Instead, he let out another happy sigh, patted Logan on the same shoulder as last time, clicked his fingers once or twice, and shambled for the door.

The door had just swung closed behind him when Dave’s contained laughter escaped as some loud snorting and a series of violent shoulder shakes.

“What the hell was that about?” Sinead asked.

“I think… I think he might fancy you, boss,” Tyler remarked. “Did anyone else get that vibe off him?”

“Now that you mention it…” Hamza said.

Ben rolled back his chair and got to his feet, drawing Logan’s attention.

“What’s up?” the DCI asked.

“Eh, nothing. I’ll just… I need to ask Mantits something.”

They all watched the DI go hurrying out of the room, and heard the low murmur of conversation from somewhere along the corridor. Ben was keeping his voice down, so Logan clapped his hands and stood up, affording his old friend a measure of privacy.

“Right, Sinead, Big Board. Tyler, check the inbox in case anything’s come in from up the road.”

The door opened again and Ben returned. He took his seat without a word, wrote something in his notepad, then picked up his tea and turned to face the board.

“Everything alright?” asked Logan.

Ben raised his mug as if in toast. “Everything’s grand, Jack,” he said, though his thin-lipped smile did nothing to sell it. “Everything’s just grand.”

* * *

Shona Maguire sat in her office scoffing a pulled pork flavour Pot Noodle, and contemplating her life choices. Four bags lay on four tables in the room next door. Four lives cut short in four brutal acts of violence.

This was not particularly unusual, of course. Lives cut short in brutal acts of violence were her bread and butter. To be blunt about it, lives cut short in brutal acts of violence had paid her mortgage for the last six years.

But today had felt different. Children always did, of course. Those deaths were harder to process, more difficult to understand.

She always understood them on the biological level, of course. That bit was easy, relatively speaking. She never failed to figure out how they died.

It was the why that always eluded her. Even when it had all been figured out, even when it had all been explained to her, she could never see it. Not really. The reasons given—money, power, revenge—were never enough to make her understand.

Maybe it wasn’t the why that was the problem, then, she thought. Maybe it was the what. What sort of person could do these things to a child? What sort of world were they living in when this sort of thing could happen?