“Nice scar you’ve got yourself there, Shuggie,” Logan said. He sat across the table from the older man, after it was made clear that, one way or another, he wasn’t going to be allowed to remain standing. “Never pegged you as being in with the neo-nazis. Always had you down as a bastard of the free-range variety.”

One of Cowan’s fingertips brushed lightly across the scar. One of his eyebrows gave a twitch. “Not through choice. Got you to thank for it, in fact.”

“How do you figure that one out?”

“Got it last time I was in the nick. The time a certain someone not a million miles away from where I’m sitting played a hand in putting me there.”

“That’s terrible, Shuggie. Really sorry to hear that,” Logan said, although the way he said it suggested otherwise. “You can probably get some compo for that. Maybe try one of those ‘no win, no fee’ places? ‘Have you been branded by a Nazi while in the jail? Call us now.’ These ambulance chasers are a dime a dozen nowadays.”

“You haven’t lost your sense of humour, I see,” Cowan said, sounding like a man who’d had his own surgically removed. “Everything was quickly dealt with, thank you for asking.”

Logan regarded the scar. It looked deep and would’ve been painful. He almost felt sorry for the idiot who’d done it.

“Aye, I can imagine,” he said, then he looked at the pub around them.

The other punters had been ushered out, leaving just Logan, Cowan, and the man behind the bar. He was a big fella, and looked more than capable of handling himself in a scrap. You had to be in a place like this, which wasn’t so much a dive as an already fully submerged.

But the barman was just that, Logan thought. A barman. Not a bodyguard. He was standing behind the bar, still flicking through his newspaper, paying the other two men no heed whatsoever. If Logan had made a grab for Cowan, there was no way he could get to them in time to intervene.

“Getting awfully trusting in your old age, Shuggie,” the DCI said. “Was a time you wouldn’t even contemplate sitting down with me without a couple of heavies on standby.”

“Aye,” Cowan admitted. “Was a time. But times change, Jack. We’re all on our own evolutionary journeys. Like… butterflies.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Butterflies?”

“Well, some of us are butterflies. Some of us are moths. The principle’s the same, though,” Cowan said. “The only thing constant in life is change. The only thing set in stone is that nothing is set in stone.”

“Jesus. Where’d you pick that up? Tibet?”

“The Big Hoose. You meet some enlightened characters while being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Plenty not so enlightened too, of course, but there are an odd few nuggets of gold among the shite.”