The reply that came back to him was short but sweet.

Love u x

Love u 2, he replied, then he set the phone down, fixed his gaze on the ceiling, and tried to convince himself that the lump wasn’t getting larger.

Chapter Forty-One

“Right, you’ve got a drink? Because the prices they charge on the train are bloody extortionate.”

“Got one in here, boss,” Tyler confirmed.

He held up the carrier bag of goodies he’d picked up in the Sainsbury’s just along the road and gave it a jiggle. They’d barely finished breakfast half an hour ago, but the bag was bulging with crisps, chocolate, boiled sweets, a couple of packs of sandwiches, and a twin-pack of cheesecake slices that Tyler had spotted while standing in the queue.

It was, he’d offered in response to the DCI’s judgemental look, quite a long train journey.

“And you’ve got your ticket?”

Tyler patted the front pocket of his shirt. “I do.”

“No, you don’t. Because you gave it to me to hold when you went for a pee,” Logan reminded him.

He held out the ticket, and Tyler took it with a mumbled, “Oh. Aye. Cheers, boss.”

It was ten past eight, and Queen Street station was alive with activity as commuters piled off the Edinburgh train, then were replaced by another lot piling on. The platform that the Fort William train sat on was comparatively quiet, but without a ticket for Logan to pass through the gates, the detectives were stuck in the scrum of the main concourse.

Logan waited until Tyler had successfully managed to get his ticket into the shirt pocket he’d previously thought it was in, then asked the question he’d asked three times already that morning.

“You alright, son?”

Tyler laughed. “I’m fine, boss! Quite looking forward to the train, actually. Bit of, you know, peace and quiet and that. I nearly bought a book.”

“You nearly bought a book?”

“Aye. I mean, I didn’t, like, but I nearly did. It’ll be that sort of journey, I think.”

“The sort of journey where you don’t read a book?”

“Where you might read a book,” Tyler corrected. “Although, obviously, I won’t.”

“Because you didn’t buy one.”

“No. But I nearly did.”

Logan gestured to the bag. “Maybe you could read the back of your crisp bags. That’ll kill a couple of hours.”

“I didn’t buy that many,” Tyler said. He opened the bag and looked inside. “Wait. No. Aye, I did.” He closed the bag again, then checked the time. “I’d better get going, boss. Anything you want me to do on the train? Since I won’t be reading a book.” He gave a shrug that was intended to be casual, but was exactly the opposite. “Anything I can, you know, make myself useful with? I’ll have time to kill.”