‘It’s like the Wild West, guns at noon,’ he said.

‘Get in,’ I said as we stood facing the heavy new oak door of Court Ten. Moses always had a flair for the dramatic. He lifted his foot and kicked open the door of court. It swung with the force, hitting itself back off the wall; one quick glimpse told us that the court was empty except for the clerk, Alex Grant, who was busy sorting his papers from the morning. Everything looked normal. Moses stepped back and let me go first. That was the order of things–lawyers led the way.

At two thirty precisely, the prisoner Dr Graham Marshall was brought up from the cells. The staircase led directly into the courtroom and I could only hear one set of footsteps. He wandered up into the dock on his own; his head appeared first and he looked around, his eyes searching for me. When he found me the muscles in his face relaxed. The movement was almost imperceptible. Marshall was a man well used to controlling his emotions.

In spite of his criminal notoriety, he had less courtroom experience than a Niddrie shoplifter. If one of them had been allowed to walk unguarded up from custody they would have vaulted out of the dock, for they would have smelled a rat. Dr Marshall, regardless of his Mensa IQ, did not. The only sound was of Alex Grant shuffling through his morning court papers. In my imagination, a clock was ticking. Everything was slowing down and a fly buzzed lazily by the agents’ table. Moses was seated in the public benches. I was forced by this charade to wander over to the dock to reel off a tissue of lies to my client. Irrational anger against Patsy Barnes, or whoever she was, consumed me. Our heads were soon locked together as we discussed procedural matters. I was explaining to him that the papers would be served when the prosecutor arrived down from Crown Office. She’d sent me a message that she had been delayed.

The door creaked open.

He turned, expecting to see the fiscal.

What he saw was the face that should have haunted him every night since he was ten.

If he’d been reasonable; if he hadn’t been the monster he was.

The face that told him he had gone too far, crossed one of the few women he shouldn’t have. The face that I’d been chatting with, having coffee with, discussing fancy fucking articles with–the face of Patsy Barnes.

‘Long time no see, Kevin,’ she whispered, pulling a handgun from her pocket. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this–so has my boy, so has my son Matthew.’