The whole exchange was delivered earnestly, and with straight faces. It was a pantomime, of sorts—a step away from grim reality for a moment or two. An escape from the horrors of the here and the now.

But they could never escape it for long.

Logan pointed down to the man at their feet. “Check it out. Recognise him?”

Shona bent and studied the victim’s face. “No,” she said, straightening again.

“Aye, you do!” Logan insisted.

Shona bent over again. This time, she spent a little more time looking over the dead man’s features.

“I don’t.”

“You bloody do!” Logan insisted.

“I bloody don’t.”

“Neeps and Tatties!”

Shona stood upright, an eyebrow raised. “Sorry, what?”

“Neeps and Tatties,” Logan said again. He cupped a hand to his mouth and pretended to shout. “Where’s the Haggis?”

Shona slouched her weight onto one hip and regarded the DCI like he’d lost his fucking mind. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Logan gave an impatient sigh. “Neeps and Tatties. The 80s comedians. Off the telly.” He stabbed a finger down at the dead man. “That right there, Dr Maguire, is the one and only Archie Tatties himself!”

* * *

“So, you didn’t tell him?”

Tyler paused midway through folding a shirt into his case, then confirmed that no, as far as he could remember, he hadn’t.

“What do you mean, ‘as far as you remember?’” Sinead asked, shoving her own clothes into a holdall with far less care and attention than her husband.

“It was… there was a lot happening,” Tyler explained. “I was about to—I was literally about to say the words—and then Mitchell came in, and…”

“And you didn’t.”

Tyler flinched at that. “And I didn’t.”

“And now, somehow, we’re both working the week that you’re meant to be having your operation? Just so I’m clear.”

There was some puffing out of cheeks at that point. “Aye. I’m no’ quite sure how that happened, right enough,” he admitted.

And then, contrary to all his expectations, Sinead erupted in laughter, gave him a kiss, and told him he was a bloody idiot.

He was unable to mount any sort of counterargument to this, and instead followed her out to the car, placed his bag in the boot, and clambered into the passenger seat beside her.

“But you’ll tell him today, though, yeah?” she said, starting the engine.

Tyler confirmed that he would. Of course he would!

And then he spent the two-hour journey racked with guilt over the first lie of his married life.

Chapter Six

“She’s taking her bloody time in there,” Geoff Palmer complained, not for the first time since he’d arrived. “What’s the hold-up? Is she doing the PM on the living room floor or something?”