The ride back from Craiginches was spent with DI Steel smoking and swearing furiously. Now that Jamie McKinnon had admitted to paying for sex with Rosie the night she died, Logan's disappearing Lithuanian witness was worthless. And so was any DNA evidence they got from the hundreds of discarded condoms. Things had been a lot simpler when McKinnon was just denying everything. She pulled up outside Logan's flat and demanded the tapes of the interview. He handed them over and asked if she didn't want him to do the paperwork: taking them into evidence, releasing one copy to Jamie McKinnon's defence lawyer. 'Do I buggery,' was her response. 'Bloody things screw up my investigation.' She took the recordings, turned them upside down and picked a loop of tape free with a nicotine-stained fingernail. Then did 'Flags Of All Nations' with it, sending reels of shiny brown ribbon spooling out into the interior of the car. 'Far as anyone's concerned there was something wrong with the machine OK?

No tape was ever made. We forget anything that was said and go back to proving Jamie McKinnon did it.' Logan tried to protest but the inspector was having none of it. 'What?' she demanded. 'We both know he did it! It's our job to make sure he doesn't get away with it.'

'What if he didn't do it?'

'Of course he did it! He's got form for beating her up 'cos she was on the game. He goes and pledges his undying love and she makes him fork out for a knee-trembler in an alleyway. Then goes off to shag someone else. He's overcome with rage and kills her. The end.' She shook her head. 'Now get your arse out of my car. I've got things to do.'

Logan spent the rest of the afternoon pottering about the flat. Sulking. So much for the Rosie Williams murder being his ticket out of the Screw-Up Squad. The way DI Steel was going they'd end up with no admissible evidence and a fully compromised case. The woman was a bloody menace. By seven thirty there was still no sign of Jackie, so he went out to the pub and to hell with everyone else. Archibald Simpson's wasn't an option: being just around the corner from Force Headquarters and full of cheap beer, the bar was a regular haunt for off-duty police, and he'd had enough dirty looks about getting PC Maitland shot to last him for one week, thank you very much. So instead he wandered up Union Street to the Howff, sitting on a creaky beige sofa in the farthest corner of the basement-level bar, nursing a pint of Directors and a packet of dry-roasted. Brooding over Jackie and her foul temper. And then another pint. And another. And a burger – smothered in chilli so hot it made his eyes water – and then another pint, getting maudlin. PC Maitland – Logan couldn't even remember his first name.

Until the screwed-up raid he'd never worked with the guy, only knew him as the bloke with the moustache who shaved his head for Children In Need one year. Poor bastard. Two pints later and it was time to lurch Wearily home, via a chip shop for jumbo-haddock supper; most of which he abandoned, uneaten, in the lounge, before staggering off to bed alone.

Saturday morning started with a hangover. The bathroom cabinet was devoid of massive blue-and-yellow painkillers the ones Logan had been given after Angus Robertson had performed un-elective surgery on his innards with a six-inch hunting knife – so he had to make do with a handful of aspirin and a mug of strong instant coffee, taking it into the lounge to see what kind of cartoons were on. There was a shape on the couch and his heart sank. Jackie, all wrapped up in the spare duvet, blinking blearily as he froze in the doorway. He hadn't even heard her come in last night. She took one look at him, mumbled, 'Don't want any coffee and pulled the duvet over her head, shutting him, and the rest of the world, out.

Logan went back to the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

Saturday, their only full day off together, and Jackie still wasn't speaking to him. Obviously she'd rather sleep on the couch thai share his bed. What a great bloody weekend this was turning out to be. He checked the clock on the microwave. Half past nine. Outside the kitchen window the rain was just coming on again, not the sunshine-and rainbows rain of yesterday, but the heavy-grey-skies-and freezing-wind kind of rain. It leached the warmth out of everything, making the city grey and miserable all over again. Matching Logan's mood. He dressed and headed out, meandering up Union Street, taking perverse pleasure in getting cold and wet. 'Playing the martyr' as his mum used to say. And she should know, she was a bloody dab hand at it.

He moped about the shops for a bit: bought a CD by some band he'd heard on the radio last week, two newish crime novels and a couple of DVDs. Trying to take his mind off everything that was wrong and failing miserably. Jackie hated him, Steel was a pain in the arse, PC Maitland was dyifig… He gave up on the shopping and wandered across Union Terrace, down School Hill and onto Broad Street.

Drifting inexorably back towards the flat through the rain.

At the corner of Marischal College, where the pale grey spines of its elaborate Victorian-Gothic frontage raised their claws to the clay-coloured skies, he stopped. Straight ahead and it was back to the flat. Turn left and it was a stone's throw to Force Headquarters. It wasn't a tough choice, even if he was supposed to be off. He could always kill some time poking his nose into someone else's investigation. DI Insch was usually good for a… Logan screwed up his face and swore; the dead squatter – he still hadn't told Insch about Graham Kennedy. Bloody idiot. Miller had given him the name days ago! Sodding DI Steel and her malfunctioning tape recorder act.

The desk sergeant barely spoke to Logan as he squelched in through the front doors and dripped his way across the patterned linoleum of reception.

DI Insch's incident room was carefully orchestrated chaos – phones being manned, information being collated and entered into HOLMES, so the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System could automatically churn out reams and reams of pointless actions at the press of a button. Now and then it came out with something that made all the difference to an investigation, but most of the time: crap. Maps of Aberdeen were stuck up on the walls, coloured pins marking the locations of significant events. The inspector was sitting on a desk at the front of the room, resting one large buttock on the groaning wood while he read through a pile of reports and chewed on a Curly Wurly.

'Afternoon, sir,' said Logan, squelching in, hands in his pockets, damp underwear beginning to make its presence felt.

Insch looked up from his paperwork, the chocolate-toffee lattice sticking out of his large, pink face like a DNA-shaped cigar. 'Sergeant.' He nodded and went back to his reports.

Two minutes later he handed them to a harassed-looking, cadaverous WPC and told her she was doing a great job, no matter what anyone else said. The admin officer didn't bother to thank him. As she stormed off back to the collating, Insch turned and beckoned Logan over. 'Bit overdressed for bath time aren't you?'

Logan didn't rise to the bait. 'I was wondering how you were getting on with your fatal arson attack.'

Insch frowned, the strip lighting gleaming off his bald, pink head. Suspicious. 'Why?'

'Got a possible ID for one of your victims: Graham Kennedy. Supposed to have been a minor dealer.' That made a smile blossom on the inspector's face.

'Well, well, well. There's a name I've not heard in a while.

You-' Insch picked a PC at random and sent him off to phone round the dental practices in Aberdeen. Insch wanted to know who treated Graham Kennedy: dental records, X-rays the whole lot. It was the only way they were going to identify his charred corpse in the morgue. For once luck was actually on their side; the fourth dental practice the PC tried had done a whole heap of fillings on one Graham Kennedy less than eight months ago.