'If you're Geordie's brother,' said Logan, 'how come you've got different last names?'

Cameron shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'Different mothers. He was from my father's first marriage. They got divorced so Geordie was brought up with her maiden name, Stephenson. Dad got married again and I was born six years later.'

Silence fell. It was Logan who broke it. 'What if I told you we found seminal fluid in the girl's mouth?'

Cameron blanched.

'How much do you want to bet it matches the DNA sample we took from you? How are you going to pin that on Desperate Doug?'

Cameron looked as stunned as DI Insch. He sat on the other side of the table, mouth working up and down like a dying fish. Silence.

'Sergeant,' said Insch at last, 'can I have a word with you outside, please?'

They suspended the interview and Logan joined Insch in the corridor, leaving Cameron under the watchful eye of the silent PC.

A frown creased Insch's face, turning the corners of his mouth into an ugly snarl. 'Why did no one tell me we'd found semen in the girl's mouth?' he asked, his voice dangerously neutral.

'Because we didn't.' Logan smiled. 'But he doesn't know that.'

'You're a dirty cheating bastard, DS McRae,' said Insch, the frown turning into a smile of paternal pride. 'Did you see his face when you said it? Looked like he'd shat himself.'

Logan was about to expand upon the theme when a worried-looking WPC trotted up the corridor and told them about Roadkill. A doctor at the hospital had made a 999 call. Someone had put Bernard Duncan Philips out of his misery.

Insch swore and ran a large hand over his face. 'He's supposed to be in protective custody! But he still manages to get himself beaten up, hospitalized and killed.' The inspector sagged against the wall. 'Give us five minutes,' he told the WPC before heading back into the interview room. They took DI Insch's filthy Range Rover, the windows smudged and streaky where his spaniel had rubbed its nose against the glass. Insch drove them up through Rosemount's snow-lined streets.

Looking morosely out of the window, Logan watched the granite terraces drift by, his mind half on Roadkill and half on the strained conversation he'd had with WPC Jackie Watson as they drove along this very road.

As Insch pulled the car round the corner, making for the hospital, something tugged at Logan's mind. He stared out at the houses on this side of the road. A plastic reindeer, all lit up, complete with neon-red, flashing nose, jogged his memory. This was where they'd seen Peter Lumley's dad. Still wandering the streets looking for his missing child. Even though he knew his stepson was dead…

'You've got a face like a pig's arse,' Insch told him, indicating to turn up Westburn Road. 'What's up?'

Logan shrugged, still seeing that wretched figure, tromping through the snow with his head down, the legs of his overalls damp with snow and slush. 'Not sure…maybe nothing.'

Inside the hospital it was too hot, the heating cranked up to combat the winter's chill, leaving the whole place in a sub-tropical, antiseptic fug. The room Bernard Duncan Philips, AKA Roadkill, had shared was no different, only more crowded – Identification Bureau personnel, a photographer, DI Insch and Logan all dressed in identical white paper coveralls as if they were some sort of conceptual dance troupe.

The room's other bed was empty; a tearful nurse in her late forties told Logan the man sharing with Roadkill had died of liver failure that afternoon.

In between the high-pitched whine and clack of the photographer's flash, Logan was treated to the sight of Roadkill's battered body. He was sprawled across the bed, one plastered arm hanging out over the linoleum, blood drips slowly clotting on the tips of pale fingers. The bandages on his head were bright red around the eyes and mouth, the ones on his chest so saturated with blood they were almost black.

'What the hell happened to the PC watching him?' Insch was in a foul mood.

A sheepish-looking constable held up his hand and explained that there had been some trouble in A amp;-E. Two drunks and a bouncer, trading blows. He'd been summoned by the nurses to help break it up.

Insch creased his face and counted to ten. 'I suppose death's been declared?' he asked when he got to the end.

A WPC said that it hadn't, eliciting a barrage of swearing from the inspector.

'It's a hospital! The place is filthy with bloody doctors! Go get one of the lazy bastards to officially declare death!'

While they waited, Insch and Logan examined the body as best they could without actually touching it.

'Stabbed,' said Insch, peering closely at the small, rectangular puncture marks in the bandages. 'That look like a knife to you?'

'Something with a chisel point. Could be a screwdriver? Stiletto? Pair of scissors?'

Insch squatted down, searching under the bed for a discarded knife. All he found was more blood.

While the inspector was looking for a murder weapon, Logan worked his way carefully along the body. The stab-marks were all exactly the same, no more than fifteen millimetres long, two millimetres wide, all radiating out from the left side of the body. The killer had been frenzied, the stab wounds multiple and furious. He closed his eyes and pictured the scene: Roadkill unconscious, killer standing on the left side of the bed, the side furthest away from the door. Stabbing rapidly, again and again.

Logan opened his eyes and stepped back, feeling slightly nauseous. There was blood everywhere. Not only on the body and the bed, but up the wall too. He craned his neck back to see little red flecks splattered on the off-white ceiling tiles. Whoever did this would have looked like something from a horror film by the time they'd finished. Not someone you'd forget seeing in a hurry.

This wasn't random violence. Nor was it the violence of a self-righteous mob. This was revenge.

'What is the meaning of this? Why have I been dragged down here?'

The voice was stressed and irritable, just like its owner: a well-built female doctor in a white coat, complete with stethoscope around her neck.

Logan raised his hands in submission and backed away from the body. 'We need you to declare death before we can move the body.'

She scowled at him. 'Of course he's bloody dead. You see this?' She pointed at her name badge. 'It says "doctor". That means I know a dead body when I see one!'

Inspector Insch stood up on the other side of the bed and pulled out his warrant card. 'You see this?' he said, holding it under her nose. 'It says "Detective Inspector". That means I expect you to behave like a grown up and not take whatever your problem is out on my officers. OK?'

She glowered at him, but didn't say anything. Slowly her face softened. 'Sorry,' she said at last. 'It's been a long, shitty day.'

Insch nodded. 'If it's any consolation I know how you feel.' He stepped back and pointed at Roadkill's pincushion corpse. 'Care to hazard a guess at the time of death?'

'Easy: some time between quarter to nine and quarter past ten.'

Insch was impressed. 'Not often we get an estimated time of death within half an hour.'

The doctor actually smiled at him. 'That's when the last shift was through. The beds get checked regularly. He wasn't dead at quarter to nine. Quarter past ten, he was.'

DI Insch thanked her and she was about to say something else when the pager at her hip let out a series of bleeps. She grabbed it, read the message, cursed, apologized, and ran from the room.

Logan stared down at the bloody remains of Bernard Duncan Philips and tried to figure out what was nagging him about all this. And then it hit him. 'Lumley,' he said.

'What?' Insch looked at him as if he'd grown an extra head.

'Peter Lumley's stepdad. Remember him? He walks round this area of town the whole time. Last time I saw him he was walking away from the hospital. He blamed Roadkill for his son's death.'