The older ones milled about, holding their trays in front of them like a shield. The younger ones buzzed and chatted, throwing their hands around like puppets. ‘Drugs,’ hissed Ina. ‘If I got my hands on their dealers…’ The old woman’s lips formed a thin, unforgiving line; I wondered if she had lost someone that way and she was working it all out through her work here. Ina handed me a ladle and pointed to an outsize pot of thick Scotch broth. ‘There, hen, mind and scoop from the bottom.’ The pot weighed a ton. Ina bought all the ingredients for the soup herself, never asking for a penny from the charity, and the carrots, onions and barley must have taken up most of her pension. I could see bits of lamb floating in the rich soup–nothing but the best for Ina’s lost boys and girls. ‘Now that one,’ she said, pointing to the canteen door, ‘he restores my faith in humanity. He’s a bloody angel, a saint the way he looks after them as if they were his own.’

A snort escaped from my lips and the shock of seeing Graham Marshall meant the hot soup splashed up my arm. ‘Shit,’ I hissed, and banged the pot down on the counter.

Mary McLennan would have agreed with me that a leopard doesn’t change its spots. I watched as Marshall walked into the centre of the room with a stethoscope round his neck. He was scanning the crowds, searching for a particular patient. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Led by Wee Elvis, the lunchtime crowd raised their empty trays above their heads and banged them with their free hands. Loud whistles accompanied the round of applause to make it raucous and ear-splitting. Marshall took a bow. Like a magician, he bent deep at the waist and swept his arm out, swan diving forward. The good doctor had done time. Like most of them, he had spent some of his life in Saughton–it made him one of their own. They seemed undisturbed by the fact that he had ended up in this life by torturing and slaughtering a baby.

I wanted to vomit.

Then the bastard, the cheeky, arrogant bastard, went one step too far. Marshall himself started to clap. He half turned towards me and clapped loudly, saluting me, letting the crowd know my part in his acquittal.

A tear came to Ina’s eye. The pensioner manhandled me, pushing, shoving me out of the kitchen into the canteen. So it was that I ended up standing side by side with the man I hated most in the world.

He put his arm around me.

‘Take a bow, Miss McLennan,’ he said. ‘My case only adds to the legend that is Brodie McLennan.’