Sentence the Thirtyfirst
Back in the CID office in the Grassmarket and Cowgate Community Policing Hub (incorporating a Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator's office, and officers dedicated to Missing Pets and Children) Detective Sergeant Gordon Brevity handed his wife, Station Sergeant Goldy Brevity – named after her mother, Golda Davidova, rather than her curly golden locks – a mug of coffee and put his report on the Local Yokel case in an envelope addressed to Inspector Bruce Bruse, his superior in the Edinburgh Division of Police Scotland; having married or related officers working together was a new policy which, together with the children's area with toys, colouring books, a life-size cut-out figure of PC Murdoch from Oor Wullie, and big scatter cushions, was designed to promote an edifying, gentler, more inclusive and caring, family-friendly welcome towards members of the public (or customers/clients) who entered the open plan reception area, where Goldy Brevity's cousin, WPC Isa Urquhart – known far and wide for her extremely fetching looks and direct speech (she suffered no fools, no men, and no miscreants in any wise gladly, and was a black-belt in several martial arts) – was ever ready to greet callers with a dazzling smile, assist them off with coats, hats, shopping bags, babies; take the necessary information in a very empathic manner, managing a kind of triage system (certainly a front-runner among the candidates for the next Sergeant's vacancy to come up) – before taking them to whoever was best able to deal with their circumstances; so it was Isa who looked up in astonishment when her cousins Trixie and Leigh burst in, like a great moving tornado of arms and legs and sheaves of paper, maps, charts, diagrams, flying hair and – Isa noted instantly – rather sweet boots on their feet, suspiciously like the ones from Schuh she was wearing herself, but, thankfully, in different colours; though breathless, the girls managed to speak in unison and asked Isa if Sergeant Brevity was in, to which she replied, “yes and yes – they're both in, which do you want to see?” and having forgotten that their cousin Goldy had been transferred to The Hub, though slightly nonplussed, they managed – again in unison – to ask to see them both, adding that it would be really good if Isa could join them; and so it came to pass that for about an hour, that Friday morning, callers to The Hub found a notice behind the glass door stating that 'This Office is Quarantined due to a severe case of German Measles in the vicinity and any enquiries should be taken forthwith to the nearest Community Policing Hub at The Pleasance, where all matters will be dealt with at this difficult and, understandably, upsetting time, Thank you, signed Station Sergeant Goldy Brevity QPM' – for Goldy had indeed been awarded the Queen's Police Medal last year when, normally prudent by nature, she single-handedly talked down an armed gunman from the roof of the Queen's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, who was holding two elderly American tourists hostage – with what turned out to be a water pistol – and demanding that his Grandfather's Croft on the Isle of Skye should be returned to him, having been made into a car park for bus parties visiting a nearby Standing Stone – which he knew for a fact to have been erected only a few years before by a local builder who discovered it in the rubble of the crofter's cottage which he'd demolished, and who had carved runic symbols on it to give it a touch of authenticity and had received a grant of £75,00 towards providing the car park, Historically Researched and Illustrative Tourist Information Board and adjacent tea-room and unisex and disabled toilets; after the event and discovering the full story behind the man's desperate actions, Goldy and the American Hostages – for whom he had provided refreshments in the form of shortbread and whisky during the incident - had spoken up for him at his subsequent trial and so stirred both the popular opinion in the country and the hearts of the jury that the erstwhile crofter was not only acquitted, but was awarded damages; and in his turn, the rogue builder was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay damages equalling that to the crofter and was also jailed for 5 years for malfeasance; the crofter was proclaimed a Local Hero in The Sunday Post and Goldy was declared a Champion of the People – which is why none inside The Grassmarket Hub saw a gaunt, tatterdemalion figure, in WonderWoman top and kilt peering through their glass door, before stooping and slipping a folded piece of paper through the letterbox; it only took a moment, and demonstrated his experience as a postie by the professional way he avoided the sprung-flap rapping his knuckles, or clattering onto the frame, and Angus Og of the Bog quickly hurried up Candlemaker Row to where a rather smart car, it's engine running, awaited him.
