I took another slug of the stout.

‘Pretty much.’

The barman topped off a pint for a tourist dripping in blue waterproofs at the bar. Outside it was, inevitably, still pouring down. There was no radio playing, but the rain and the river made their own music which filled the pub with a steady murmur. We could talk without being overheard or the fear of audio surveillance – which was why, I guessed, Frank had chosen it.

He shifted in his seat – preparing, I knew, to give as many excuses as he was given.

‘OK,’ I conceded. ‘What happened is that I didn’t kill him.’ Frank put his glass down and leaned fractionally towards me. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t kill him.’ His eyes narrowed, as if by concentrating on my face he might discern the truth of what he was being told.

‘This is becoming somewhat of a speciality of yours, McLean.’

‘Oh, right. So it’s surnames now, is it, sir?’

‘Jesus, Max,’ he snapped, ‘you wanted the bloody job. You took the bloody job. And you agreed to do it on the information you had at the time. You turned down the command at Raven Hill. So, let me remind you what that means.’ He drew breath, reminding himself, perhaps, what it really did mean – for both of us. ‘You are given orders. By me. And you follow them. You aren’t a fucking boy scout. You’ve killed more people than most other operators have had hot dinners. So why is that piece of shit not dead?’ He breathed out hard and rolled his shoulders.

I looked at him and smiled.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ He just about held on to his temper. ‘OK. His name was Chappie Connor. He was an Old IRA man. Pretty senior. Joined the Provos after Aldershot. He dropped off the radar in eighty-eight.’ Frank sat back in his chair and shook his head. ‘Max McLean getting his arse whipped by old fella like that. You daft cunt. Get you that desk to fly after all, shall I?’

I didn’t rise to it. As messed up as the job looked, there was no way that Frank had sent me to kill a pensioner for something he did when I was still in short trousers. Almost no one even mentioned Operation Banner any more, no matter how hard it had been fought. Besides, half of PIRA’s commanders had been British agents. In the end we’d practically been fighting ourselves. I also knew Frank didn’t believe for a moment it was Connor who’d shot me. So the debrief game unfolds.

‘I’m the cunt? Jesus, what did he do – fuck your wife?’

‘What he did is need to know.’

‘And I don’t need to know.’