Resigned, Muirhead walked into court, going over in his mind the events which had brought him here. The death of Kevin Boyle, late and largely unlamented son of Hugh Boyle, one of the last of Glasgow’s oldstyle gangsters, had presented him with his most testing professional challenge ever – and had nearly made him crack in the process.

On a dark, damp night the East End of Glasgow presents a series of depressing vistas. What town planners had intended as gardens are now barren areas long since devoid of any form of vegetation. All that grows and proliferates are the discarded remnants of rusting cars. Occasional wooden posts mark the boundaries of these once green places. The wooden fences have long since been broken up and used as weapons by local youths in the gang fights which feature as part of Friday and Saturday night’s entertainment.

In many areas there hangs a tangible air of menace. Strangers are not welcome. (This covers a broad category of people, including the rent man and the police in particular. Any police car visiting the area will be crewed by three officers – two to carry out the inquiry and a third to keep a careful watch on the car itself.)

The Springfield housing scheme was one such place, a microcosm of the whole of the East End; a close-knit community where every resident appeared in some way to be related to everyone else. This was Boyle territory.

Hugh Boyle had embarked upon a career in crime in the 1940s. It was one which was to be visited with considerable success. Born in the notorious Gorbals in Glasgow where poverty, violence and intense family loyalties co-existed side by side, he was one of seven children and had more aunts, uncles and cousins than he could count, let alone remember. Gangs were a way of life in the Gorbals and membership was obligatory.

Each gang had its own territory and boundaries were jealously and zealously guarded. Every weekend, rival gangs would meet in what would sometimes prove to be mortal combat on Glasgow Green in the shadow of the High Court. Most members bore the scars of battle. The favoured weapon was the cut-throat razor which was often wielded with a breathtaking degree of speed and dexterity. An opponent’s cheek could be laid bare to the bone before he knew he had been cut.

In the 1950s, the High Court Judge Lord Carmont decided he would try to remove the razor from the streets of Glasgow. He began handing out longer and longer prison sentences to gang members who appeared before him. Slowly the message sank home. Razors were put away in drawers, never to reappear.