“At this stage, we can’t be sure. That’s why we’re talking to people who knew the family, to see if we can figure out who might have had reason to kill them. Did Archie have any enemies?”

The chair let rip with another parp as Billy leaned back. This time, he didn’t seem to notice. “I mean… he never saw eye to the eye with the Krankies,” he fretted. “But then, who did?” He chewed on a knuckle for a moment, then spat it out and shook his head. “No. Ian and Janette wouldn’t do something like this. They couldn’t. Not at their age.”

Logan agreed that this was probably something of a stretch.

“Anyone else you can think of who might have wanted to kill him?” he asked. “Besides the Krankies, I mean. Anyone he had any business dealings with that might have gone sour?”

Billy claimed to know nothing about any of that stuff. Most of Archie’s current life was a mystery to him.

“We didn’t meet up often, but when we did we spoke about the old days, for the most part. People we worked with who went on to do well. Archie always hated that. Even people he didn’t know. He much preferred a good downfall,” Billy explained, and that sourness crept in again. “When Barrowman got Doctor Who, he was spitting teeth.”

Tyler looked up from his pad. “Do you want me to put John Barrowman off Doctor Who down as a suspect, boss?”

“That won’t be necessary, Detective Constable,” Logan replied in the very next breath. He pressed harder on the wide-eyed man across the counter. “So, there’s nobody else you can think of? Nobody you think it’s worth us having a word with?”

“Well, I mean—” Billy bit his lip. Shook his head. Looked away. “No, it’s… I doubt… No.”

“We’re no’ asking you to tell us who the killer is, Mr Pinnock. Just anyone you can think of who had… let’s say a fraught relationship with Archie.”

Billy puffed up his cheeks and blew out slowly as he reached for a block of Post-It notes and one of his complimentary pens. “I sat with Archie at Gerard Kelly’s funeral. Rest his soul,” he said, studiously writing out a name. “This man gave Archie dirty looks the whole way through the service, and called him some very unkind things at the wake. And I mean the worst words there are. I guarantee, whatever you’re thinking of, it was worse than that.”

“I’ve got a pretty wide-ranging vocabulary, Mr Pinnock,” Logan assured him. “Whatever it was, I imagine I’ve heard worse.”

Billy revealed a few of the words that had been hurled Archie’s way. Logan had heard worse, but not often, and only from one man.