The automatic doors into the hospital creaked open, and one of the two uniforms stationed at ARI stuck his head out. ‘Guv? That you? You OK? ’

‘I don’t know anything. . .’

Logan hunkered down beside the chair. ‘Where is he, Dan? Anthony Chung’s partner? Where do they keep the stuff? Where do you pick it up from? ’

Fisher blinked at him, both pupils contracted to tiny pinholes in the watery blue iris. ‘It hurts. . .’

‘I know it does, Dan, but I need you to tell me how to find whoever’s running Anthony Chung’s operation.’

‘I don’t—’

Logan grabbed him by the collar. ‘I saved your life, you little prick! If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working your way through a pig’s digestive system right now. So tell me where I can find him!’

‘Guv? ’ The uniform put a hand on Logan’s shoulder. ‘Is everything OK? ’

Fisher rocked his head to the side, until he was staring at the PC. ‘I don’t know, I. . . I just pick the stuff up when I get a text message. Different place every time.’

Logan pulled his face back around. ‘But the same mobile number? ’ They could do a GSM trace, find out—

‘No: codeword. “Moderator”. . . Same codeword, different mobile.’

So much for that.

Logan stood. ‘Better get him inside.’

‘Yes, Guv.’ The uniform grabbed the chair’s handles and wrestled the wheelie-chair through the automatic doors and into A&E.

The doors hissed shut again, leaving Logan’s reflection staring back at him from the glass. Would’ve been nice to head back to FHQ with enough information to break a drug ring. . . It might have distracted them from the complete cock-up at Ma Stewart’s that morning.

Chapter 43

43

Logan peered through the window to the intensive therapy unit. Dildo lay on a hospital bed, flat on his back, face hidden behind an oxygen mask plumbed into the wall.

A uniformed PC sat in a plastic chair outside the ward, head buried in a thick textbook, lips moving as he frowned his way down the page. Overhead lighting sparkled back from a fist-sized bald patch.

Logan stopped in front of him. ‘Anything? ’

‘I can’t understand a bloody word of this.’ He held the book up: Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Nurse Claire strikes again. ‘Apparently I can’t prove the chair I’m sitting on exists, because I only think it exists because my bum tells me it does and I can’t empirically trust my bum to tell the truth. . .’

‘That what it says? ’

‘Far as I can tell, one of the great philosophical minds of the eighteenth century thinks my arse is a liar.’

‘I wouldn’t stand for that, if I were you.’