Sentence The Sevenhundredandeighteenth

And when DI Urquhart listed the mispers who were now found deceased: "Robert Ruggles, known as Owd Boab, Alexander Armitage, otherwise Wee Eck, Francis Abernethy, or Fat Frank," and added them to George Brown called by his friends Young Dod Broon to distinguish him from his late father, Poll felt a visceral pain cut through her body like a coruscant light-sabre; this was not nugatory, she knew from the crushing of her heart and the way her bowels felt as turned to water: "I know who they are," she whispered and three pairs of eyes were turned on her, while DS Millican scribbled furiously in her notebook; "they were all friends of my Uncle Norman, Norman Noggs, they played Dominoes once a week in the Church Hall in High Cross Avenue, I had forgotten all about them, I never
connected Mr Brown with the others because I was only about 8 when it happened, but I remember now – that's when I saw you," nodding towards Isa, "and you took me for an ice-cream while my uncle and aunt were being interviewed," speaking to Milly; and it all came flooding back, the distress on her aunt and uncle's faces, the 'not-knowing' which was worse than the hard reality of death, "sometimes, during school holidays my Uncle Norman took me to the Hall and the old folk let me join in some of their games, and those four old men gave me sweets and told me stories about the Borderlands, about the Monster in Cauldshiels Loch, about the Skirmish at Turn-Again, about the Soor Plooms and the brownies and the Will-o-the-Wisp, and the Vampire of Melrose Abbey – though I didn't know what a Vampire was back then – and the Heart of Robert The Bruce, brought back from the Holy Land and buried at the Abbey, and about John Morow, and Scott's View; and after they had disappeared, after you and the reporters had left because how can you search for shadows, when there are real crimes to be solved? after that, I once heard my aunt and uncle talking about something 'The Boys', as he called them, had found on the Mid Hill, something about a Ring of Gold, though I didn't think it was a real ring, I didn't know what it was, and Uncle Norman had advised them to take it to the Police, but they didn't want to, there was something about 'the Polis puttin the likes o us in the frame,' and 'some of the rozzers are in it theirsels', but I didn't know what that meant!" and she turned pleading eyes towards Isa, "were they right, or were they wrong? is there anything you could have done, if my Uncle had told you the story? might they have been saved?" and as Milly took Poll's hand, while Rose put an arm around her friend's shoulders, Isa told her honestly: "I really don't know,
Pollyanna, it's easy with hindsight to say we could or should have done things differently, but there were bent coppers back then, there probably are bent coppers now, all we can do is our very best – but what you have told us gives us a start for when we interview Dod, and while we can't bring his friends back to life, we may be able to put some others behind bars – is your uncle still in the area?" and Milly nodded: "Aunty May and Uncle Norman still live in Gattonside, they are brother and sister, I'll give you their number," which Milly wrote into her book as Isa thanked Poll for the information and said she would have to go to the Station – the Police Station, this time – to make a formal statement of what she remembered.