I stood up and walked through the lobby, stopping in front of the fireplace. My head swirled with images of John Carberry, of Scotty lying in that ditch, until I couldn’t see what was happening in front of me. I felt my hand close around something cold and heard a buzzing sound from far away, as if people were talking, and my mouth moved mechanically, forming words as if I were taking part in the conversation. Then I was walking again. I pictured Carberry leering at me, and heard the tune he was singing. My feet carried on without instruction, first the right foot, then the left, then right again. They walked for so long my legs felt tired and I could taste metal in my mouth, and my right hand was heavy with the thing I’d brought from The Norfolk. There was more buzzing, and a dark, faceless form in front of me.

Then I was round the side of the Muthaiga, and I realised it was a poker dangling from my right hand. Carberry’s car was in front of me – green with brown mudguards. It was furthest from the windows, but I took off my jumper, and wrapped it around the poker to muffle the sound all the same. Swinging it as hard as I could, I smashed the headlamps and windscreen, and dented the front. I thought I saw a curtain or two twitch on the first floor, but no one came out, and no one raised the alarm.

After a few whacks, the door to the boot hung half-off, and it was easy enough to wrench off completely with my bare hands. I laid it on the ground and jumped on it until it was completely misshapen. I wished I was jumping on Carberry’s face. I imagined the blood spurting from his nose, the sickening sound of bone crunching underneath metal, and a calm descended on me.

I made a few half-hearted slashes on the leather interior, then walked back around to the front of the club. Freddie was leaning against one of the pillars along the covered entrance way. I saw his eyes flick down at the poker in my hand and back up.

‘What have you been up to?’ he asked.

‘Someone’s smashed up Carberry’s motorcar,’ I said.

‘Plenty of people with a motive.’

I placed the poker in a bush, and leaned against the pillar next to Freddie’s.

‘Well –’ he said. ‘Perhaps I’d better run you back to The Norfolk.’

My breathing was returning to normal now, and I felt a wave of sickness. ‘I asked one of the bar staff where the car was.’

‘Peter?’

I nodded.

‘Let me talk to him,’ Freddie said. ‘I’ll be out shortly.’

I retrieved the poker, still wrapped in my jumper, and waited in Freddie’s car. After a few moments he came out whistling.

‘Peter doesn’t remember talking to you,’ he said.