Here, Patrick says to me, and he pulls a handgun out the waist of his trousers. He’s got a pair of chatsbys down there. I feel it in my hand for the first time. It feels heavy, carrying a gun. Anyone around you could snuff it at any moment. What a feeling.

Let’s go, Patrick says. We’re gonna scare the living shite out this guy. We leap over the fence and go barrelling after him. I forgot to tell you that Patrick had a moustache. It only added to the appeal.

We’re running up all these backstreets and there are always people lurking around the lanes back there in the Ardoyne and they see us with our guns and it’s like the sea, parting. People go flying over hedges, launch themselves through doorways, just generally getting the fuck out the way. Provos! Patrick shouts. Provos! Provos! The kid runs into this bin shed up ahead. On the wall, in white paint, it’s written: No Trustpassing. There’s nowhere left to go. But it’s getting dark by this point and we can’t really see the wee bastard. Patrick motions to me. He points to a big silver bin. I sneak up and topple it over and it empties all over the ground. Wrong bin, nothing but trash. Then the both of us just start tipping over the bins one after the other till he comes flying out in a flood of rotten vegetables and minking fish bones. He’s lying there on the ground and he’s whimpering and Patrick is fucking screaming about the state of his shoes. They’re fucking ruined, he says to him, thanks to you, you wee thieving bastard. Then he bends down, takes the guy by the ear, and wipes his shoes clean with his hair. What a move.

We drag this kid out into the lane and we hold him up against the wall. The place is silent, is eerie. It’s like we sucked all the air out the Ardoyne. There’s a time and a place for stealing cars, Patrick says to him, and it’s on the Shankill Road and not in our own fucking communities do-you-understand-me.

Do you know whose fucking car that was you stole? Pat says to him. The guy pishes himself right there in front of us, right down the front of his tracksuit trousers. And now he’s lying there fucking sobbing.

Look at him there. He’s only a wee fucking kid.