Ten minutes and a few big glugs of cold water later, a masked and gloved Logan stood in Shona Maguire’s office, watching her peeling off her blood-mottled PPE.

Ricketts was sitting at her computer, a skeletal finger circling above the keyboard before pouncing on a letter every few seconds in what was the most frustrating display of typing Logan had ever seen.

“What a day,” Shona remarked, snapping off her gloves and disposing of them in one of her coloured bins.

“You OK?” Logan asked, and he caught a brief flick of Ricketts’ eyes in his direction.

“Yeah, fine. Bit… you know. Few sleepless nights ahead, I’m sure. But fine.”

Logan had a near overwhelming urge to put his arms around her, but the ghostly presence of Albert Rickett made him err on the side of professionalism.

“If it’s any consolation, I doubt any of us are going to be getting much sleep, either,” he told her.

“Developments?” Shona asked.

“Could say that,” Logan replied. “Let’s just say the case just got a whole lot bigger.”

Shona gave a low whistle. “Bigger than four victims and a minor TV celebrity?”

“Aye. Turns out there were five of them at the house,” Logan said.

“Oh. Right. So… the fifth is the killer?”

“The fifth is a baby. Whereabouts currently unknown.”

Shona’s eyelids fluttered like someone had thrown a punch that just stopped short. “Oh. God. That’s… God.”

“Like I say, not much sleep for us tonight.”

The gravelly voice of Ricketts cut in on the conversation. “You should try. A good night’s rest is vital for a reasoned mind. You’re doing nobody any favours if you stay awake. A man in your position needs to be alert, Detective Chief Inspector. Alert, and aware.”

Logan considered the bag of skin and bones in the chair, then arranged his features into something that might be mistaken as a moment of appreciation to the untrained eye.

“Thanks for the advice, Albert,” he said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Ricketts nodded solemnly, then resumed his series of prodded attacks on the keyboard.

A single look passed from the detective to the pathologist that managed to ask several questions, while simultaneously suggesting they should go somewhere else to talk further.

Shona, amazingly enough, managed to pick up on all of this, and summoned Logan through to the room next door with a wave of a hand and a, “Want to come through and we’ll go over everything?”

It was only when they were enclosed in the much colder area of the mortuary, and the doors had swung closed behind them, that Logan vocalised what his eyes had already said.

“What a creepy bastard that man is,” he whispered. “What was all that about?”

“He means well,” Shona said. “He’s just a bit…”

“Hammer House of Horror?”

“Old-fashioned.”