People call the police a lot of different names: bobbies, coppers, the cops, and other worse things. The one thing all police officers really hate being called is 'pigs'. As soon as she heard the word, Logan felt Grant move beside her. She reached out her hand and put it on his arm.
'No,' she said softly. She looked at the man in front of her. 'Jimmy Brown?' she asked.
'Maybe,' he said. 'Who wants to know?'
'Jimmy, I'm Inspector Logan of the Edinburgh Police and this is Sergeant Grant.' She showed him her ID card then put it away in her bag.
'So?' said Jimmy, continuing to look down his nose at her.
'So we'd like to come in,' explained Grant, putting his face very close to the other man's face. Brown took a couple of steps back. Grant and Logan stepped quickly into the flat and Grant shut the door. Brown looked surprised.
'Problem?' asked Grant. His voice did not sound friendly. He did not look friendly.
Brown gave a weak smile and moved back against the wall.
Logan took a few more steps into the flat and looked around. She had been in some terrible flats in the past but she had never seen anywhere quite like this. The furniture was old and had cigarette burns all over it. The walls were a dark colour; probably once a kind of brown but it was difficult to tell. Coffee cups and cigarette packets lay everywhere. Empty pizza boxes lay on the table; that day's evening paper was open on a chair; a half-eaten piece of pizza lay on the floor by an empty beer can on its side. There was a smell of unwashed clothes and unwashed people.