Logan shoved a chunk of carrot in his mouth. At least, he hoped it was carrot. It looked like a carrot, but the taste and texture were far removed from what he’d been expecting.

“Nothing major,” he said, once the shock of the maybe-carrot had passed. “The way you and Sinead have both been staring off into space for half the day, then giving each other reassuring wee smiles all through the other half. The way you try so hard to act normal, but forget to tell your hands.”

Tyler stopped turning the beer mat over and over, and set it down on the table.

“Little things like that,” Logan said. “It’s the right one, isn’t it?”

Across the table, the DC gawped. “How the fu—? How do you know that?”

Logan shrugged. “Because you touch it about three hundred times a day,” he said. “That was also one of those wee clues I mentioned, by the way.”

Tyler sat back, and his rickety chair made a chorus of creaks. “That’s… I’m impressed, boss.”

“Like I say, I’m no’ a detective for nothing, son,” Logan replied. He swallowed the slimy carrot-thing and shuddered. “Also, you nodded off in the car on the way down the road last night, and you talk in your sleep. So that was a helpful pointer, too.”

That earned a laugh from the Detective Constable. He took a moment to process all this, and cast his eye across the pub to a boar’s head mounted on the wall above an old bicycle wheel. The pig was a moth-eaten, threadbare old thing with one tusk missing. Judging by the look on its face, it was not impressed by its current predicament. You could hardly blame it, he supposed.

“Meant to be getting the operation on Thursday,” he said.

“What you do mean ‘meant to be?’” Logan asked.

“No, I am, boss. I am. I’m getting it done,” Tyler replied. “I’m just…” He stared down at his plate like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in all the world. “I don’t know.”

“You’re scared.”

“Scared?!” Tyler snorted. “No! I’m not scared, boss, I’m just…” He sighed, the charade collapsing. “I suppose I am, aye.”

“It’s understandable,” Logan said. “It’s a big thing. The operation, I mean, no’ your bollock.”

“That’s pretty sizeable,” Tyler insisted. He drummed his fingers on the table. “I don’t know what I’m scared of, exactly. Not the operation itself. It’s called an orco...something or other. But it’s not that I’m worried about. And while I’m not over the moon about having one ball—”

“Never did Hitler any harm,” Logan pointed out.