There was more laughter as the door opened. Two uni students were herded in, giggling and smelling of booze as they squeezed beside Georgia. Up front, an officer got in the cab and a light came on as he started the engine.

‘Excuse me, officer,’ Rosemary said politely, knocking on a grilled flap behind the driver’s seat. ‘I hope you know we’re campaigning against police cuts too. So, could you pop us out at the mainline station?’

‘And I’ll buy you all a cup of tea and a cream bun first,’ the cop in the driving seat said as his passengers laughed.

Fifteen minutes later, the van doors opened to a merciful blast of fresh air in a police station car park. They’d stopped alongside an identical van filled with men that was already being unloaded. The driver ordered everyone to wait, but Jen barged out before the officer could do anything. She’d already unbuttoned her jeans and squatted down on her haunches to pee on the tarmac.

‘Best thing ever!’ Jen shouted, pumping her fist.

The cop wasn’t going near her while there was a risk of getting peed on. Two hoodies climbing out of the other van started wolf-whistling but got shouted down by campaigner types telling them to stop being sexist.

Jen’s toilet break earned her an immediate escort inside the station. Mercifully, the back door of the van was left open to let in fresh air as two more vanloads and a car with cuffed demonstrators in the back pulled up. But suspects were only going in two at a time and each pair took ages to process.

‘Have I got two juveniles, Pack and Dewar?’ a female officer in plain clothes asked as she leaned into the van.

Georgia helped Sam hobble down from the van and carefully straddled Jen’s puddle of urine, before wishing good luck to Rosemary and the drunk students, who were now propped against each other, fast asleep.

The scene inside the police station was mental, with arrestees penned off in a waiting area, queuing along hallways and packed into side rooms. Besides demonstrators breaking out in chants, there were drunks, a homeless guy telling non-existent dogs to stop barking, a woman who’d had her car stolen and an old lady in her dressing gown who’d wandered off from her care home.

‘I’m Jennifer, the juvenile support officer,’ the woman explained, holding clear bags containing Sam and Georgia’s keys, wallets and phones as she led them down a hallway to a lift. ‘I’d normally do stairs, but it looks like you’re hurt!’

When the lift arrived, Gerard came out, sandwiched between two mountainous officers. He was stripped to the waist and sporting a fat, bloody lip.

‘Virtual high five!’ Gerard said brightly, raising a set of proper metal cuffs. Then Sam got a serious look. ‘Have you told Georgia not to say a word?’