A long time later, a policeman came. I tried but I could not understand what he was asking. He was young like me but he stepped over the railing and touched what lay there. As the body was turned, the black coat which had only been thrown across it slipped off.

I thought it was a trick. I thought it was Brond but that he had put on a last disguise. I stepped over the rail and went down on my knees.

Nothing about him was certain.

Above me, the policeman prayed to the machine he held in his hand. I looked up at him from where I knelt. Watchfully, as he spoke, he took a careful step back.

What do you call someone who sticks his finger up a Scotsman’s arse?

Wi the wig-wig-waggle o the kilt: another crazy tune.

‘What do you call a man who sticks his finger up an Englishman’s arse?’ I asked aloud, but the constable stared back in dismay.

He did not realise that it was a joke. He was right, of course. You always spoiled a joke if you changed the ending.

Ah’ve been hurt masel.

Now the rain was heavy. It soaked the ground and turned it black. It streamed down the policeman’s face. It ran in stone tears down the lion face of the prophet.

It fell like a judgement not on Brond but on Primo, the Scottish soldier, dead in the mud. But then when had it ever been Brond?