No one on the top step. And no one standing outside the caravan either. Just the turning circle streaked with shadows as the sun climbed its way up a duck-egg blue sky. Early morning midges out for a pre-bloodsucking ceilidh, glittering like flecks of gold. A lone magpie pop-hopping across the roof of his geriatric Fiat Punto.

Deep breath.

He turned the key in the lock and wrenched the door open, jumping out, waving the pickaxe handle, teeth bared. . .

No one.

The magpie stopped on the Punto’s bonnet, head cocked to one side, staring at him. Then it took off for the nearest tree, cackling. Ha bloody ha.

A small cardboard box sat on the doorstep, mummified in brown packing tape.

He nudged it with the pickaxe handle, but it didn’t explode or start ticking, so he picked it up and went back inside. The magpie stayed where it was, laughing at him.

Logan slammed the door on it, dumped the box on the kitchen working surface and stuck the kettle on. Six in the morning. What kind of scumbag rang people’s doorbells and ran away at six in the morning?

No address on the package, no sender’s details. He grabbed a knife from the draining board and slit the brown tape. Inside, the little box was full of shredded newspapers – the Press & Journal from the look of it – and nestled, right in the middle, another knot of chicken bones. This one was tied to what looked like a bouquet garni, the herbs wilted, greying, and dead.

He tipped the whole lot out and picked through it, but there was no sign of a note. Just a junior starter kit for making soup. He weighed the bones in his hand. Bloody kids. In what way was this funny?

Through in the bedroom the alarm clock went off, blaring some cheesy eighties pop song.

Cup of tea, shower, then off for another jolly day at work. God, how lucky was he? The only thing that could make it any better was—

His mobile added its voice to Bananarama’s. ‘If I Only Had a Brain’: Rennie.

Logan grabbed his phone from the bedside cabinet and hit the button. ‘What? ’

‘Morning, Guv. We picked up your good Samaritan’s missing mate last night, the one who did a runner from the hospital? Denies everything about the jewellery heist, but his story’s bang on with everyone else about the necklacing victim.’

The bathroom was in a bit of a state: towels on the floor, the hollow bones of dead toilet rolls building up behind the toilet, a sour smell coming from the shower curtain, soap and toothpaste acne speckling the tiles and mirror above the sink. The patch of mould that looked a bit like a face. Should really give the place a bit of a clean. . .

‘Bugger.’

‘Sorry, Guv, but I thought we kinda knew all this anyway? ’