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pissed in the sink."
    "Classic." Buxton tilted his head back as he laughed. "That's not so bad, though, is it?"
    "Not sure Sharon sees it that way." Cullen reached over to turn the heater down. "Just glad nobody came out of the cubicle while I had the old fella whipped out."
    Buxton smirked, the corners of his lips turning up. "They'd have to see both inches first."
    Cullen shook his head as he laughed. "Fuck off."
    Buxton waved his hand, gesturing across the road. "Isn't that Phonebox Jimmy?"
    Cullen frowned as he clocked a figure trudging along Lanark Road, clad in a parka and several layers of fleece. "That name sounds funny coming from your lips."
    "Suppose it does. I've seen him a few times. Just goes through every phone box in Edinburgh, looking for uncollected change."
    "Surprised he's still with us." Cullen shrugged as they passed him. "Everyone's got mobile phones these days. Nobody uses phone boxes."
    "He still seems to manage, though."
    "True." Cullen sniffed as he looked at the houses around them. "Bit far off his usual patch this. Poor guy will no doubt be having a shite Christmas."
    "Yeah, can't be any life, can it?" Buxton laughed. "Bet he didn't get a bondage gag in a Secret Santa, though."
    Cullen felt the jolt of booze recollection. "What happened to that?"
    "Just left it on the table when we went downstairs."
    "Thank God." Cullen tugged at his coat, separating his shirt from his back, now sodden with sweat. "What time were you out till?"
    "Late." Buxton turned right onto the main road before clearing his throat. "And I didn't wake up in my own bed last night."
    Cullen felt his stomach lurch as they descended to the Water of Leith, his mind filling with an image of Buxton on the dance floor. "You were dancing with someone in Lamb's team, right?"
    Buxton tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "Geraldine. Can't remember her surname."
    "Classy. How old is she?"
    "Forty."
    "Another cougar?"
    "That's not a very nice term, you wanker."  
    "So you'll be seeing her again, right?"
    "Not if I can avoid it." Buxton turned down Woodhall Millbrae and parked behind a pair of fire engines blocking the road, the firefighters now packing away their equipment. On the other side was a row of police vehicles - SOCO van, patrol cars, the forensic pathologist's Lexus. "Looks like the gang's all here."
    "So it does." Cullen stared past them at the house, mostly intact apart from one corner still smoking. Like the rest of the street, it was yet another turn-of-the-millennium new-build, stark cream stucco inset with huge chunks of stone, dormer windows dotting the third floor. "No prizes for guessing which house we're looking for."
    "Yeah." Buxton took his coffee cup from the side and drank it down in one go. "It's bloody lukewarm." Scowling, he craned his neck forward, looking around. "Can't see Crystal, though."
    "Shame." Cullen got out of the car and stretched out.
    The place stank of the fire, the deep stench of burnt wood. It was freezing, the bitter wind swooping down towards the river just behind the houses, making him shiver from cold rather than the alcohol for once. He wrapped his winter coat tight around him and waited for Buxton to get out. He took in the street, the City Bypass rumbling above them. In the distance, a man in a salmon polo shirt walked a small terrier along the street, apparently oblivious to the temperature, staring at his phone.
    "That's like you and me, right?" Buxton slammed his door, nodding at the house they'd parked beside, encased in a mesh of scaffolding and looking like it wasn't far off being finished, the gang of workers with half an eye on the crime scene. "Those boys are milking the Christmas overtime before heading to the pub, I expect."
    "Remind me, again, what's this overtime of which you speak?" Cullen ground his teeth. "Besides, I'm supposed to be off today."
    "So you keep saying. All the way out here." Buxton chuckled as he took in the area. "It's bloody expensive out here, isn't