When the rolls were all eaten, Logan scrunched up his paper bag and filed all those thoughts away. He’d come back to them later, but for now, they had more pressing matters to attend to.

“Right, then,” he began, tossing the ball of paper into the waste paper basket beside the desk. “Sinead, you’re on Big Board duty. I’ll go over what we got at the house, and what the landlord said, then Hamza, you can fill us in on how things went with the—”

“Knock knock!”

They all turned as one to see Chief Inspector Alisdair Lyle—better known to most of the polis by his nickname, ‘Praying Mantits’—poking his head around the door. He had a big smile on his face that he thought made him appear approachable, but instead gave him the look of a simpleton.

Not a sound was made from those seated around the table, but Logan could physically sense the collective groan.

“Not interrupting anything important, am I?” Mantits asked, stepping fully into the room.

“No, just a quadruple homicide investigation, Alisdair,” Logan retorted. “What can I do for you?”

“Ha! Yes, quite!” Mantits ejected. He wagged a finger, shook his head gleefully, and then turned to the rest of the table. “He must keep you on your toes, eh? With the banter.” Mantits threw a few quick jabs at thin air and made some corresponding punching sound effects with his mouth. “He’s relentless, isn’t he?”

The Chief Inspector let out a long, happy sigh, then clapped a hand on the seated DCI’s shoulder. “Jack Logan,” he said, with a wistful air that suggested he was either going to burst into tears or burst into song. Or, if they were very lucky, just burst in general.

He did none of the above. Instead, he did a straight-arm point to the scrunched-up paper bags on the table, said, “JJ’s,” more as a statement than a question, before finally yawning and stretching when he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Was there anything in particular you were after, Alisdair?” Logan asked.

Mantits shook his head. “No. No, nothing really. Just thought I’d pop in and say hello. It’s been so long since we saw each other! How long’s it been? Must’ve been oooh… a week?”

He laughed at that. Nobody else around the table joined in, although Dave Davidson had his head down and was trying very hard not to laugh, but probably not for reasons the Chief Inspector would have liked.

“Right, well, enough fun,” the Chief Inspector declared, despite the fact that he was the only one apparently having any. He prodded a finger on Logan’s desk. “Back to work, you lot.” He mimed cracking a whip, complete with appropriate sound effect, then grinned expectantly, like a performer waiting for his applause, before concluding that none was likely to be forthcoming.