“I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” Shona said. She followed his gaze to the front door, then studied the lines of his face. She didn’t know Hamza overly well, but she could tell by the clench of his jaw and the spacing of his eyebrows that this one had bothered him. “So… you OK?”

“Hmm? Oh. Fine. Aye,” he said, giving himself a shake. “It’s suicide, I think. I mean, obviously you’ll determine that, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. Young lassie. Early twenties. Just had a baby a couple of weeks back.”

Shona winced. “Oh, God. Where’s the baby now?” She looked around but found no sign of it. “It’s not… it’s not still in the house, is it?”

Hamza shook his head. “No.”

“So… where is it?”

Hamza turned to her. He smiled. It was a grim, forlorn sort of thing. “That’s what we’re currently trying to find out.”

* * *

Billy Neeps slouched in his squeaky chair, his groin soaking from the spilled water, the rest of him merely damp with perspiration.

He’d always been a sweaty man, Logan recalled. They used to make a joke of it, Neeps and Tatties, with Archie relentlessly mocking his comedy partner for his overly-productive sudoriferous glands, and Billy blaming it all on the studio lighting, or the close proximity of the audience.

There were often coloured handkerchiefs involved, if Logan remembered correctly. Sometimes, Archie would ‘accidentally’ blow his nose in one, and much hilarity would ensue.

It wasn’t part of any act now, though, and Billy certainly wasn’t seeing the funny side.

“Is it hot in here?” he asked, tugging at the collar of his shirt. He blew upwards from the side of his mouth, cooling his forehead, if only momentarily. “Or is it just me?”

“It’s just you,” DCI Filson said. It wasn’t, of course. They kept the interview rooms warm on purpose, the heater positioned behind the suspect’s back.

One way or another, they’d make the bastards sweat.

“You haven’t answered my question, Billy. What’s the wee one’s name?”

Billy side-eyed his solicitor. “Do I have to answer that?”

“You don’t have to, no. But unless there’s any reason not to, it might hurry all this up.”

“Aye, we’ve all got homes to go to, Billy,” Logan said, offering the possibility of this whole ordeal being over at some point.

He left it there, and waited for Billy to fill the conversational void.

“She’s, um, we called her Senga.”

“Senga?” Heather asked. Her tone was so incredulous that it bordered on disgust. She couldn’t have sounded more outraged if Billy had announced they’d named the child Colonel Gadaffi. “What is she, one of these babies that are born old and ages backwards?”

“Pretty sure that just happens in the movies, DCI Filson,” Logan said.