‘She’s been called worse.’

‘Give me something on Kennington that could motivate his family to drop the charges, Charlie.’

‘He’s a wanker. Literally. Wanks all night long.’ Crombie was enjoying himself. ‘You think that’ll do the trick, Chief Inspector Ortley?’

Bish pushed aside fantasies of tearing Crombie’s bum fluff off his chin. ‘It’s your life, Charlie,’ he said.

It wasn’t until he was leaving the cell that Crombie called to him. ‘Kennington’s father reckons they should round up all the Pakis and towel heads and migrants and set ’em on fire under Marble Arch.’

Bish hesitated. Didn’t want to believe the kid, but there was a hint of disgust in Crombie’s tone.

‘Not to mention the queers. His words, not mine.’

There it was. A Grazier comparison. Kennington or Crombie? Who deserved a win today?

Rodney Kennington certainly didn’t look like a winner. His broken nose, swollen lip and purple eye were proof that for someone so scrawny, Charlie Crombie packed a punch. The Kenningtons were furious. Yes, yes, Bish agreed, Charlie Crombie was a troublemaker, and now he was claiming that the Kenningtons believed the solution to Britain’s problems was to set fire to minorities. Perhaps the media would be interested in just how low Charlie Crombie would stoop to get out of this cowardly act. To tell such lies about the Kenningtons. Hopefully the powers that be at Rodney’s school wouldn’t believe everything they heard. The school had a zero tolerance for racist remarks by students. Bish’s advice was that the Kenningtons go all the way with their charges, to show just what a thug and a liar Charlie Crombie was.

The Kenningtons exchanged an uneasy look.

Perhaps not.

Bish met Crombie’s parents in the foyer, where they were being reunited with their ungrateful sprog. Mr Crombie, in a Salvation Army uniform, was a silent man in his fifties with a sad smile for his son, as if he had only just realised there were souls to be saved closer to home. Mrs Crombie was the talker. A robust woman with a no-nonsense manner. They were listening to a harried-looking legal rep.

‘The Kenningtons have agreed to drop the charges,’ she said, ‘but they want a restraining order.’ Her phone buzzed and she walked away to take the call.

The Crombies looked relieved, and Bish thought he needed to explain the whole restraining order deal to them. ‘Mr and Mrs Crombie ––’ he began.

‘Reverend,’ Charlie interrupted, the sneer back on his face.

‘Reverend and Mrs Crombie ––’

‘Mr and Reverend Crombie to you, wanker.’

‘Charlie,’ his mother warned, ‘let it go.’

‘My apologies,’ Bish said. ‘It was stupid of me to presume.’

Charlie muttered something under his breath.

Loud voices were coming from down the hall. ‘The Kenningtons,’ Bish said.

Charlie’s parents glanced at one another. ‘Tell the Kennington boy you’re sorry, Charlie,’ his father said.

‘Yet I’m not,’ Charlie said, feigning pleasantness. ‘And if he opens his mouth again,’ he shouted to everyone within hearing distance, ‘I’ll cut out his tongue!’