Sentence The Fourhundredandfortyseventh 

Which was how it came to pass the Peter Boo WS arrived early, if not quite bright, at Police Scotland (Borders) HQ in Hawick; for those who do not know it, Hawick is a former centre of the Scottish Knitwear Industry, a town with a proud heritage in the production of all forms of woollen knitwear, from socks and gloves to cover the hands and feat, all the way up to luxury cashmere, sold the world over; but now, like so many former manufacturing towns throughout Britain, it has suffered from the prolonged recession and has a gloomy aspect, made all the more palpable from it's town centre being

low in the valley of the River Teviot as it passes through to join the Tweed at Kelso; but the Cop Shop isn't in the deeper part of the valley, it sits – just off the A7 approach road – in a declivity below the housing estates of Silverbuthall and Stirches which rise behind it, and Burnfoot, which glares down from the hillside opposite; and here it was that his new client sat waiting – an elderly man, some would – in his youth – have described Ranulph Ochan'toshan as a 'Lad o' Pairts', a Scottish term for a talented youngster, with many strings to his bow and the world at his feet, perhaps still to choose which particular path to pursue: born and christened plain Rab Tosh, he had never felt his name a hindrance till his first poetry was published, in a monthly Scots Magazine, when he experienced the first barbs of contempt from critics who scorned the work of such a meanly-named young upstart – which was when he transformed himself into Ranulph Ochan'toshan (a nod to his birthplace at 17 Ochentoshan Terrace in Springburn, Glasgow, just a stone's throw – and as a boy he threw with the best and worst of them from the famous and now long-gone Railway Works, where his father, Big Rab Tosh, was an engineer) and the world, as it is said, was his Lobster! but success can bring it's own sorrows, fame and fortune in early life can bring frenzy and futility hot on one's heels, but Ochan'toshan paid no heed to the warnings of soothsayers and expanded his career, with recordings, radio and then television, where he had his own programme, the producers finding his easy facility with words and charcoal appealed to a young audience and so it was that he found

himself adored by mums and toddlers alike; his records topped the charts, his books went into many editions, and he was trailed, wherever he went, by his groupies; being by nature a somewhat gnomic person, he was at first at a loss to explain his feelings about his entourage – oh, he bedded many a mum and sometimes three at a time, but though he found his erection seemed to benefit from a kind of selenotropism, so night-time frolics in a moonlit garden became a regular part of his pleasures, he

was never a rapist, never even considered himself to be a seducer, never forced himself upon anyone, preferring to be the one responding to the other's advances, and he said – oh, much, much later than now, oh yes, for this is far to early in our story – that it was the children who began to move ever closer, to seek him out for cuddles, then kisses, then other explorations with their 'wandering hands' and when he will give this in his defence, everyone will see through the tissue, the bubble, to the truth, that he was an unreconstructed Predator, the kind who blames his victims for forcing themselves onto him, poor man, unable to fight them off, and succumbing to their ravishment of him; and that will be how his career, his identity, his whole being – friend of Popes and Queens, of Presidents and Prime Ministers, adored by the Nation, the Commonwealth, the World – will, in time be decommissioned; or will it? for Peter Boo WS has just arrived in Hawick, parked his car in the space allocated for Legal Representatives, and is at this very minute walking towards the entrance to

the Cop Shop: his Brief, to defend Ranulph Ochan'toshan OBE and facilitate his release from custody and do his very damnedest to prevent his client from being charged with anything other than being the innocent victim of an over-zealous Police Scotland operation which was based on fallacious information which had not been checked properly and was not, as he had discovered on his journey, supported by a properly issued Warrant to 'enter, search and detain', and therefore, he would argue, an example of loutish and brutal trampling over innocent civilians in a desperate and misguided effort to improve the Crime Reports for this area! HA! Put that in your Pipe and Smoke it!!