“Eh… I don’t…” Tyler inhaled, then breathed out in short stages, like he was battling labour pains. Once his lungs were empty, he shook his head. “No. It’s fine. I can do it.”

“Because I can. If you want me to. I can come in.”

“No. Thanks, but… I sort of… I think I should probably just…”

She rubbed his back again, letting him know that no explanation was needed. “I’ll be right out here,” she told him, then she packed him off with a kiss to the cheek, and watched him go shuffling into the light.

* * *

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Logan. “I thought you were meant to be enjoying the first few days of married bliss?”

“Eh, aye, boss. That was the plan, right enough,” Tyler confirmed. “But, well… something came up.”

“Jesus Christ, son, she’s no’ kicked you out already, has she? What did you do?”

“What? No. No, nothing like that, boss,” Tyler said.

The lad was very subtly rocking his weight from one foot to the other, Logan noted, while picking at the skin around his thumbs with the forefingers of each hand.

“What is it, Tyler?” Logan asked.

“Eh…” Tyler glanced back into the darkened Incident Room, closed the door, then faced front again, all smiles. “Mind if I have a seat, boss?”

Logan indicated the chair opposite with a nod, then scrunched up the paper bag that had been spread out on his desk, swept quite a large number of crumbs onto the floor, and waited for Tyler to spit it out.

“Something kicking off downstairs when were we coming in,” the DC remarked. “Someone getting dragged outside.”

Logan gave a satisfied little chuckle at that. “Aye? Good stuff. It was Hoon.”

“Hoon?”

“Aye. He came to see me. I called downstairs once he’d left. Wanted to make sure he made it all the way outside.”

Logan would usually have expected Tyler to see the funny side, but his face had fallen at the mention of the former Detective Superintendent’s name.

“What did he want?”

“Job reference, would you believe?” Logan said. He reached across the table, picked up the business card, and flipped it over.

The first thing he saw was the logo of the supermarket chain, Tesco. The next thing he saw was a name: ‘Gavin Howden - Junior Manager’.

Logan spent a few seconds imagining how a Tesco junior manager called Gavin would cope with the mighty Bob Hoon. He tried to enjoy the thought of his old boss stacking shelves or working the checkouts, but to his great annoyance found that he could take no pleasure from it.

“A job reference? Was that it?” Tyler asked.

Logan set the card down next to his computer keyboard, glanced at the clock to check the time, then turned his attention back to the DC. “Aye. Actually, no. He asked about you.”