"Step into my office, please. And don't push your luck."

She ushers him into a stuffy fire hazard of a room, strewn with folders, loose paper and polystyrene cups. He thinks of his own dual-aspect corner suite in Holborn and wonders why he's the one feeling juvenile and a little intimidated. Karen pulls out a swivel chair for him then takes her own seat on the other side of a desk so marked with coffee rings it could have been the sketch pad of the guy who designed the Audi and Olympic logos.

"So, Detective Super," he says. "I didn't even know you were in the polis, let alone...Guess you must be the one with all the gen on what happened to everybody. Or the bampots, at least."

"Not so much. I've not long transferred to this division. Haven't been to Braeside before now. I'm catching up fast, though. Of course, if I wanted to know what happened to you, I'd just need to pick up a copy of Heat magazine."

Martin sighs. He feels a blush coming on, which pisses him off, because he does not want to look remotely bashful about this. "One photograph, once," he says. "One fucking photograph. And they didn't even get my name right. I was Matthew Jackson, if I recall correctly. But everybody bloody saw it."

"'Showbiz lawyer Matthew Jackson' was, I believe, the caption. And are you still seeing...?"

"I went out with the lassie for less time than it took to develop the snap. I'm sure if you read Heat more carefully, you'd know who she's with now. What about you? Are you married?" He glances at her left hand; there's no ring, but you never know, especially with women in male-dominated professions.

"Divorced. Nobody you knew. But don't change the subject. What the hell is a showbiz lawyer doing here? Especially given Noodsy already has a brief."

"He asked for me."

"Oh, I know that. I don't think anybody expected you to actually come, but I was intrigued. That's the only reason the desk sergeant let you see him, by the way. I know why Noodsy asked-he's desperate and he's daft. What's beating me is why you answered, and what you think you can do."

"Have to admit that's got me struggling a bit as well," says Martin. "So far, the best argument to come up is that I still owe him for something he did in about Primary Five."

"I still owe you for something you did in Primary Seven, but it doesn't mean I'm going to cut you any slack if you become any kind of nuisance to this investigation."

"At this stage, I don't even know how to go about being a nuisance to your investigation. How's Robbie, by the way?"

She grimaces. "Not good. He was in surgery for about seven hours; now in intensive care. Sounds like a frenzied attack: multiple stab wounds, and there would have been more but that the knife got stuck."

"Have you got any suspects?"

"You mean apart from the obvious?"

"Who's obv...You don't mean Noodsy?"

"He's already involved in two murders, one of them Robbie's dad."

"Aye, but come on, this is Noodsy we're talking about. He's admitting his part in trying to get rid of the bodies, but can you honestly see him killing anybody? Robbie, different story. He was always a psycho. Murderer would have been what his careers adviser recommended. But Noodsy?"

"It's been twenty years, Martin. How well do you know Noodsy these days? And how well did any of us know each other even then? We're not children any more. We're none of us who we used to be."

Martin can't answer that one. He used to be the brainy kid, but right now he's clueless. He used to be impeccably behaved, a walking bundle of conscientiousness and honourable intentions. Now he's a shark in a suit. Or just a prick, to put it more succinctly.

"We're going to have Noodsy's clothes analysed to see who the bloodstains match. If it's all three, it'll make my job a lot simpler."

"That's what he wanted me for."

"I'm sorry?"

"He was concerned that the police already had their minds made up and would reach whatever conclusions made their job simpler."

"I'll reach whatever conclusions the evidence compels, Martin," she says, stung.

"I wasn't casting any aspersions, just saying this is what he thinks I can do: find out what really happened before he got there."

"That will be the focus of our investigations, I can assure him. It's just the 'before he got there' part we're not ready to accept on merely his word."

"So you think he did it?"

"All three? I've already said, I-"

"Any of them. Alone, or with Robbie."

"I don't have enough evidence to think anything yet. What makes you so certain he wouldn't, other than you thought he was an okay guy at school?"

Martin laughs, a little embarrassed, to concede the point. "I've got nothing but his word. Though Noodsy's never lied to me."

"The stakes are a bit higher just now."

"I know. I'm flailing here, I admit it. But the look on his face when I showed up: it was more than just surprise to see me. It was like a glimmer of hope, like he was relieved there was someone here who would believe him."

"Aye, but that probably says as much about what Noodsy thinks of you as about anything else."

"You saying I'm a mug?"

