“He liked being looked up to, Darren. Liked to be thought a hard man. And I was calling him on it, wasn’t I? Calling him on everything he liked to think about himself.”

So Darren had agreed, only he had insisted Peter went along for the ride.

“We were going to threaten him. Tell him Darren was going to fit him up and fuck him up. There was a vague idea about planting drugs on him, or say that he’d nicked some of Darren’s gear, equipment from the site. But it wasn’t thought through, not beyond the threats.”

They had followed Joe, followed the beat-up black Merc one night after it left my house. Tailgating him across the Downs, till he pulled into the car park at the top of Hackpen Hill.

“I was so scared, but Darren made me get out. I had to say it while he stood there with his arms folded, like a ref. All part of his plan to make a man out of me, no doubt.”

And Joe hadn’t said anything, hadn’t laughed or told them to fuck off, only reached inside his car and came out with a tire iron. Went for Darren first.

“Never seen violence like that in anyone, Andy. It was like a vicious dog being let off a chain. He had Darren on the ground in seconds; all he could do was put his arms up to protect himself.”

The Downs are quiet at night. Peter had stood there, frozen. But no one was coming. No one was ever going to come, so Peter had scrambled round the side of Darren’s car. Perhaps Joe thought he was running away, or perhaps he was just enjoying himself too much to notice.

There had been a hammer on the back seat. Darren’s car was always chock-full of crap, tools and papers and empty sweet wrappers.

Peter hit Joe from behind. He was tall for his age and wild with fear, and so the hammer had a lot of swing behind it. Joe must have seen something from the corner of his eye, because he turned, just slightly, and the first blow caved in his cheekbone. The second he took to his skull, same side, just above the temple. And that was how it ended. All the films have it wrong, the action movies, the endlessly climactic fights, the antagonist who keeps coming back for more. Peter said Joe went into convulsions, just for a minute, maybe less. Then he died.