Rufus ran a hand down the front of his shirt, smoothing out the creases Logan’s clenched fist had put there. “Oh, you want my help now, do you?” he asked. A subtle shift in the detective’s body language made him quickly follow up with, “Of course, I’ll give you any assistance that I can.”

“I’m very glad to hear that, Mr Boyle.”

Rufus flinched and drew back when the detective shoved a hand into the inside pocket of his coat, and Logan could practically hear the word ‘gun’ shrieking around inside the other man’s head.

Instead of a firearm, Logan produced a battered notebook and a chewed stub of a pencil, then angled himself so he could fix Boyle with one of his better, most intimidating glares.

“Right then,” he said, turning to a blank page. “Let’s begin.”

Chapter Eleven

Magdalena Nowak was having the worst day of her life. And, considering what many of the other days had been like, that was really quite an achievement.

It had started poorly—the bad weather made her joints ache, and she’d struggled to get out of bed. She’d forgotten to put the bin out the night before, too, so the kitchen had practically hummed with the smell of rotting fruit and cat food when she’d staggered through at five o’clock, eyes welded shut with the debris of a long and sleepless night.

Her car, which had been threatening to give up the ghost for a while now, had coughed and spluttered for a full five minutes before it had accepted that she wasn’t going to give up, and reluctantly wheezed into life. Its days were numbered, though, and those numbers were likely single digits. What she’d do when it died, she had no idea, and she’d tried very hard not to think about it when she’d set off on the high road from Kinlochleven, headed for her first job of the day.

She was a businesswoman. Technically. In the sense that she was a self-employed cleaner with a handful of clients who she suspected all had people to put the bins out for them, and a selection of fully functioning motor vehicles from which to choose.

Apparently, it was seen as a good thing to be your own boss. The few friends that she had were all so excited for her when she’d announced that she was starting her own cleaning business.

Her own view was somewhat less positive. There was no holiday pay, for one thing. No sick pay, either. In a job, she’d at least have money coming in every month without fail, and wouldn’t spend half her time chasing up her regular clients for payments that were often weeks overdue.