‘My opinion is that Mr Whyte is a danger to himself and others. I’ll organize a Mental Health Officer to take a look at him, and we’ll get him sectioned for seventy-two hours for tests. If that goes the way I think it will, we’ll be looking at a Compulsory Treatment Order under Section Seven of the Mental Health – Care and Treatment – Scotland Act 2003.’

Logan poked him again. ‘I know a private security guy who speaks just like that.’

A sniff. ‘Sometimes it’s important to be formal. Robert’s mental health is—’

‘Did – he – kill – them? ’

Goulding frowned and puffed out his cheeks. ‘It’s much more likely he’d kill the object of his affections, then he’d kill himself.’

‘According to the PNC,’ Logan held up the sheet of paper Guthrie had dumped on his desk, ‘he’s got form for joyriding. And possession of a controlled substance, three convictions for assault, two for unlawful removal, and he just hacked the head off a dog he named after the son he wanted to have.’

‘That doesn’t—’

‘Robbie used to dump the cars he stole in the Joyriders’ Graveyard, where we found Roy Forman’s body. He’s obsessed with Nichole Fyfe, the necklacing was his way of getting her attention. And when that didn’t work, he killed the dog.’ Logan sat back in his seat. Game, set, and match.

Goulding sighed, opened his briefcase and slid his notebook away inside. ‘They should never have got involved with each other in the first place. Robbie Whyte’s needy, and co-dependent. Nichole Fyfe. . . Well, she’s an actress.’ He clunked the briefcase shut and ran a finger back and forward across the tumblers on the lock. ‘They hold their emotions much closer to the surface, because they have to display and manipulate them when they perform. They feed off the external validation, then wonder why their personal lives don’t live up to the hype. Which is why they’re prone to high levels of drug and alcohol abuse.’ A sigh. ‘It was never going to work.’

‘He’s got form.’

‘Logan, think about it: the stressor event was his mother dying. She’s been in hospital for the last month and a half with pancreatic cancer. She died yesterday afternoon – I called an oncologist I know and checked. Apparently Robert barely left her bedside.’

‘But he could have—’

‘She died. The grief caused a mental collapse in Robbie. He went out and got drunk. And somewhere on the way to the bottom of a bottle, he decided giving Wee Robbie’s head to Nichole Fyfe would be a perfect expression of his undying love. If his mother hadn’t died, he’d still be just another creepy stalker ex-boyfriend.’

So much for that.