‘You’re very wrong, Liam. The people have moved on. They’ve had enough of suffering. They want to live together, side by side, and build a future for their children, free from the hatred and suffering they’ve endured. The people will not respond in the way you think. The British Government will not respond in the way you think. You’ll only strengthen the resolve of all parties to push on with the process. It’s no longer reversible, Liam. This is not nineteen sixteen and you’re not Padraig Pearse. You’ll be committing murder for murder’s sake. At least call it as it is, instead of sugar coating it with some mixed up, out of date thinking, which renders you nothing more than a dinosaur. You’re a relic and you’re sick, that is all. This is not about your love for your country. This is not about your fight for freedom. This is about your sick lust for blood. You were unstable all those years ago and you’re unstable now. If you lived in any other country in the world, you’d simply find another cause to hide behind. Something else to fight for, to give you the thrill you get from killing. How many members do you have in your True IRA Liam - four? five? ten? If you’re lucky? I’ve never even heard of you, nobody has. Nobody has heard of you, because you exist only in your own head and maybe in the heads of impressionable children like the two you sent out to fetch your dinner. You want me to carry a bomb into Hillsborough Castle tomorrow night so you can kill fifty innocent people? If I don’t do it, you’ll kill my daughter? Why don’t you just accept it, Liam, you want me dead? If you accept that point, then maybe we can move forward from here. Give me your gun and I’ll shoot myself in the head and you can watch. I know how much you would like that, wouldn’t you? I’ll do it for your pleasure, but then you must let my daughter live. You said this was a negotiation, well they are the only terms that are acceptable to me.’

When he finished, he looked at Liam. He was dialling a number.

‘Hello, this is OC Liam Conlon calling, can you hear me clearly? I want you to find the nearest convenient ditch from where you are. I want you to pull the car over and I want you to shoot the prisoner in the face and leave her in the ditch by the roadside. Before you shoot her, I want you to call me, so I may play the events to my audience. Do I make myself clear?’

He hung up. Cormac searched his face. Only one conclusion could be reached. He was not bluffing. The phone rang. Liam answered.

‘Are you in position?’

He didn’t pause, or look to Cormac, or give any indication he was about to retract his orders.

‘You may….’

‘STOP! Stop, please! I’m begging you! Stop! Please don’t hurt Annie! Please! I’ll do anything you want, but don’t harm her … don’t….’