DI Bell didn’t move for a moment, then licked his lips and sank back into the visitor’s seat.

Steel stared at the pair of them. ‘Like being a sodding primary school teacher. . .’

Bell picked at his scab again. ‘He started it.’

‘As I was saying: next, we get teams going round every homeless person, tramp, junkie, alky, and beggar on the streets. Try the drop-in centres, hostels, clinics, and hospital. Flash Fusty’s mugshot and see if we can get some witnesses.’

Logan pointed at the ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN? ’ posters sitting on Steel’s desk. ‘You need to show them Agnes Garfield’s face as well.’

‘Fine, if it’ll shut you up. See if anyone’s seen the mental witch woman. Leith, you and Ding-Dong—’

‘Aya, watch it!’ Biohazard Bob lurched forward a step as the door thumped into his back. He turned and wrenched it all the way open. ‘You looking for a fat lip? ’

Rennie stood in the doorway, wearing a green bomber jacket, jeans, and a T-shirt with a rock n’ roll tyrannosaurus printed across the front. ‘Sorry.’

Steel took another puff on her fake cigarette. ‘Detective Sergeant, how kind of you to take time out of your busy social whirlwind to grace us with your presence.’

Rennie shrugged. ‘Came soon as I heard. And I’m not supposed to be on till ten tonight, OK? I was asleep.’

‘Could at least have run a comb through your hair: you look like a burst cushion.’

Which was a bit rich, given the exploding wasps’ nest on top of her own head.

‘It was my case, and—’

‘Don’t care. You were supposed to find the poor sod before he wound up dead. I gave you the simple job of tracking down three tramps, and now two of them are in body-bags. You’re like the sodding Angel of Death.’

‘How’s that fair, it’s—’

‘Think you can do us a favour and find the last one while he’s still alive? ’ She pulled a stack of forms from her pending-tray, then flapped a hand towards the open door. ‘Go on, shoo, the lot of you, find me someone who saw what happened to Fusty Forman.’

They shuffled towards the door, Rennie leading the way with shoulders slumped.

Steel’s voice cut through the mumbling. ‘DI McRae, where do you think you’re going? Not finished with you yet.’

Chapter 27

27

Steel stared up at him, face expressionless as a dead fish. ‘Well? ’

Logan collapsed into the vacated visitor’s chair. Still warm. ‘Well what? ’

‘You know fine well what.’

Silence.

‘OK, so I was wrong. Are you happy? ’

‘Sodding ecstatic.’ She stuck her feet up on the desk.