'She say anything about what Graham was up to?'

The inspector shook his head. Tar as she was concerned he was a perfect little angel. Said he only got into trouble because of his friends – who she never approved of. Been leading him astray ever since secondary school.'

'Don't suppose she happens to know their-'

DI Insch held up a notebook with five names scribbled on it. 'Now why didn't I think of that?' He stuffed the notebook back in his pocket. 'Right, back to the station. You're supposed to be off and I've got an investigation to run.'

When Logan finally got back to the flat Jackie wasn't there, just a note pinned to the fridge: Got Extended Night Shift – Back Tomorrow. No 'Love Jackie', or even 'Fond Regards'. So he'd had to fend for himself, which involved a fourteen-inch pizza and two bottles of wine.

Sunday didn't exactly get off to an auspicious start: he woke up alone, mooched about the flat feeling like crap, then microwaved the last two slices of pizza for breakfast. Standing naked in the kitchen, munching on a reheated spicy beef with extra cheese and staring morosely out at the intermittent rain, he had to admit the diet wasn't going too well. His scar crossed stomach wasn't so much washboard-flat as mangle bulgy. And feeling more than a little unsettled.

Jackie still wasn't back by half ten, so Logan took off. She didn't want to speak to him? Sod her. He had better things to do with his time than mope about the flat like a bloody lovesick teenager. He just didn't know what those things were. So he went looking for them on the streets of Aberdeen.

There was an Alfred Hitchcock retrospective playing at the Belmont theatre. That would do. A whole day watching Cary Grant getting chased by aeroplanes, Norman Bates peeping on guests in the shower, James Stewart almost falling off rooftops… North by North West was just reaching its climax when Logan's mobile went off, the bleeping and pinging cutting across the fight on Mount Rushmore. Angry muttering filled the small theatre as Logan cursed and dragged the phone out of his pocket. His finger was going for the off button when he recognized the number: Detective Inspector Steel. 'Damn.' Apologizing, he hurried down the aisle and out into the corridor, closing the doors behind him before taking the call.

DI Steel brought him up to speed with eight words: Jamie McKinnon. Attempted suicide. Accident and Emergency.

Now!

Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was the biggest hospital in the North-east of Scotland, but you wouldn't know that to look at its A amp;E waiting room. The floor had that nasty, sticky thing going for it, a faint reek of vomit easily discernible through pine disinfectant. A short Asian nurse escorted them through the building to a large public ward, most of which was taken up with elderly men and the smell of boiled cabbage. Jamie McKinnon had been in surgery for a little over an hour, but now he was sitting up in bed, looking groggy, with a big, purple bruise covering one side of his face, the eye swollen almost shut, his top lip split and raw. He flinched as DI Steel plonked herself down on his bed.

'Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,' she said, patting his hand. If you missed me, you just had to say. You didn't need to do all this just to get my attention.'

He pulled his hand away and scowled at her with his good eye.

'I'm no' speaking to you. Bugger off.'

Steel smiled at him. 'Prison's done nothing to dull your razor-sharp wit, has it, Jamie my boy?'

Jamie just stared at the far wall.

'So.' Steel bounced up and down on the bed, making the springs squeak. 'Why'd you do it, Jamie? Racked with guilt about killing your woman? Looking for the quick way out?

Much better you just talk to me. A lot less painful.' She kept it up for a full ten minutes, teasing him, poking fun, being bitchy about Rosie Williams, the love of his life. Not surprisingly Jamie didn't tell her anything.

Logan – who'd spent the interview cringing with embarrassment at the inspector's crass technique – waited until she'd stomped off for a cigarette, leaving him alone with Jamie McKinnon, before saying anything. 'You know, you don't have to go through this on your own, Jamie. The prison has counsellors. You could-'

'Who the fuck does she think she is?'

'What?'

'Wrinkly old hag, coming in here, treating me like dirt!

I'm no' dirt! I'm a fucking human being!'

'I know you are, Jamie.' Logan settled himself down in the spot Steel had vacated. 'Who did the number on your face?'

Jamie raised a hand to his swollen eye, touching the puffy flesh with tender fingers. 'Don't want to talk about it.'

'You sure? Some bastard takes his bad day out on you and you're OK with that?'

A big, shuddering sigh escaped Jamie McKinnon. He slumped further into the pillows. 'Don't know his name. John something or other. He wanted some… stuff.' He shrugged.

'You know, but I didn't have any! I'm in prison, for fuck's sake. Where the hell am I going to get smack from? Only he says he knows I've got it and why won't I sell it to him?'

'So he beat you up?'

McKinnon forced a brave smile. 'Didn't beat me up. I fucked him over good…' Logan recognized a bare-faced lie when he heard one.

'How come he thought you were holding?'

A shrug, and the forced smile disappeared. 'Don't know.'

Logan settled back and gave him a blank stare, letting the silence grow. Jamie shifted uncomfortably, making the starchy white sheets crackle. 'Look, I know… I used to know people, OK? I could get hold of things.'

'What kind of things?'

McKinnon looked at him as if he was stupid. 'You bloody well know what kind of things.'

'So this violent scrotum thought your friends would supply you some stuff, even if you were inside?'

A small, humourless laugh and Jamie bit his lip, not hard, but enough to open up the split in it, fresh red oozing up through the yellow-scarlet crust. 'Won't be getting nothing for no one any more 'No?' Logan had a shrewd idea who Jamie's suppliers had been, and where they were now: filling a collection of body bags in Isobel's morgue. 'Where you going to get your stuff from now?'

There was a long pause, and then: 'I didn't kill her.'

'I know you say that, Jamie, but there's forensic evidence and witnesses and you've battered her before-'

Jamie sniffed, tears starting. 'I loved her.'

Logan frowned. No matter what Steel said, he was beginning to get the nasty feeling that Jamie might actually be telling the truth. 'Tell me about what happened that night.

Right from the start.'

Out in the corridor DI Steel was waiting for him, hands in her pockets, slouching in front of a large oil painting in shades of blue and orange. 'You got any idea what this is supposed to be?' she asked him.

'It's a post-modern representation of the birth of man.'

Logan knew all the paintings in the hospital by heart. He'd spent enough time with them, wandering the corridors after dark, IV drip in one hand, walking stick in the other. 'Looks a lot better on morphine.'

Steel shook her head. 'Takes all bloody sorts.' She cast Logan a sly glance. 'So did McKinnon spill his guts then?

Come clean to the nice cop?'

'Still maintains he didn't kill her. But from the sound of things he was a reseller for the kids who got burnt up in that fire Monday night.'

Steel nodded. 'That figures.' She held up McKinnon's hospital chart. Logan hadn't even seen her swipe it.

'Attempted suicide my arse: he swallowed a plastic fork.

Every fucker in Craiginches tries it at one time or another.

It's not fatal, you get transferred out to hospital for a nice wee low-security holiday. Come visiting time you can get your hands on any substance your loved ones care to bring in. McKinnon's a dealer: he'll be looking for someone to slip him a bundle of something before he goes back inside. Maybe sell some, use the rest himself.' She tossed Jamie's chart into the nearest bin and started for the exit. 'We'll have someone keep an eye on him. See what comes in.'