I straightened, walked back to the truck, and in the wing mirror I saw Darren give me the finger as he sauntered away. I wheeled round and Jimmy snatched at my arm with his hawser-like fingers, shaking his head. I shrugged him off and began to run, my boots slipping on the frosty tarmac as Darren glanced over his shoulder and saw me barrelling towards him. Jimmy and five other men sprinted after me, pulling my coat, my arms, my anything, as Darren flew down the hill, spindly legs pumping. My jacket was torn by someone holding on to the sleeve, trying to slow me, and Jimmy locked his arms round my neck, his feet off the ground. Pedestrians stopped and stared, dogs pulled on their leads, mouths flapping as they barked. Mothers on the school run, MPVs packed with children, slowed and stopped uncertainly, centrally locking their cars as six men whirled like a troupe of ungainly, stumbling dancers in the middle of the road. I lashed out, trying to free myself so I could thunder after Darren Whiteside and catch him. I knew there would be the sounds of shouting, of skittering hobnails on tarmac, of laboured, uneven breathing as the pack of them eventually tussled me to a standstill. At the bottom of the hill Darren stopped running and looked back as I was dragged to my pick-up truck, hands pushing my chest, pushing at my heart. Even from that distance I could see Darren Whiteside’s acned face in the street-light - and suddenly I heard a question I’d forgotten for years: ‘Who’s yer mother been fucking today, then?’ Martin Sawyer’s voice. And I was standing, panting, on a road in Noss Mayo, watching Martin Sawyer’s blood trickle on to asphalt. He’d returned to haunt me, the boy who’d messed with Merboy.

I was pinned against the cold metal of the truck, Jimmy mouthing words I couldn’t be bothered to watch, and I threw back my head and roared as I finally came face to face with the civilising of Merboy. First they took away his hearing and then, over years, his voice and finally they took his anger.

‘I mean, can you believe that?’ I asked Sonja later, as we sat in the living room, drinking wine. And he wants me to buy him new trainers? What’s he doing with ninety-five quid trainers in the first bloody place if he’s on the dole?’

‘You shouldn’t have lost your temper.’ She ran a finger round the rim of her glass, staring at the flames of the fire. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘I was sorely provoked.’ By so many things.

‘I agree. But — and, John, we’ve been through this before, it’s really simple — you’re too damn big to lose your temper. People don’t listen to what you say. They just look at the size of you and pretend to agree, pretend to apologise, so they can get away.’

I shifted on the settee, my feet dangling over its arms, my neck bruised by Jimmy’s fingers. ‘I know, I know. He’s such a shit, though.’