezed, the breaths coming ragged and fast. 'Saw one of the buggers this mornin'. I told you Mr Pig: I got me the cancer. Only it's no a year or two any more. Doctor says now it's a month.' He thumped his chest with a bloodstained hand. 'One big tumour.'

Dust motes drifted by in the silence that followed, each one a spark of gold in the heady sunlight.

'Now fuck off and let me die in peace.'

*

Bernard Duncan Philips didn't have a private room. He had to share a double in intensive care. His narrow hospital bed was surrounded by equipment, monitors, ventilators; you name it they'd plugged it into Roadkill's battered body. Logan and Watson stood in the doorway, sipping the lukewarm, plastic-flavoured coffee the PC had finally delivered.

Desperate Doug had looked bad, but Roadkill looked worse. White bandages separated by bruises. They'd put both his arms and one of his legs in plaster since Logan had seen him last. As if he was in a Carry On film.

The oxygen mask was gone, replaced by a tube with a nosepiece in the middle, the clear plastic line looped over his ears and taped to his cheeks to stop it from falling out.

'Can I help you?'

It was a short woman, dressed in a nurse's uniform: sky-blue slacks and a short-sleeved top with an upside-down watch pinned over the left breast.

'How is he?'

The nurse examined Logan with a practised eye. 'You family?'

'No. Police.'

'You don't say.'

'How is he?'

She picked the chart off the end of Roadkill's bed, skimming it. 'Well, he's doing a lot better than we thought. Surgery went well. He actually came round for an hour this morning.' She smiled. 'Bit of a surprise that. I put money on "coma". Still: win some, lose some.'

It was the last time Logan saw Roadkill alive. DI Steel wasn't surprised he'd got nothing out of Desperate Doug. Instead she just sat back in her chair, feet up on the desk, and puffed smoke rings at the ceiling.

'If you don't mind me asking, ma'am,' said Logan, fidgeting in the seat on the opposite side of her desk, 'how come you didn't go and interview him yourself?'

She smiled languidly at him through a haze of smoke. 'Dougie and me go way back. When I was first in uniform and he was in his prime…' Her smile became wry. 'Let's just say that we had a bit of a falling out.'

'What are we going to do about him?'

She sighed, sending cigarette smoke drifting across her desk like a wall of fog. 'We go to the Procurator Fiscal and we give him the forensic evidence. He reads it and he says, it's enough to go to court on, and we say great. And then Dougie's lawyer says my client is going to snuff it in under a month. And the PF says well in that case bugger it. Why waste the money?' She worked a chipped nail in between her teeth, dug something out and stared at it for a moment before flicking it away. 'He'll be dead before this thing comes to court. Let sleeping Dougs die, I suppose.' She stopped, as if something had suddenly occurred to her. 'You did check with his doctor, didn't you? He is dying, isn't he? Not just pulling your dick?'

'I checked. He's really dying.'

She nodded, the glowing tip of her fag bobbing up and down in the semidarkness. 'Poor old Doug.'

Somehow Logan found it difficult to feel a great deal of sympathy for the man, but he kept his mouth shut.

Back in the incident room Logan took down Geordie Stephenson's photograph. Both the one from Lothian and Borders Police and the one from the morgue. Now that Desperate Doug MacDuff was dying no one would ever be found guilty of Geordie's murder. But the man had no wife, no kids, no brothers or sisters. No one to claim his body. No one was going to miss Malk the Knife's enforcer. No one except Malk the Knife. And what was he going to do to Dougie? The old man would be dead in a month anyway. And it'd be painful: the doctor said so. All Malkie could do was put him out of his misery and Doug knew it. Maybe that was why he'd laughed when Logan had talked of retribution. Either way it didn't matter.