“No. I mean, yes. I mean… he’s on there, but he’s coated in bloody Teflon. Or… I don’t know. Whatever they use on stealth bombers. I don’t know. What is it? Magic paint?” He shook his head, visibly annoyed with himself. “The point is, we’re aware of him, but we can’t get a thing to stick. Not a bloody thing. We’ve come close once or twice, but he’s got a lot of people scared, Jack. Too scared to testify. And he knows it, too. He strides about, all puffed up and smug as fuck, convinced we can’t lay a finger on him. And the annoying thing is, he’s been right so far. We can’t.”

“I hear he’s taken over his uncle’s porn empire,” Logan said.

“Oh. Right. Has he?” the Gozer said. His eyes narrowed. He shook his head. “Sorry, porn empire?”

Logan nodded. “Aye. The production company Shuggie had with Archie Sutherland.”

“The telly man? Your victim? He was in business with Shuggie Cowan? Making… making pornography?”

“For a few years now, it seems, aye.”

“The Neeps and Tatties fella?” asked the Gozer, still not quite believing what he was hearing. “‘Where’s the haggis?’ Him?”

Logan sighed. “Aye, Gordon. Jesus, did you not know this? Archie Sutherland off the telly was a player in the adult entertainment industry alongside Shuggie Cowan,” he said, slowly and clearly so as to avoid having to go over it again. “When Shuggie retired, his nephew took over his half of the business.”

“Bloody hell. I had no idea,” the Gozer admitted. “We’ll look into that. Maybe there’s an angle there that’ll let us get the bastard.”

“Aye, well I’m wanting first crack at him,” Logan said.

“You think he might be tied up in your murders?”

“I do,” Logan confirmed.

“He won’t talk to you,” the Gozer warned. “He’s a slippery wee bastard. He won’t give you anything useful.”

“Leave that to me,” Logan said. “All I need from you is one thing.”

“And what might that be, Jack?”

Logan leaned on the desk. “A pointer to where I might find the bastard.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Frankie Cowan’s address was in the Maryhill part of the city, in one of the big high-rise blocks on Wyndford Road.

The area had been home to the British Army’s Highland Light Infantry until the 60s, when the base had been replaced by a council housing scheme. You still heard Wyndford being referred to as ‘the barracks’ from time to time, although less regularly as the years went by, and ‘that bloody shitehole,’ had long-since been adopted in its place.