My breathing is competing with my heart for loudness as I flatten myself again the wall and try to think. I decide to let them search the house. They’ll probably wreck the place, but they’ll know the money isn’t there, at least for the moment. I make my way to the kitchen window, hoping to get a look at them. But I stop after a few paces, because they have turned more lights on, and I can see them from where I stand — three of them, upending couches and emptying drawers. And suddenly my decision to let them wreck the house is the weak, pitiful choice of a loser and a coward. Rage is beating inside me like a confined demon. I take a couple of rounds out of my pocket, load the rifle, point it in the air, fire it, and then bolt around to the front door and wait. I hear them cursing, running for the door. When they burst outside, I have the rifle trained on them.

‘Stay where you are.’

They stop, and put their hands in the air. My front door LED lights them up like they are on stage.

‘Put the handguns on the ground.’ They bend, and put them down, trying to keep their eyes on me the whole time.

‘Kick them towards me.’ They obey.

‘Take it easy, buddy,’ the biggest of them says. ‘There’s no need for anyone to get hurt.’

He is built like a powerlifter. He is pale-skinned with a bleached-blond buzzcut. He gives me the sense that he is not the sort of guy to be afraid of some hick with a rifle.

‘Yes, there is.’ I sight the rifle at his barrel chest. ‘I’m going to hurt you.’

‘Hey. We weren’t going to do anything to you — we were just told to look for something.’ The man alongside him, who is nearly as big, says this. These are the muscled hard men that I had been waiting for.

The third, the tallest and leanest of the group, takes a step towards me. His hands are up, but he is beginning to smile. He knows I’m a bumpkin who is never going to fire on a human being.

‘Look, buddy. We don’t want any trouble, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to shoot anyone. So let’s just put the rifle down, and we’ll leave you alone.’

I lower the barrel of the rifle slowly, then take aim and shoot him in an ample calf. The projectile goes right through, and splinters off the concrete paver behind him as he goes down, screaming into the half-light. The other two jump back, look to him, and then quickly look at me. Did I really just do that? Four of us are asking the question.

‘So what do you want?’