'In this place? No chance.' She blew her nose on a tatty grey handkerchief and prodded the rumbling kettle. 'You'll have to wash one.' So Logan did, picking two that didn't look as if they'd recently been used for slopping out and rinsing them under the hot tap.

'Still on your own?' he asked, making small talk while the kettle boiled.

'As sodding usual.' She shook a mountain of instant coffee into a huge mug. 'Margaret can't come in today. Margaret's got flu.' The coffee was followed by an unhealthy amount of sugar. 'Bloody hangover more sodding like 'So,' she said as they walked back along the corridor, 'you here for anything special?'

'Remember Jamie McKinnon?'

'Christ, how could I forget! Got a sodding Fatal Accident Enquiry to go to for that one.' She scowled and sniffed, putting on a whining voice, '"Why wasn't he more closely supervised?

Why was he allowed to commit suicide on the premises?

Why was he allowed to get hold of drugs?" Like he filled in a sodding form asking permission!'

'II il's any consolation, we think someone killed him. We're interviewing everyone who was in the exercise yard at the lime.'

That produced a laugh. 'Good luck – you'll need it!' They'd reached the interview room. 'Anyway,' she said, 'I've got a pile of reports to get back to. Every bastard in here has to be re-checked for "suicidal tendencies" since Jamie McKinnon.'

Another bitter laugh. 'And do I get any sodding credit for doing the work of a whole sodding department on my own?

Do I hell!'

Logan grunted, the scowl on his face matching hers. 'Tell me about it,' he said. Bloody Steel and her… something occurred to him. 'What about Neil Ritchie? He on suicide watch?'

She looked momentarily puzzled. 'Ritchie…? Oh, the "Shore Lane Stalker". Too bloody right he is, the man's a wreck. One death in custody a week's more than enough.'

A grim smile pulled at Logan's face. DI Steel couldn't get a confession out of Ritchie, but then she couldn't interview her nose for bogies. Now if he got Ritchie to cough, they'd have to let him out of the Screw-Up Squad. 'Any chance I could have a word?'

She shrugged. 'Don't see why not. Can't hurt after all.'

No, thought Logan, it couldn't hurt at all.

Neil Ritchie looked like shit: hunched over, dark purple bags under his bloodshot eyes, hair wild and unkempt, rocking back and forth in a creaky plastic chair. The noise of an overcrowded prison going about its daily life filtered in through the interview-room walls, while an old cast iron radiator clunked and rattled impotently in the corner.

All being recorded for posterity by the tapes whirring away in the machine. The mug of tea Logan had made for DC Rennie sat in front of the trembling man along with one of the pilfered Wagon Wheels, neither of which he'd touched. 'So,' said Logan, leaning forward in his seat, purposely mirroring Ritchie's posture, 'how you feeling, Neil?'

The man stared fixedly at the tea, watching a thin skin form on the surface. His voice was little more than a whisper.

They… they put me in a cell with a criminal. He stabbed someone! He told me he stabbed someone…' Neil Ritchie screwed up his face, holding back the tears. 7 don't belong here! I didn't do anything!'

This was exactly the same trick he'd pulled with DI Steel, protest total innocence and repeat ad nauseam. Logan struggled to keep the sympathetic expression on his face. 'What about Holly McEwan, Neil? They found her hair in your car, on the passenger seat. How did it get there, Neil? Help me understand how it got there and maybe I can help you. Did you give her a lift?'

'No!' The word came out like a moan. 'I never did anything with those women – I promised Suzanne. Never again.

Never.'

'But they found her hair in your car, Neil.' Logan settled back in his seat, sipping hjs lukewarm tea, letting the silence stretch.

On the other side of the desk, Ritchie shuddered. 'I told her – the inspector – I told her it must have happened before I got the car!' His eyes locked on Logan's, shining with tears.

'Someone else gave her a lift! It wasn't me… it wasn't me…'

'Your car's brand new, Neil. The garage delivered it to you by seven pm the night Holly went missing: there's a video of her being driven away in your car five and a half hours later.'

'No! No! It… the car wasn't there till the morning! I woke up and it was in the drive, it was supposed to be there on Tuesday night – I had to take the bike to the shops. I was going to complain to the garage, but they left a note and a bottle of champagne Lies. Logan sat back in his seat and watched Ritchie rattling on about how he didn't like to complain, like the good, little passive-aggressive monster he was. It was odd to think that this trembling wreck had killed three women.

Not to mention beating the crap out of Skanky Agnes Walker. 'What happened to your old car, Neil?' he asked, cutting across Ritchie's incessant whining. He was willing to bet it would be chockablock with forensic evidence.

'When you bought the Audi – what happened to your old car?'

The man looked at him, puzzled. 'I… I didn't have one.

Nol for years. I've been on I he hike. I only bought the bloody Audi because Suzanne kept going on about growing up…'

A sob. 'Oh God, why did I have to listen to her?'

Logan sat and stared at him. Then slowly, and with much consideration, he said, 'Oh, shite.'

Five minutes later Logan charged back to the interview room and told Rennie to drop whatever he was doing. The constable spluttered, pointing at the greasy individual sitting on the other side of the table. 'But I'm in the middle of an interview!'

Logan shook his head. 'Not any more you're not. And anyway,' he said, giving the prisoner a quick once over, 'Dirty Duncan here isn't your man. Wouldn't hurt a fly would you, Dunky?' The man smiled nervously and mumbled apologies, hands busy beneath the table while Logan hurried Rennie out of his seat.

'But-'

'But nothing. Dunky would've been too busy wanking himself blind to see anything. Wouldn't you Dunky?' Dirty Duncan Dundas nodded coyly, his shoulders quivering as he rubbed at himself under the table. They got out of there before he could finish.

'But I don't understand!' Rennie whined on the way back to the car. 'What's going on?'

'Someone's screwed up big time, that's what's going on.' Logan hooked a thumb over his shoulder, back the way they'd come. 'That brand-new car Neil Ritchie bought?

It's the first one he's owned for years; he normally rides a motorcycle, his wife drives a tiny hatchback.'

'So?'

'Skanky Agnes: her flatmate said whoever beat her up was driving a big flashy BMW. That sound like a Renault Clio to you?'

Rennie thought about it. 'Oh fuck.'

'Pretty much what I said.'

'So we're back to square one!'

'No,' Logan grinned again. 'We're not. Not by a long chalk.'

Wellington Executive Motors gleamed in the sunshine, the glass-and-chrome building only outshone by the polished, expensive motorcars arranged around it. The same Vivaldi soundtrack greeted them as they pushed through onto the showroom floor, but the saleswoman kept her distance: she'd obviously learned her lesson last time – McRae and Rennie weren't here to spend money.

Mr Robinson, the manager, wasn't pleased to see them back either. He hustled them into his office before any of the paying customers could be put off their purchases. 'What now?' He closed the blinds, hiding the showroom.