‘Oh, Charlie,’ his mother muttered.

‘They locked my girl in a cupboard like she was nothing. Called her a slag and no one tried to stop them!’

Bish was as stunned as everyone else in the room. The judge ordered that procedures be stopped and Crombie was dragged from the dock, still yelling threats at Gorman.

‘I’ll come for you again and this time I’ll cut out your heart!’

‘A Shakespeare in the making,’ Elliot muttered.

The Crombies were ashen-faced as they watched their son disappear beyond doors not open to the public.

Bish and Elliot shouldered their way past the reporters, into the restricted hallway where one of the guards was trying to hold Charlie back. He had lost control, his fists flying way too close to Walsh, who was waving off security. Two guards finally pinned him to the ground.

‘The thing is, I’m going to have to set bail or put this down to post- traumatic stress and have him go through a psychological assessment,’ Walsh said in his chambers a short while later. He had asked Elliot and Bish to join him after Charlie was taken back to his cell. The judge had ordered a written apology from Charlie. ‘Make sure he doesn’t do anything with that pen,’ he warned the guards.

Walsh was trying to find the best way around the situation. ‘But I’m not going to waste my time if Crombie’s not worth the trouble.’

‘Let’s hope he’s not going to track down every person on that bus and knock them out,’ Elliot said.

‘Do you think the Crombies can find someone to vouch for a sliver of decency in this kid?’ Walsh asked.

‘He was sticking up for a girl,’ Bish tried.

‘Yes, that’ll make me very popular with the public,’ Walsh said. ‘Charlie Crombie was sticking up for the granddaughter of the Brackenham bomber, so let’s wipe any record of wrongdoing from the files.’

‘I doubt there are too many people who could say much in Charlie’s defence at the moment,’ Bish said.

Elliot agreed. ‘And Gorman will make a media fuss if you let the kid off the hook.’

‘Gorman reminds me of that bastard who used to thrash us raw in geography,’ Walsh said.

He stood up and walked to the cabinet in the corner of his office. Unlike Elliot and Bish, Anthony Walsh hadn’t aged disgracefully. He had never done anything disgracefully. He had always been ahead of his time, the first openly gay head prefect at his school.

‘Are you two an item?’ he said, looking back at Bish and Elliot. ‘The marriage wasn’t a cover-up, was it Ortley?’

Bish tried not to look offended in case Walsh believed it was a homophobic reaction rather than an Elliot-phobic one.

‘It’s what we all thought back in fifth form,’ Walsh said. ‘You two hung out at each other’s homes for the hols quite a lot. What was the attraction then?’

‘His Italian exchange student,’ Bish said.

‘His mother,’ Elliot said.