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tune into less than six seconds. ‘Jesus,’ she said, her face creased in disbelief. ‘How can you listen to that crap?’
    Logan shrugged. ‘It’s local. I like it.’
    ‘Teuchter bollocks.’ Watson accelerated through the lights before they could turn red. ‘Radio One. That’s what you want. Northsound, my arse. Anyway, you’re not supposed to have the radio on: what if a call comes in?’
    Logan tapped his watch. ‘Eleven o’clock: time for the news. Local news for local people. Never hurts to find out what’s going on in your patch.’
    The advert for double-glazing was followed by one for a car firm in Inverurie done in Doric, Aberdeen’s almost indecipherable dialect, then one for the Yugoslavian Ballet and another for the new chip shop in Inverbervie. Then came the news. Mostly it was the usual rubbish, but one piece caught Logan’s attention. He sat forward and cranked up the volume.
    ‘. . .
earlier today. And the trial of Gerald Cleaver continues at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. The fifty-six-year-old, originally from Manchester, is accused of sexually abusing over twenty children while serving as a male nurse at Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. Hostile crowds lined the road outside the courthouse, hurling abuse as Cleaver arrived under heavy police escort. . .
’
    ‘Hope they throw the book at him,’ Watson said, cutting across a box junction and speeding off down a little side road.
    ‘. . . The parents of murdered toddler David Reid have been flooded with messages of support today, following the discovery of their three-year-old son’s body near the River Don late last night. . .’
    Logan poked a finger at the radio, switching it off in mid-sentence. ‘Gerald Cleaver is a dirty little shite,’ he said, watching as a cyclist wobbled out into the middle of the road, stuck two fingers up and swore at a taxi driver. ‘I interviewed him for the rape murders in Mastrick. Wasn’t really a suspect, but he was on the “dodgy bastards” list, so we pulled him in anyway. Had hands like a toad, all cold and clammy. Pawing himself the whole time. . .’ Logan shuddered at the memory. ‘Not going to beat this one, though. Fourteen years to life: Peterhead.’
    ‘Serve him right.’
    Peterhead Prison. That was where they sent the sex offenders. The rapists, paedophiles, sadists, serial killers. . . People like Angus Robertson. People who had to be protected from normal, respectable criminals. The ones that liked to insert makeshift knives into sex offenders. Ta-da. Colostomy bag time for poor old Angus Robertson. Somehow Logan couldn’t feel too sorry for him.
    WPC Watson said something, but Logan was too busy thinking about the Mastrick Monster to pick anything up. From her expression, he got the feeling he’d just been asked a question. ‘Hmmm. . .’ he said, stalling for time. ‘In what way?’ It was a standard fall-back.
    WPC Watson frowned. ‘Well, I mean, what did the doctor say last night? At A&E?’
    Logan grunted and dug a plastic bottle out of his inside jacket pocket, rattling it. ‘One every four hours, preferably after meals. Not to be taken with alcohol.’ He’d already had three that morning.
    She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.
    Two minutes later they were pulling into the multi-storey car park at the back of Force Headquarters, making for the section reserved for patrol and CID pool cars. Command officers and senior staff got to use the car park. Everyone else had to make do with what they could get, usually abandoning their cars on the Beach Boulevard, a five-minute walk from the station. It paid to be an Assistant Chief Constable when it was pissing with rain.
    They found Detective Inspector Insch perched on the edge of a desk in the incident room, swinging one large leg back and forth, listening to a PC carrying a clipboard. The news from the search teams wasn’t good. It was too long since the body had been dumped. The weather conditions were terrible. If, by