She smiles. "I'm sure you're nobody's mug these days, Martin. You're a lawyer, a media lawyer at that: you could no doubt outstrip us all in the cynicism stakes. But you weren't always so streeetwise. Noodsy hadn't seen me in for ever, either, but do you know what I saw in his face when I walked in to interview him?"

"What?"

"Despondency. Defeat. Now, I've known the guy as long as you, and I'd have expected his eyes to light up if he thought me being the cop meant there was a greater chance of him being believed. Instead, it looked like someone who'd known him so long being the cop meant precisely the opposite. Noodsy's a career criminal, Martin, and quite the wee fly-man. You should see his sheet. He learnt the hard way how not to get the blame. He knows how to play his angles."

"And you reckon I'm one of them."

"I'm keeping an open mind. That's my job. Your job is three-hundred-odd miles away. Don't forget that."

"It's fairly prominent in my mind, I promise you. But I told him I'd try. I gave him my word."

"And is that worth much these days?"

"It's worth something today."

She gets up to show him out, walks him to the front entrance.

"It was good to see you again," he says, with as much sincerity as he can muster.

"You too, Martin. I just wish..."

"Yeah, I know."

They shake hands and he walks down the short outside steps. He's at the bottom when he hears her voice again.

"Martin?"

"Yeah?"

"That Primary Seven debt. You bring me anything you find out, and I'll keep you in the loop my end."

She looks roughly as sincere as he had hoped to appear a minute ago. He smiles and nods. "I only did it because I fancied you," he says. "But I'll take what's on offer."

Cursed Colin sees the ball disappear into a cluster of players near the centre of the park but has little chance of following the play at this point. Everybody is back from lunch, meaning both games are in full swing, most concerningly the Primary Seven match which is right now crowding out his penalty box. It's hard enough to see up the pitch through the ruck of bodies, but his eye is drawn more to the Primary Sevens' ball anyway, and the possibility that it could be driven very hard in his direction at any moment. His task, should that happen, will be the opposite of his bigger counterpart, in that Colin will be leaping to get out of the way of the ball while the Sevens' keeper tries to block it, to say nothing of evading death by stampede should it end up loose in a crowded goalmouth. Martin has sensibly taken up position in front of the eighteen-yard box, with the unspoken understanding that he'll give Colin a shout if play looks like heading their way. Simultaneous attacks on the same goal are Colin's most dreaded scenario: not only can there be as many as three balls to keep track of, but diving even for the tamest of shots is fraught with the danger that you'll launch yourself straight into a sturdy pair of legs that weren't there a split second ago. His greatest fear is hurling himself into a full, mid-air dive while the Primary Seven keeper does the same thing from the opposite direction. It hasn't ever happened, but he can vividly imagine the results, having seen the mess when Jamesy and an older boy, following the flights of different balls, ran into each other and clashed heads. That said, the number of such simultaneous attacks is surprisingly few. This is partly down to the size of the pitch and the time the ball therefore spends in the endless savannah grasslands of midfield, and partly down to the Primary Sevens' tendency just to blooter the smaller boys' ball out of the park any time it gets in their way.

Hearing no warning from Martin, Colin takes a prudent step back behind the goal line as the six-yard area suddenly floods with Primary Sevens. The ball gets hooked away by a defender before the keeper can make his way through the scrum to grab it, and falls for one of the few attackers with the presence of mind to take position a bit further back. He gives it a right welly, but catches it a wee bit too high up the leg, which dampens the impact and kills some of the pace. Despite this, it still runs nicely off his shin and along his foot in a ski-jump effect, giving it enough loft to clear all the bodies between him and the target. The ball hits the underside of the bar on its way in, which makes the goal look even better. The scorer runs off to celebrate as everyone acknowledges it to have been a cracker, though Colin knows it would have been judged as 'well over' had the game been up in the playground, where anything passing between the jackets at more than shoulder height is the subject of dispute.

The goalmouth clears as the attackers retreat and await the kick-out, the mass of players dispersing just in time for Colin to see his own game's ball sent up the wing for Jamesy to chase. Jamesy is one of the best dribblers (or most ball-greedy bastards, depending on whether his efforts come to anything) and likes to take the ball out wide where there's space to generate some momentum. He's having a pretty good game today, and has been instrumental in a few goals as well as scoring two, but there's no way he's getting to this ball before Martin. Normally Colin would be calling to Martin to pass it back for him to pick up, but there are still a few Primary Seven stragglers who might get in the way or even take a gratuitous swipe at it.

"First-time it!" he shouts instead.

