I says to him, I’m not indulging any stupid comics-fanboy superhero nonsense, she says. You do not want to get mixed up with these people, I says to him. These people are dangerous, I says to him, but he’s obsessing over it. You’ve been reading these comic books for too long, I says to him. I’m not mental, he says to me, I’m not mad. It’s a projection, I says to him. You’re projecting onto this fantasy figure, I says to him, but he just laughs at that. Imagine the power of projection, he says to me. That’s what you call art.

*

I start to notice changes with Davy and it’s like this supposed meeting with Special Branch has inspired him, she says. Can psychological warfare be as subtle as that? Could they have somehow hypnotised him by planting the seed of this idea and then the seed somehow grows under its own power or under the power of Davy’s fantasy? Thing is, he stops wearing his sloppy T-shirts and his training shoes and his baggy jeans and he starts to buying smart shirts and dress shoes. He starts to wearing a blazer into work and he even starts to wearing the cologne. Sorry, the aftershave, he starts to wearing the aftershave. I think to myself, okay, it’s good to aspire. It’s good to want to better yourself, if that’s all it is, then fine. Then good. He’s looking better than ever, I’ll be honest with you. He’s making an effort. I’m all for it. Then you lot go and kidnap me. Then he kicks the shite out your friend at the comic shop.

*

He didn’t kick the shite out him, I says to her, what happened was he accidentally kicked Barney in the head while he was flailing about trying to escape. Whatever, Kathy says, what he told me was that he split that cunt’s head wide open. That’s exactly what he says and, I mean, already that wasn’t like him. I split that fucking cunt’s head wide open, he says to me. I’m not going to argue the point, I says to her. It was a lucky kick, but whatever. So he kicks the shite out your friend, she says, and then he calls Special Branch and asks for an appointment with his alter ego. He says that he is ready.

*

The story that he told me was this: how he gets a number and is told to phone it at a certain time and to use a certain phrase. A certain phrase that he says he cannot reveal to me under pain of death.

Don’t tell me, I says to him: Flame on!