“Jazmin was gay, wasn’t she?” Logan said. He was still looking out over the city, worried what he might do if he looked Frankie in the eye. “We researched her a bit. All her videos, they’re all with other women. From the conversation one of my colleagues had with her parents, he got the impression that she very much did not ‘love the cock.’ That she had never shown so much as a passing interest in ‘the cock,’ in fact.” Logan gave him as much of a look up and down as he dared. “So, of all the possible cocks on offer, yours would seem like an unlikely one to suddenly develop an urge for.”

Frankie hoiked up a wad of snot and spat it down into the car park below. He waited until it had fallen all the way to the ground far below before responding.

“Aye, well, I don’t give a fuck what you believe,” he said. “She was up for it. She was fuckin’ begging for it, in fact. All big eyes, an’ that. Pleading for me to stick it in her.”

He shrugged. A bold move, considering his current predicament.

“And even if I had raped her—which I didn’t—what would you do about it? What’s the conviction rate for rape these days, Mr Polisman? Two percent? And how many of them are getting their tits out and fingering other birds for guys on the internet to wank over? You think a jury’s going to believe a lassie like that? Even if it got that far, which we both know it fuckin’ wouldn’t. My word against hers. That’s all there is.”

“She’s dead,” Logan told him. “Hanged herself.”

Frankie ejected something that was dangerously close to a laugh. “Aye well. My word against nobody’s then.”

“Right, I’m going to drop him,” Hoon said, adjusting his grip.

This time, Frankie did laugh. “Are ye fuck, old man,” he said. “You’re no’ going to do nothing. You think you can come here and… what? Scare a fuckin’ confession out of me? Aye, good fuckin’ luck. I don’t scare easy.”

“You were pretty much sobbing your heart out two minutes ago,” Logan reminded him.

“Aye, fuck you. See how you like being dangled off a fuckin’ roof! You caught me off guard, that’s all,” Frankie said, and to Logan’s annoyance, the bastard did seem to have shrugged off the worst of his panic. “But I know you’re no’ going to do nothin’. You’re polis. You’re no’ gonnae just drop me.”

“Joke’s on you, you wee fuck,” Hoon said. “I’m not polis.”