He didn’t lift his head from the screen to acknowledge him as he slumped onto the battered leather settee. Cormac, in order to quieten his bowels, tried to imagine the events of last Saturday in this little space. He tried to conjure the sound of Bernadette’s voice, singing to his mother and visualise their relaxed conversation, borne of years of familiarity. The image of his mother in an open casket and Liam’s presence, made him swiftly abandon his hopeless efforts. He felt his stomach gurgle and his pores release their first droplets.

Liam closed the lid and turned his attention to Cormac.

‘I’ve ordered you a sausage supper from the chippy, or do you no longer do that sort of thing? Is it more canapés and caviar these days?’

His eyes were momentarily at peace, but the thin sheen of moisture was still very evident, even in the darkness of the living room.

‘I don’t want anything to eat, thanks, and yes, I still do that sort of thing. I still do it a bit too often.’

Cormac started to pat his belly, but stopped when he recognised the pointlessness of it. This was not an occasion for the self-deprecating banter he always fell into as an ice-breaker in any number of social settings.

‘You really should eat. We can call it the last sausage supper!’

Liam laughed at his own gallows humour. He came around the table and sat next to Cormac on the side where Spotty Gun-less had vacated, presumably to drive his comrade to the chip shop for tea. Cormac found himself worrying for the state of their complexions before Liam buried the triviality of the thought.

‘So what’s it gonna be then, now you’ve had time to think it over?’

Cormac clenched every muscle from below his ribs to his legs to fight his bowels’ natural reaction to the question.

‘What’s the point, Liam?’

‘What do you mean, what’s the point?’

Liam was lying back on the settee next to him, like he’d called to pick up his old friend for a night out on the town. Cormac felt able to relax his abdominal muscles a little.

‘What point is served by the mindless murder of the Queen, four prime ministers and all the other people in that room from God knows where?’

Liam didn’t move anything except his eyes, which turned to meet Cormac’s gaze.

‘I’d have thought to an intelligent chap like you it’d be pretty obvious. Look at the world around you. September 11^th, what was the point in that? It caused revulsion all over the world, didn’t it?’

He sat forward as though he recognised this was not a point that should be delivered from a slouch.

‘Look what else it did, though. It produced, and still is producing a brutal response from the West. Which in turn, and here is the simple beauty of it, ensured a fertile breeding ground for so-called terrorist groups to grow and prosper. Every time a child dies at American hands in Afghanistan or Iraq, another grief-stricken mother, father, or brother, joins the fight. Do you suppose they think about the pointlessness of September 11^th when they enrol? No, of course they don’t. They were probably as horrified as you were when they watched the first plane hit. No, they’re responding to the brutal response from the West. They only see the dead girl, murdered by an American bomb that landed on her school, or on the market place while she was there buying a birthday present for her mother.’