I hunted the aisles for Aodhan McAdam. They were shooting day-for-night in the vast warehouse space, it was luridly strip-lit, and I prowled by the paint racks, the guttering supplies, the mops and hinges, the masonry nails, the rat traps and the laminate flooring kits, and some cronky half-smothered yelps of rage escaped my throat as I walked, and every Saturday-man I passed did a double-take on me. The place was the size of a half-dozen soccer pitches patchworked together, and the staff wore yellow dungaree cover-alls, so that they could be picked out for DIY advice, and eventually I saw up top of a set of cover-alls the blond, floppy hair, the megawatt grin and the powerful jaw muscles, those hideous chompers.

‘Aodhan!’

The grin turned to me, and it was so enormous it dazzled his features to an indistinctness, I saw just that exclamation mark

!

from the Do-It-Rite! – but when he focused, the grin died, at once, right there.

‘Jonathan?’

I went to him, and I smiled, and I took gently his elbow in my hand.

‘Can we talk, Aodhan?’

‘Sure, man, I mean …’

Now it is a rare enough occurrence in contemporary life that the occasion presents itself for truly felt speech. We are trapped – all of us – behind this glaring wash of irony. But in the quietest aisle of the Do-It-Rite! that Saturday – drylining accessories – as Aodhan McAdam and I squatted discreetly on our haunches, I spoke honestly, and powerfully, and from the heart.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I know about the blow jobs. That’s perfectly natural. I was getting blow jobs myself when I was seventeen. I wasn’t broadcasting the fact, and I could spell, but I was …’

He tried to rise from his haunches, he tried to get away, but I had this strange animal strength (your eyebrows ascend, Dr Murtagh), and I kept his bony elbow clamped in my claw, and I lasered my eyes into his, and he was scared enough, I could see that.

I said:

‘Ellie Prendergast, or should I say Ellie P, is the most beautiful girl in this city. She is an absolute fucking angel. If you hurt her, I will kill you. I’m telling you this now so you can give yourself a chance.’

I slapped him once across the face. It was a manic shot with plenty of sting to it. I told him of youth’s fleeting nature. I told him he didn’t realise how quickly all this would pass. I told him how it had been for me. I spoke of the darknesses that can so quickly seep between the cracks of a life. I told him of the images I had witnessed and voices I had heard. He began to cry in fear. I told him how my Wifey had been plagued by evil faeries in the night – oh it was all coming out! – and how my Ellie was to me a deity to be worshipped, and I would protect her with my life.