“We can’t discuss that with you, William, but you’ve nothing to fear. We’re on your side but we need your help.”

Corstorphine’s impassioned plea struck home.

“Simon was set up for the GBH charge. We were all in the same gang with Oscar, the Survivors we called ourselves. Oscar wanted to call us the Ones that Lived – he used to like the Harry Potter books.” He laughed, a short mirthless sound, at the thought of Oscar enjoying reading children’s books.

“Oscar beat this random guy up, one night in town. Took a dislike to his posh accent so decked him outside the Ring of Roses, then put the boot in proper. We were standing watching, none of us wanted to get involved. Once Oscar started there was no way of stopping him – unless you wanted to end up in the same state as that poor bastard. We left him in the gutter. I guess someone must have seen something ‘cos the police siren came as soon as we’d left. Oscar was laughing about it, fit to burst. Always made him happy, a bit of violence. Anyway, out of nowhere he decks Simon, couple of punches to the face before carrying on up the road as before. Funny thing was, he wiped the guy’s blood that was all over his hands and feet onto Simon’s clothes. Deliberate, like. Turned out Oscar was a witness at Simon’s trial, said it was Simon who’d beaten the guy up and he’d heroically tried to stop him. The blood was used to frame Simon and it was the sheriff who put him away. He knew Simon wouldn’t cope with Barlinnie, it was like a fucking death sentence. I don’t know how he’s surviving in there…”

Corstorphine thought he might have an inkling of how Simon might survive inside, especially someone who’d had a lifetime of abuse.

“Will you sign a statement to this, William? If Simon has suffered a miscarriage of justice, we need supporting witnesses to get him out. We need to know who else was in your gang, in the Survivors.”

William looked trapped for a moment, as if he’d just realised that he’d committed himself to more than he’d intended. “OK. I’ll give you the names. I don’t know where most of them are now, just a couple still live here. The rest left long ago. Best thing they could have done. Those that didn’t leave either toed the line like me or ended up on drugs, or taken care of – same thing really. An early exit from a shite life,” he said bitterly.

“What names can you give us, William?” Frankie asked gently.