‘No you’re no’. Overtime budget’s bad enough as it is without you pulling a double shift.’ She balanced some macaroni on a chip, then shovelled it in, the words, ‘Get Ding-Dong on it,’ muffled by the mouthful.

‘How am I supposed to run the necklacing bit of the investigation if—’

‘There’s no “I” in team, Laz, but there will be my boot in your arse.’ She jabbed up a couple of chips. ‘Besides, if you’re up all night, you’ll be sod-all use to me tomorrow. Ding-Dong’s doing the soup kitchen.’

Well that was just brilliant: he did all the work and if something came of it, DI Bell would be the one who got all the credit.

‘Fine, Ding-Dong can do it, but if it leads to an arrest—’

‘Yes, yes: you shall have a gold star and a sweetie.’ More macaroni disappeared. ‘God, you’re such a whinge.’

‘Just remember, it was my lead.’ Logan ripped the top off a tiny sachet of pepper and sprinkled it over his tattie. Then did the same with one of salt. ‘The cast and crew of Witchfire have been volunteering at the soup kitchen, and do you want to guess who set the whole thing up? ’

Steel squinted at him for a moment, chewing. ‘Agnes Garfield? ’

‘Bingo.’ He pulled out the plastic cutlery and sawed a chunk off his baked potato. ‘We haven’t had any hits on her photo when we’ve shown it around, but for all we know this redhead thing is just the latest in a long line of changes. Could be altering her appearance every other week.’

Steel let out a cross between a sigh and a growl. ‘That’s all we need.’

‘Told you.’

‘Not helping, Laz.’ She popped a couple of chips in and gave them a sour-faced chewing. ‘Had a call from the hospital: Robbie Whyte’s alibi checks out, he was at his dear mum’s bedside right up till they called time of death. There’s no way he killed Fusty Forman or our torture victim.’

Of course he didn’t. That would make life too sodding easy.

Logan took a bite. The potato was hot, the tuna cold, the cheese like napalm. ‘They get an ID yet? ’

Steel blew a wet farty raspberry. ‘Face is that battered we can’t do a dental match, fingertips are pulped so we’ve no’ chance of getting any prints off him, and the IB says there’s about as much chance of us getting viable DNA from the body as Rennie has of winning Mastermind. Four days in a warm room and it’s all turned to mush.’ She shovelled in some more macaroni. ‘Might get some from the tooth-pulp cavities, but that’s it.’

‘What do you think: do another facial reconstruction? ’

Steel scowled at him.

Fine. Change the subject. ‘Never guess who I bumped into, coming out of the baker’s: the NPIA team.’