Back in the CID office in the Grassmarket and Cowgate Community Policing Hub (incorporating a Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator's office, and officers dedicated to Missing Pets and Children) Detective Sergeant Gordon Brevity handed his wife, Station Sergeant Goldy Brevity – named after her mother, Golda Davidova, rather than her curly golden locks – a mug of coffee and put his report on the Local Yokel case in an envelope addressed to Inspector Bruce Bruse, his superior in the Edinburgh Division of Police Scotland; having married or related officers working together was a new policy which, together with the children's area with toys, colouring books, a life-size cut-out figure of PC Murdoch from Oor Wullie, and big scatter cushions, was designed to promote an edifying, gentler, more inclusive and caring, family-friendly welcome towards members of the public (or customers/clients) who entered the open plan reception area, where Goldy Brevity's cousin, WPC Isa Urquhart – known far and wide for her extremely fetching looks and direct speech (she suffered no fools, no men, and no miscreants in any wise gladly, and was a black-belt in several martial arts) – was ever ready to greet callers with a dazzling smile, assist them off with coats, hats, shopping bags, babies; take the necessary information in a very empathic manner, managing a kind of triage system (certainly a front-runner among the candidates for the next Sergeant's vacancy to come up) – before taking them to whoever was best able to deal with their circumstances; so it was Isa who looked up in astonishment when her cousins Trixie and Leigh burst in, like a great moving tornado of arms and legs and sheaves of paper, maps, charts, diagrams, flying hair and – Isa noted instantly – rather sweet boots on their feet, suspiciously like the ones from Schuh she was wearing herself, but, thankfully, in different colours; though breathless, the girls managed to speak in unison and asked Isa if Sergeant Brevity was in, to which she replied, “yes and yes – they're both in, which do you want to see?” and having forgotten that their cousin Goldy had been transferred to The Hub, though slightly nonplussed, they managed – again in unison – to ask to see them both, adding that it would be really good if Isa could join them; and so it came to pass that for about an hour, that Friday morning, callers to The Hub found a notice behind the glass door stating that 'This Office is Quarantined due to a severe case of German Measles in the vicinity and any enquiries should be taken forthwith to the nearest Community Policing Hub at The Pleasance, where all matters will be dealt with at this difficult and, understandably, upsetting time, Thank you, signed Station Sergeant Goldy Brevity QPM' – for Goldy had indeed been awarded the Queen's Police Medal last year when, normally prudent by nature, she single-handedly talked down an armed gunman from the roof of the Queen's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, who was holding two elderly American tourists hostage – with what turned out to be a water pistol – and demanding that his Grandfather's Croft on the Isle of Skye should be returned to him, having been made into a car park for bus parties visiting a nearby Standing Stone – which he knew for a fact to have been erected only a few years before by a local builder who discovered it in the rubble of the crofter's cottage which he'd demolished, and who had carved runic symbols on it to give it a touch of authenticity and had received a grant of £75,00 towards providing the car park, Historically Researched and Illustrative Tourist Information Board and adjacent tea-room and unisex and disabled toilets; after the event and discovering the full story behind the man's desperate actions, Goldy and the American Hostages – for whom he had provided refreshments in the form of shortbread and whisky during the incident - had spoken up for him at his subsequent trial and so stirred both the popular opinion in the country and the hearts of the jury that the erstwhile crofter was not only acquitted, but was awarded damages; and in his turn, the rogue builder was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay damages equalling that to the crofter and was also jailed for 5 years for malfeasance; the crofter was proclaimed a Local Hero in The Sunday Post and Goldy was declared a Champion of the People – which is why none inside The Grassmarket Hub saw a gaunt, tatterdemalion figure, in WonderWoman top and kilt peering through their glass door, before stooping and slipping a folded piece of paper through the letterbox; it only took a moment, and demonstrated his experience as a postie by the professional way he avoided the sprung-flap rapping his knuckles, or clattering onto the frame, and Angus Og of the Bog quickly hurried up Candlemaker Row to where a rather smart car, it's engine running, awaited him.
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