Martin judges the bounce and runs on to it, swinging his leg for the big punt up the park, or at least that's where it would have gone if Martin didn't have a foot like a ten-bob bit. He gets a meaty enough dig at it, so it's not lacking in range, but it slices well wide to the right, off the pitch and clear of the high perimeter wall.

"Aw, shite," is the most popular response, mainly after the checking of watches and realisation that the bell is going to sound well before the ball makes it back on to the pitch.

This probable timescale is bound to be prominent in Martin's mind, too. Colin remembers how much he was crapping it when he managed to send a drop-kick over the outside wall, and that was without the added pressure of a ticking clock. You're not allowed to go outside the school grounds during school hours, and you're particularly warned off going over the wall because the adjoining enclosure is a derelict waste-ground. From what Colin saw of it when he was searching for the stray Mitre, there was nothing more dangerous about the place than some broken glass and jaggy nettles, but in the teachers' eyes it was littered with unseen deathtraps and therefore utterly forbidden to enter. How else you were meant to get your ball back, they neglected to say (and there was certainly no recorded instance of one of them bothering their arses to go and retrieve the situation, especially as they had a flakey if you ever so much as chapped the staff-room door during a break), but their position on the matter was underlined by the threat of the belt if you got caught doing it. That was what Colin had been scared of when he had been forced to scale the wall, far more than any accident that might befall him in the act of climbing or in traversing the Cursed Earth beyond.

Thinking about it, he couldn't remember anyone ever getting caught, what with it being well out of sight of the staff room, but the chances of being spotted by a teacher were massively increased as soon as that bell went, which it duly did before Martin had even got a leg-up.

Sometimes folk play on for a wee while after the bell, banking on the teachers taking a few minutes before calling in the lines, but this risks Harris having one of her periodic crackdowns. The Primary Sevens thus keep playing; but, with their ball out of bounds, most of the Fives and Sixes cut their losses and head for the lines. Only Colin, out of solidarity, and Graham Wilson, whose ball it is, hang around to wait for Martin.

Colin looks back and forth from the wall to the playground at the other side of the pitch. The lines are forming, steadily fewer Sevens still playing their game of brinkmanship with the teachers. Every second raises the stakes. Being missing from the lines is big trouble, to say nothing of the clearer line of sight to the wall afforded from the top of the steps where the teachers stand to take in the classes. Suddenly Colin hears a thump, and with an accuracy sadly lacking from his earlier attempted clearance, Martin hoofs the ball back over on to the grass. The waiting Graham catches it cleanly and immediately starts haring towards the lines. There's another agonising wait before Martin finally reappears, his eyes fixed on the Main Building doors as he clambers over the wall. He jumps rather than drapes back down, visibility being a far greater concern than physical safety, landing on all fours. Colin offers a hand to help him up the slope, then they both sprint towards the playground.

Their pace slackens as they near the concrete, the sense of urgency suddenly diminished as soon as they can see that there are no teachers there yet, and far fewer folk already in the lines than it looked to panicked eyes. They even start to catch up with some stragglers from their own game, confident about their comparative safety even from Harris as long as there are still Primary Sevens playing on the grass. One of them is Paul, who seems to have the attention of four or five other boys. News travels fast, Colin thinks. It's probably less than half an hour since the incident, but he's already got folk who missed it gathering round to hear about him giving Robbie a doing for stealing his goal.

Colin hurries again, wanting to hear a bit of this-and the reaction to it-before the lines get called and they all have to be quiet. Everybody knows Robbie is a sneaky wee shite, so they're bound to be lapping it up. But as he nears the group he can tell something is wrong. Paul is trying to walk away, but they keep moving to surround him. Then he hears what's being said.

"Come on, Space Boy," says one. "Tell us whit planet you're fae again."

"Naw, better no annoy him," cautions another. "He might use his special powers on us."

"Have you got a ray gun in the hoose, Space Boy."

"Does your mammy run ye tae school in a starship?" Paul finally breaks through their circle and escapes to the relative obscurity of the class lines, but the reprieve will only be temporary. Colin knows that this is merely the beginning. He looks along the line and sees Robbie, the boys next to him glancing conspiratorially at Paul. That's what he had run off to tell the new arrivals, what he was busy telling everybody. Down on the pitch, he didn't appear to be paying attention, but the sly wee bastard must have heard every word, and had put it to devastatingly effective use. His doing from Paul was all but forgotten, and certainly relegated down the gossip agenda. It was now just a daft dispute over who scored a goal, whereas this, this was serious slagging material. Just as he had on the pitch, Robbie had nicked in at the last moment and stolen from Paul with a decisive final touch. And this time, there would be no adjudication from a senior figure to put it straight.

