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The Identification Bureau lab looked like a school science department on the caretaker's day off. Every available surface was covered in plastic evidence bags and reports. There were more bags in the cardboard boxes stacked by the door, another mound of samples piled up by the freezer. A little radio sat on top of the superglue cabinet, filling the air with dreadful syrupy music. Four days since DI Insch had tried to rip Wiseman's head off in Interview Room Number Two, and the investigation was going nowhere. Logan picked a report from the top of the pile and flicked through the results. 'Nothing at all?' The lab technician peeled off her facemask and scowled at him - there was a perfect outline of clean skin where the mask had been, but the rest of her face was stained with a thin layer of black fingerprint powder. 'You not think I would have said if there was? That I might actually be professional enough to recognize a bloody clue when I found one and tell someone?' 'Who rattled your cage this morning?' 'Don't start.' She pulled an empty whisky bottle from its evidence bag and slammed it down on the vacuum table. 'There's no one else in today: I've got a whole department's work to do, hundreds of sodding samples, and now they want us to DNA-type everyone who's been reported missing for the last four months! You have any idea how much paperwork that is?' She stood and fumed silently for a moment. 'And the bloody stereo's stuck on Radio Two: I've spent the last hour and a half listening to show tunes! Sunday my arse.' 'Feel better now?' 'How come it's never like this on CSI? Never see them drowning in paperwork, forced to listen to Elaine Paige.' She clicked on the power and the vacuum table whined into life, sucking away the excess aluminium powder as she dusted the bottle. Logan flipped to the last page of the report. 'So ... not even fingerprints?' 'Which part of 'nothing' are you having difficulty with? Believe it or not, some criminals actually wear gloves these days.' Something from Kiss Me Kate warbled to a close and the news came on:'The headlines at four thirty: Oil-workers strike in cannibal-meat protests; Government minister apologizes for affair; Interest rates set to rise; and memorial service for Inspector's daughter--' 'We did get some fibres, but unless you get me something to match them to, they're bugger all use.' '--four-year-old Sophie Insch was killed on Tuesday during a high-speed pursuit by Grampian Police to capture Kenneth Wiseman. Mourners gathered today at Oldmeldrum Episcopal Church to pay tribute--' It had been one of the worst mornings of Logan's life: picking Insch up from his house, driving him to the church, sitting with him and his two remaining daughters while the vicar read the eulogy. Holding the girls' hands as their father cried. Their mother didn't even make it out of hospital for the service. The wake at the Redgarth afterwards ... then back to the house for tea and sympathy. And all the time Logan knew it was his fault. He'd been the one driving the pursuit car, he'd forced Wiseman to crash. ' ... scumbags, eh?' 'Mmm? Oh ... probably.' No idea what she was talking about. 'I mean, look at all this!' She pointed at the mound of bagged hairbrushes and clothing. 'I have to scrape DNA samples off dirty underwear! How screwed up is that? And you know how many bits of meat we've actually managed to ID? One. And before you get all excited, don't. The chunk they found in the Leiths' freezer belonged to
