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your help.'
    Logan and Rickards went next door, tried the bell, peered in through the front window - a pristine living room with tasteful furnishings and paintings on the wall - then walked round the house. The back yard was a morass of mud flecked with grass seed, a solitary whirly standing in the middle like a marooned antenna, the yellow plastic cable sagging and empty. There was nothing in the garage either, just a dark black splot of leaked motor oil.
    Rickards walked back to the unfinished road, staring up at the house's empty windows. 'What do you think?'
    'Much the same as every other sighting we've had today - bloody useless.' Logan climbed back into the car and checked the time. 'Jesus, it's twenty to twelve! Come on, we'd better get a shift on: Steel will kill us if we're late.'

6
    They made it back to the station by the skin of their teeth. The room was already filling up: television cameras, journalists, and photographers staking out their territory among the rows of folding chairs, all eyes focused on the raised stage and table at the front. 'Thought you was never going to turn up!'
    Logan turned to find DI Steel standing directly behind him, fiddling with a packet of cigarettes, turning them round and round in her hands, like nicotine prayer beads. 'You get anything from those addresses?'
    'Nothing.'
    'Bugger.' The cigarette packet got a few more twists.
    'Problem?'
    Steel shrugged, looked over her shoulder, then back at the gathering mass of reporters. 'Just could do with a swift result on this one. We're keeping a lid on the cause of death, but you know what this place is like: sooner or later, someone's going to say something stupid.' She paused and sneaked a glance at Logan. 'Course, you know all about that.'
    'And what's that supposed to mean?'
    'Nothing, nothing.' She backed off, grinning. 'Who cares what the Daily Mail says anyway? Shite, there's the ACC ...' Logan watched her go, wondering what on earth she was talking about.
    The briefing started at twelve o'clock prompt, and as the ACC launched into his 'thank you all for coming' speech, Logan let his attention wander. He wouldn't be needed until they threw the thing open to questions and probably not even then. So instead he scanned the assembled journalistic horde, looking to see if he recognized anyone. Colin Miller was sitting in the third row, face like a wet fart, mumbling into a small digital recorder. Probably getting ready to give Grampian Police another kicking in tomorrow's P&J. There were a couple of others Logan knew from previous conferences, and some he recognized from the telly, but his eyes kept going back to Miller, his surly expression, and his black leather gloves. Not exactly playing the happy expectant father. The reporter looked up from his Dictaphone and saw Logan watching him. He scowled back, obviously still blaming Logan for the loss of his fingers, as if he ' d been the one wielding the poultry shears ...
    The ACC threw the conference open to questions and the moment was gone.
    * * *
    As soon as they were finished, Logan hurried down to the incident room. Steel was the second person to make cryptic comments about the Daily Mail and Logan wanted to know why. The copy Eric had thrown at him was still sitting where he'd left it, so Logan skimmed quickly through the paper, looking for DS LOGAN MCRAE SCREWS UP AGAIN! but not finding it. What he did find was a centre-page spread titled, POLICE HOUND ABERDEEN STRIKER! with a big photo of Rob Macintyre's ugly face and an article charting his meteoric rise to fame; describing Grampian Police's investigation as part of 'an ongoing campaign to cripple Aberdeen Football Club's only chance of winning the Scottish Premier League'.
    'Macintyre (21)', the paper said, 'was an obvious target for desperate women: young, successful, wealthy, and going all the way to the top!' But that wasn't the bit DI Steel and Sergeant Eric Mitchell had been dropping hints about.
    It was a pull-out quote,