The Laws of the Game (Part Two) .

Martin comes around to the sound of water running, somebody having a shower in an adjacent room, to which the door is ajar. He opens his eyes, takes in his unfamiliar surroundings, remembers where he is. Remembers what he's doing here. What he did here. Aw, Christ.

Karen is playing Chinese ropes with Helen, Alison and Michelle, just outside the shed in the girls' area of the playground. Joanne is hanging about between the poles, just out the way of where Zoe and her pals are playing balls against the inside shed wall. Joanne's face is tripping her because she's just got back from lunch and found Alison already joined in someone else's game. Joanne is, of course, welcome to play Chinese ropes too, but she doesn't want to because she's pure rubbish at it. She's all right at normal ropes, as long as you do it shoo-shaggy, which is just back and forth, or if you're doing it fullsy-roundsies not too fast, but Chinese ropes is different. It's not really a rope at all, but a long chain of interlinked and different-coloured elastic bands, and you don't swing it: two of you hold it up, higher each time, and the other girl has to get her leg over it and pull it down so she can step across. Karen is good at it because she has long legs, but Michelle is even better despite being shorter, because she's double-jointed. She does gymnastics on Saturday mornings at the sports centre and can stretch her leg dead high. Alison isn't as good at it as Karen or Michelle, but she's got this twisting jump technique that looks amazing, like a ballet dancer or something. Karen sometimes pulls the chain that bit lower if it looks like Alison's leg isn't going to make it over, because she likes to see the wee bow Alison does when she succeeds. Helen is the weest and can't do above shoulder height, but she loves playing it anyway. It's her ropes, in fact, so it's not that she's just joining in because she can't get a game at anything else.

Joanne stands nearby, kidding on she's not bothered, like she just happens to be passing, maybe on her way to joining in the hopscotch game down at the far end, but inside she's fizzing. She will join in eventually, Karen knows, though only after she's made a few failed attempts to get everyone-and especially Alison-away to play something else. But this isn't just because Joanne doesn't like Chinese ropes. She'd be fine about playing it if it had been her and Alison's game and she could then say who was allowed to join in. This, however, is Helen's game, and with Alison already a part of it-to say nothing of Karen being involved, too-Joanne's nose is well out of joint.

Joanne and Alison have always been friends, going right back to Primary One, but of late Joanne seems to have become very defensive about her playing with anyone else. Joanne always wants to be playing with Alison alone, though she'll settle for a game with a select few others as long as she and Alison are in charge. Well, you hear her saying she and Alison are in charge, when really it's only Joanne who is, but she likes to stress her and Alison's togetherness. Alison isn't bossy and she doesn't share Joanne's enthusiasm for cliping on people; nor does she seem so bothered these days about claiming first place in the lines. It tends to be the case that Joanne drags her along to the steps as soon as-and sometimes well before-the bell goes, just as it tends to be the case that Joanne will immediately seek out Alison wherever she is in the playground, but Alison will never make a point of seeking out Joanne. This is something Karen has started to notice since she and Alison started playing together more, and it doesn't appear to have slipped Joanne's attention either.

It's weird and annoying. Michelle and Carol are best friends but neither of them gets all pushy if one of them starts playing with somebody else. Nor have they got anything against Alison playing with them even though they have this long-standing rivalry about the class lines. Helen and Karen have been special friends since that time they played round at her house on the day of the fire. They play at each other's house now on some weekends and quite a lot over the holidays, but sometimes they can go for days without joining in the same stuff in the playground, and that doesn't mean they've fallen out.

Joanne, however, seems to think that if you're friends with one person, you can't be friends with someone else. Or at least that Alison shouldn't be. Joanne has never looked favourably on Michelle, given their epic battles to front the lines, so Alison being involved in a game of Chinese ropes with her is betrayal enough, but it's Karen's presence that has really got her chubby cheeks aglowing.

"You're trying to take Alison away from me." That's what she said to Karen last week when Joanne tracked the pair of them down to the grass banking at the far side of the football field. The banking slopes down quite steeply to the high wall at the bottom, and it's a quiet place to go if you just want to sit and talk. You get to sit on grass instead of concrete, plus, unlike the flat grass at the other side of the pitch, you are in little danger of getting hit by a ball, because if you sit well down the banking, it usually goes over your head. Alison had suggested they go there 'for a picnic' because she had an apple and a poke of crisps left over from her packed lunch and it was unusually mild and sunny for the time of year.

"You want Alison tae be your friend? Well, she's my friend, right?"

