The Butcher backed off to the door again and Heather darted forwards, snatching the parcel back to her side of the bars. Breathing in the heady aroma of hot food. With trembling fingers she crammed the first disk of pudding into her mouth, closed her eyes and chewed. Her family was dead and she was eating black pudding as if nothing had ever happened. Heather almost spat it out, but it was food and she was hungry and she felt miserable and she didn't have any pills with her. So she did what she'd done all her life: self medication through comfort eating. She ate every last scrap, till there was nothing left, but greasy tinfoil. And all the time the man watched her in silence. Then, when she was all finished, he nodded, stepped back outside and closed the door. Leaving her to the darkness.
Logan cupped a hand around his ear and asked DI Steel to say that again. The nightclub was far too busy, far too noisy, and far too hot. That's what they got for letting that idiot Rennie organize a staff night out. The carpet was sticky; the place stank of stale beer, sweat, aftershave and perfume; and the music was loud enough to make his lungs vibrate. 'I said,' Steel shouted,'I wouldn't kick that lot out of bed for farting.' The inspector pointed at the group of girlies up on the dance floor: long blonde hair, short skirts, skimpy tops, the pulsing disco lights glittering off the jewellery in their pierced bellybuttons. As Logan watched, Detective Constable Simon Rennie boogied his way past them, doing a pretty good impersonation of a octopus being electrocuted. One of the girlies laughed and joined in, bumping and grinding. 'Jammy bastard.' Steel took another swig of her vastly overpriced beer. 'I'm no' surprised he wanted to come here.' Rennie wasn't the only off-duty police officer up there, strutting his funky stuff - even Faulds had gone up when they'd put on an old Phil Collins number - but Logan wasn't in the mood. 'I hate nightclubs.' 'So you keep saying.' Three songs later and a sweaty Rennie was back, handing out another round of drinks. 'Is this not brilliant?' Logan scowled at him, but it didn't seem to dent the constable's enthusiasm. 'Oh, 'fore I forget,' Rennie pulled out his wallet and produced a folded-up postcard of a naked bodybuilder with a strategically placed police helmet. 'This came yesterday.' It was from Jackie, telling the muster room what a great time she was having on secondment to Strathclyde Police's Organized Crime and Gang Violence Unit. Rennie nodded in time to the music as one song ground to a halt and another deafened its way out of the speakers. 'Sounds like a right laugh down there-- Ooh, I love this one!' And he was back on the dance floor. Twenty minutes later he was still up there, slow dancing with one of the blonde girlies from earlier, mouths locked, eyes closed, groping away. 'Makes you sick.' Steel sniffed, watching the detective constable and his friend trying to crawl inside one another. 'I'm much sexier than he is.' Faulds leant on the rail that separated the drinkers from the dancers and fondlers. 'So,' he shouted,'what's with all this 'Laz' business then?' Logan sighed. 'Just a stupid nickname. It's nothing--' 'Laz - short for Lazarus.' Steel grinned and clinked her latest bottle of beer off of the Chief Constable's pint,'DS McRae here came back from the dead, didn't you?'
