He’d just set the roll down in the nest of the paper bag, and was contemplating what he could use to wipe his fingers when a gruff male voice came from the direction of the door.

“Fuck me, what have you been up to?” it demanded. “Fingering Casper the Friendly Ghost?”

Logan glowered at the man looming in the doorway, and for a moment the only sound was the irregular dripping of egg yolk on paper.

“Bob? What are you doing here?” he finally asked, giving his hands a wipe on the crumpled white bag. “I thought you’d catch fire if you ever set foot in the place again.”

The former Detective Superintendent Bob Hoon gave a grunt that simultaneously acknowledged the joke and made it clear he didn’t find it funny. “Aye, well, needs must,” he said, giving nothing away. He pointed to the roll on the desk in front of Logan. “You going to eat the rest of that, by the way?”

“Yes. Of course I am,” Logan replied. He gestured with glistening hands to the darkened Incident Room at Hoon’s back. “Seriously, how did you get in?”

“How the fuck do you think I got in? A jetpack? I walked in the front door and up the stairs. Surely that’s no’ a stretch of even your limited fucking imagination, Jack?”

Hoon dropped into the chair across the desk from Logan, spread his legs wide, and began twisting from side to side until the metal and plastic creaked out a little rhythm.

Logan expressed his irritation with a tut and a sigh, then leaned forwards so his elbows rested on the desk. This put him directly above the remaining four-fifths of his roll, and the aroma of bacon and egg drew an impatient grumble from his stomach.

“Let me rephrase that question, then,” he said. “Why did you get in? What do you want?”

“A favour.”

The shock hit Logan like it was a physical thing, making him blink and draw back. “A favour?”

“You deaf, or is there a fucking echo in here?” Hoon asked. “Aye. A favour.”

Logan drew air in slowly through his teeth and stared at his old boss like he was trying to read the man’s mind—disturbing as that would almost certainly be.

“Are you in trouble?” Logan asked. “Because I can’t help if you’ve got yourself arrested, or—”

“Fuck off!” Hoon interjected. “You think I’m a fucking scally or something? Believe me, if I was up to no good, you eggy-fingered fuckmuppets’d be the last to know about it. Am I in fucking trouble? Jesus.”

“What, then?” Logan asked, keen to get back to his roll as soon as was humanly possible.

Hoon tapped his hands on the arm of the chair. His throat clenched and relaxed a few times, like a bird trying to regurgitate something large and unpleasant.

“I need a reference,” he finally managed to say.