Karen had been baffled by this outburst, and from the look on Alison's face, it was clear she didn't entirely follow the logic, either.

"I'm not trying to take her away. We're just having a picnic."

"Aye, well, you'd better not, right? C'mon, Alison. The bell's gaunny go any minute."

"I want to finish my apple," Alison argued, while Joanne stood over her, glowering.

"That Carol and Michelle will be on their way to the steps already," Joanne warned.

"Well, we'll end up second anyway, then, won't we?" countered Alison.

Whether she would have stayed and defied Joanne, Karen never discovered, because the bell did ring at that point. For Joanne, though, this sacrilegious sentiment was enough to set off her alarms and to confirm Karen as an undesirable influence and her new worst enemy.

And now Alison is playing Chinese ropes with her!

Joanne stands and watches for a while longer, then inevitably makes her bid. "Alison, I'm finished my lunch now. Comin to play houses?" she suggests. It's a confident and cunning gambit, subliminally suggesting to Alison that she was, whether she knew it or not, only doing this to kill time until her true friend was ready. It also contains a less subliminal insult to her competitors and how they choose to fill their precious playing time. It almost deserves to succeed for its sheer audacity, but alas, Joanne has concentrated too much on strategy and not enough on timing. It's Alison's turn to jump, and she's on a roll. If she was standing holding one end, she might be tempted, but not while she's feeling confident of breaking that chin-height threshold for a new personal best.

"I'm playing Chinese ropes," she responds, betraying just a little impatience at having to state the obvious.

"Okay," Joanne accepts. She plays it poker-faced, only a tightening of her folded arms indicating an increased determination after this rebuff.

Joanne gives it another wee while, waiting until Alison tries-and fails-in her next attempt, before informing her that "There's a brilliant game of hopscotch goin on over there, really, really good. Come we'll join in?"

"It's my turn to hold," Alison explains, an obligation towards her fellow players offered by way of letting Joanne down gently. "Why don't you have a game? Can Joanne have a game?" she asks Helen, whose game it officially is due to rope ownership.

"Yeah, come and join in, Joanne," says Helen, who is always far nicer to everybody than a lot of them deserve.

Joanne has a look on her face that suggests she'd rather go and lick the railings, but she knows she can't walk away now without losing face. "Aye, okay. But don't make it too high."

Joanne waits until Helen has had a shot and then takes her turn, with Karen and Alison holding. They start the chain at kneesies, which even Joanne can manage, then move up to hipsies (or bumsies, as they call it when they're feeling giggly). Joanne's cheeks seem to expand with effort and determination as she takes a wee runny-up and hurls an ankle on top of the chain. Her foot gets over but her trailing leg is slow, and the elastic snaps upwards again between her thighs. It tugs her pleated skirt and shows her knickers for a few moments before she grabs the rope with both hands and untangles herself.

Alison says, "Woooo!" at the sight of her exposed underwear. Folk always say, "Woooo!" or do that wheet-whee whistle if you accidentally show your pants. Sometimes you get a beamer, but it depends who else is around; you usually just laugh if it's only girls. They all laugh on this occasion, including some of the girls playing balls in the shed. All, that is, except Joanne, who looks furious. She takes a short couple of steps nearer the shed and jabs an angry finger at Zoe, who is still bouncing balls off the wall and, as far as Karen can tell, may not even have been paying attention.

"It's just lassies that saw it," Joanne says indignantly. "An it was just pants. At least I never showed aff ma fanny tae Kevin Duffy."

Oh, God, this one again, Karen thinks. And Zoe wasn't even among those laughing.

The story had gone round in whispers a couple of weeks back and nobody was much inclined to believe anything Kevin Duffy said, but Joanne had seized upon it like it was a ten-bob bit in the gravel. She was always looking for something that was 'a pure slaggin' for some poor soul, and which could be used to encourage others to say they weren't friends with whoever it was, as being friends with certain people was a pure slaggin, too. Poor Eleanor was the ultimate example. She might be tolerated to join in games, but nobody wanted to be officially friends with her because she was smelly. Karen always felt guilty about how Eleanor was treated, and tried to be nice to her whenever the occasion arose, but the sad truth was that Eleanor wasn't very easy to be nice to. She was always sour and suspicious, and Karen knew that no matter how hard she tried or how much she felt it might be the right thing to do, they weren't going to be friends. However, nor would she ever join in when people were being horrible to her, such as calling her Smeleanor, or when they played bugsy touch, about which Eleanor (it was perhaps wrongly assumed) was oblivious.