Logan dug it out of his pocket and handed it over.

She lurched towards the door, snapping the cap off. ‘Right, you hairy little poop.’ The flat of her palm smacked into the wooden surface a couple of times and the dog went berserk, snapping at the opening. She gave it a faceful of spray.

Barking. Slavering. Barking. Silence. A high-pitched yelp burst out from the other side of the door. Then whining and yowling.

Sim shouldered the door open. No bang this time.

Inside, the place stank of wet dog, pepper, bleach, and something meaty: like oxtail soup.

The Alsatian was tearing around in a tight circle, back hunched, tail between its legs. Sim marched into the gloomy corridor, grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, and hauled open the nearest door. It was a filthy galley kitchen with yellow linoleum, a cracked sink, and a prehistoric electric cooker – a huge pot bubbling away on the stove. Sim hurled the dog inside and slammed the door on it.

‘Never send a man to do a woman’s job.’

Logan’s shoes clacked on the chipped floor tiles. By the front door a flight of stairs led up to a small landing, doglegging around to the left. A white glow seeped out from beneath the other doors lining the corridor, making it look as if the place had been fitted with trendy mood lighting. He tried a handle, and it swung open on the surface of the sun. . .

Harsh light jabbed into his corneas, followed by a wash of heat that tried to squeeze the air from his lungs.

He stuck one hand up, shielding his eyes, and the room slowly faded into view. Two rows of lights hung from the ceiling, blazing down on a sea of chest-high cannabis plants, their dark-green five-fingered leaves gleaming. A walkway snaked between the aisles of growbags, lengths of black plastic tube looping from plant to plant. The walls were papered with tinfoil, bouncing the glaring light around the muggy room.

The other two downstairs rooms were the same, the only difference being the colour of the light bulbs.

Whoever it was, they’d gone from stealing the McLeods’ to growing their own.

Back to the hallway.

‘OK,’ Logan pointed over his head, ‘on three, we—’

A loud bang and chunks of plaster exploded out from the wall by his head.

Back into the nearest cannabis hothouse. Rennie went crashing through a stand of plants, Sim slithered to a halt on the other side of the door.

Slivers of tile erupted from the floor, then twice more as bullets turned them into shrapnel.

Logan dropped to his hands and knees and peered around the doorframe.