“Can I just check? Are you…” Logan hesitated and stole the briefest of glances at his notebook. He’d taken it out on the way up the path so that he’d have the name to hand. He wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t that it was an easy name to forget. “…Fellatio McFudd?”

There was a smile in the voice when it replied. “Sometimes. Not right now, but maybe if you play your cards right.”

“Do you mind if we come in?” Logan asked, holding his warrant card up to the door. “We think you might be able to help us with something.”

“Is it your fashion sense?” the owner of the eye asked, shouting to be heard above the high-pitched yipping of the mutt. “Because, sweetheart, I’d say you’re way beyond help on that front.”

“It’s regarding a case we’re working on,” Logan said. “We’re hoping you might be able to give us some background information on one of the people involved.”

The eye regarded them with suspicion, then eventually relented with an emphatic sigh. “Fine.”

The door closed. A chain rattled. Logan heard Tyler take a deep breath, as if he was preparing for a long swim underwater.

When the door opened again, it revealed a bald black man in a pair of jeans so tight they could only have been sewn on, and a baggy orange jumper that hung off one bare shoulder.

The dog came racing out, its high-pitched barking echoing around the close. It went for Logan first, then evidently thought better of it, and set its sights on Tyler instead. He danced back a few steps as it growled and snarled at his shoes, its eyes sticking out so far they were facing in opposite directions.

“Eh, nice dog you’ve got,” he said.

“She’s a selfish, self-absorbed little asshole,” the animal’s owner replied, then he glowered down at the thing with a look of utter contempt. “Jesus, Mulan, I swear to God!”

Mulan’s barking did not abate when Logan and Tyler entered the flat. Far from it. This invasion of its territory only served to drive the thing even more demented, and by the time they had been led along the narrow hallway and into the living room it had barked itself hoarse.

It wheezed out a few more objections when the door was closed behind them, then slumped away in defeat upon realising that nobody was going to be leaving anytime soon.

The living room had been themed in reds and blacks, from the paint on the walls and ceiling, to the slanted checkerboard carpet that made Tyler feel like the whole room was leaning away from him.

Most of the furniture was black, with bursts of red appearing in the form of vases, or well-filled ashtrays, or other little contrasting accessories.