‘Is this ASAP enough for you? ’ It was the forensic lab guy he’d given a hard time to earlier.

Logan stuck the phone against his chest and shooed Rennie away. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

He waited until Rennie scurried off before going back to his mobile. ‘Look, I’m sorry about—’

‘We got a DNA match off your necklacing victim. And before you get all sarcastic again, I know the samples went in on Sunday, but the one we matched it to didn’t hit the system till yesterday evening.’

All the moisture disappeared from Logan’s mouth. ‘Yesterday evening? ’

Please. . .

‘A Morgan Mitchell.’

He grinned. Maybe there was a God after all.

She kicked and screamed, teeth bared, snapping at the arm of the uniform dragging her off the set. Scarlet hair flashing in the movie spotlights.

Zander Clark slumped in his director’s chair, hands over his head.

The rest of the cast and crew just stared.

Insch marched over, throwing his arms in the air, shouting.

And Logan stood there, in the middle of Soundstage Three. ‘Morgan Mitchell, I’m detaining you under Section Fourteen of the Criminal Procedure – Scotland – Act 1995, because I suspect you of having committed an offence punishable by imprisonment, namely the murder by burning of one Roy Forman. . .’

Chalmers sat propped up on a barricade of scratchy NHS pillows. The bruising down the left side of her face was aubergine dark, yellows and greens just visible at the edges. An IV line disappeared into a shunt in the back of one hand, little square patches of gauze and cotton wool poking out above the neckline of her hospital gown. A faint dusting of grey coloured the skin of her shaved head, between the tie-dye bruises and scabs.

The other three beds in the ward were occupied: one woman lying flat on her back, snoring; another reading a crime novel the size of a breezeblock; one more lying on her side, shoulders quivering as she cried.

‘No, I’m fine. Never better.’ Chalmers fiddled with the nurse call button, turning it round and back again in her hand. Never quite pressing it.

‘Really? ’

She blinked. Pulled on a smile that didn’t go anywhere near her pink, watery eyes. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. . .’

‘You got stabbed twenty times with a pricking blade, and then she tried to drown you.’

Chalmers stared at the call button. ‘I’m fine.’

The hospital’s background hum droned on, broken by the snores and choked-back tears from the other beds.

Logan laced his fingers together. ‘They’re going to invalid you out.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m. . .’ Then wiped a hand across her eyes. ‘You got over it, didn’t you. You told me. I just need to do what you did: see a psychologist. Try that “talking therapy” thing. I can get over this.’

The ward door banged open and she flinched.