Logan checked his watch: five minutes till Steel’s latest update meeting. Just enough time to grab another coffee before getting shouted at for wasting time with this. He stood. ‘I’m still going to check his alibi.’

‘Of course you are.’ Goulding stayed where he was, smiling up at Logan with those dead-fish eyes. ‘Actually, while I’ve got you, why don’t we have a quick chat? ’

‘I’ve got . . . a thing . . . meeting. You know update on the necklacing—’

‘How are you getting on with the talking therapy? ’

Sodding hell. This again. ‘I’m doing it, OK? ’

‘And is it helping? Because if not, you can always—’

‘I said I’m doing it.’

Goulding nodded. ‘Good.’ He pulled on his suit jacket and straightened his ugly tie. ‘Well, you have my number. . .’

Logan stuck his coffee mug down on the desk. ‘I know what I said, but it’s a bit more complicated than it looked. . .’

‘In the name of Satan’s nipples, Laz, you told me it was him!’

Steel’s office was crowded: DI Bell slumped in the visitor’s seat like a partially shaved bear someone had stuffed into a shirt and tie; DI Leith leaning against the filing cabinets, Logan by the whiteboard, Biohazard Bob and DS Chalmers hovering in the background by the door.

Logan shifted his shoulders. ‘I said it might be him.’

DI Bell scratched at a scab on one hairy forearm. ‘Back in the real world: we need to do a victimology profile. Look into Fusty Forman’s last-known whereabouts, question his drinking buddies, see if they saw him fighting with anyone.’

Leith sniffed. ‘Be realistic, Ding-Dong, the review starts at two, we’re never going to get something by then.’

‘Well, let’s have your genius idea then.’

‘We don’t even know it really is Fusty Forman, do we? Just because some clay-head thing looks a bit—’

‘Oh come on, of course it’s him. Who the hell else—’

‘You’re dreaming, Ding-Dong, if it was him, they’d have got a hit off the database when they did the DNA, wouldn’t they? ’

‘Bloody lab couldn’t even tell the victim’s DNA from the kid that stabbed him. Ever since the re-org—’

‘What happened to eliminative detection? Don’t be a bell-end, it’s not—’

‘Hoy!’ DI Bell jumped to his feet, towering over Leith, fists curled into great hairy hammers. ‘Who are you calling Bell-End, you cock-faced weaselly little—’

Steel stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew. A high-pitched whistle screeched out into the room. ‘Enough! Biohazard: get onto the labs and poke them in the arse till they do another DNA match. Fresh samples, no’ the complete and utter cock-up we got last time.’

Bob nodded. ‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Next, we get. . .’ A sigh. ‘Ding-Dong, sit your arse down. Leith: apologize.’

Leith chewed on the inside of his mouth, looked away, sniffed. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean anything personal. Was just an expression.’