Time passed. They waited. Then they heard the swish of the man’s feet through the low scrub. Closer and closer he came until suddenly the feet fell silent. There was a low mutter of surprise and puzzlement. Silence. And then the man jumped down on to the shelf and stood looking at the gun. Clearly he didn’t know what to make of it. He looked to left and right and back up the hill. Finally, he crouched to touch it.

MacConnachie rose and kicked him in the side of the head. Perhaps the man felt the blow coming for he half turned and, instead of being stunned, had one eyebrow split open. He screamed as the blood spurted from his forehead. MacConnachie kicked again but the man was falling backwards and the blow caught him in the kidney. The third time MacConnachie kicked him in the groin.

‘Come on – finish him!’ MacConnachie shouted.

Ansell blundered out at last to join the fight. The man was screaming repeatedly and now he tried to wriggle forward off the ledge, begging perhaps for mercy. Arms bound tightly behind him, MacConnachie fell awkwardly on top of him, trying to pin the man down by weight alone.

‘For Christ’s sake, kick him!’

Ansell kicked out at the weaving head. It was a poor shot, catching the man low on the cheek, sending his chin awry but otherwise achieving nothing beyond renewed screaming. He tried again. This time he broke the man’s nose and a wild drowning quality was added to the already riveting sounds of his terror. Once more, in sick desperation, Ansell lashed out and caught MacConnachie in the forehead.

‘In Christ’s name, finish him!’ MacConnachie screamed.

Ansell could see that he was barely able to hold the man now, so greatly had pain and the fear of death increased his strength. They were being carried together, in their locked struggle, towards the lip of the shelf. Ansell took careful aim and drove his foot at the head once more; the teeth crumbled inwards under his toe. The man screamed and screamed and would not die. Ansell lost control. He kicked and kicked until, at the third blow, he felt the man’s temple give a little under the impact, and at last he fell silent.

‘Is he dead?’

‘Oh God. Oh sweet Christ in heaven.’

MacConnachie hauled himself upright, calculated the position of the head, and stove in the skull wall with two carefully judged blows from his loaded toe-caps.

‘He is now.’

Ansell wandered off a little, turned, and crouched against the cut of the shelf.

‘I’m going to be sick.’

MacConnachie rocked his head back and forth in outrage and a sort of grief.

‘Messy killing,’ he cried. ‘God, I hate messy killing!’

Ansell found that he had no urge whatever to vomit; nothing came. Roughly, MacConnachie said, ‘Come on.’

Ansell joined him.

Back to back, they dragged the body to the rear of the shelf and stripped it. Under the first layer of clothing they found, tucked into a pouched belt, a fish knife with a thin, sharp, eight-inch blade.