Hamza shrugged. “I don’t necessarily think he isn’t.”

Sinead, to her immense disappointment, was forced to agree. “If he’s lying about going to see them, then he’s the killer. And, much as I’d love to personally manhandle him into a jail cell, I don’t think he is. I don’t think he’d kill someone. He’s more likely to pay someone else to do it.” She perked up at that thought. “Maybe he paid someone!”

Hamza shook his head. “Doubt it. He hasn’t got much of an alibi for Thursday. Boss asked him.”

Sinead’s eyes narrowed. “What difference does that…?” she began, then she nodded and let the sentence fall away. If you were paying someone to commit a quadruple homicide, you’d make sure your alibi was cast iron. Ideally, you’d be on live TV somewhere. In another country. At the very least, though, you’d make sure you couldn’t be connected to the deaths.

“I don’t see a motive, either,” Hamza said. “I don’t think ‘being a dick’ is enough of a driving force.”

Sinead sighed. “No. I suppose not.”

“Still, the car’s a new bit of info,” Hamza said. “Potentially useful.”

“Aye. Could be,” Sinead said, a little distant. She checked her phone screen, frowned at it, then put it back in her pocket.

“No word from Tyler?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. Sorry. Nothing.”

Hamza pushed himself away from the wall with a foot. “He’ll be fine,” he assured her. “You know what the boss is like. He’s probably working the poor bugger’s fingers to the bone.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The second pub of the day was much more Logan’s style. To describe The Pig & Bicycle as ‘bleak’ would’ve been to massively overhype it. It had been a traditional working man’s pub in the 60s and 70s, then a place where the unemployed came to drown their sorrows after the big lay-offs on the Clyde during the 80s.

Various owners had taken the place on over the years, and attempts had been made to gentrify and modernise it. Most had failed.

The only one that had stuck was the bar menu that had been introduced somewhere around 1988—a menu which had not, to the best of Logan’s knowledge, been altered since.

The pub had actually found itself in keeping with a few newer places recently, due entirely to the cyclical nature of fashion and design. Just a stone’s throw away, other pubs were spending tens of thousands to recreate the authentic feel of places such as this one, bringing in expensive distressed wooden flooring, and sourcing original brass fittings from specialist dealers.