We were to do this guy in his house, this dirty lowlife snitch bastard getting plugged in his own home; it had all been arranged. Tommy knew him and he had no reason to suspect that anything was up. We were bringing him a bottle of Bushmills and a trout, this big fuck-off monster trout that Tommy got from a guy up The Shamrock. That’s how we did business. Show me the fella that can resist a big fuck-off trout pulled fresh out the river. So as we turn up. Bobby, his name was Bobby, this cunt Bobby. He opens the door and he’s pleased to see us. He gets Tommy in a headlock and starts rubbing his hair with his knuckles. His second name was Burns. Bobby Burns. Everybody used to call him Fat Burns. Just for a joke, like. Tommy starts play-fighting him. Cracking all these jokes and he’s laughing the whole time, Tommy was really playing with the cunt and laughing, like we were there to shoot him in the head but there was still enough leeway to take the pish.

I watched him mock-wrestling this clown on the sofa. I looked into his eyes and I could tell it was all real. He was completely there. At that moment I idolised him, so I did. He was my hero right then, Tommy was. Then he gets up, cold as you like, and there’s a mirror above the couch. The guy’s lying there laughing; this cunt’s cracking up. I’m unwrapping this huge fucking trout, this fucking dinosaur. I don’t know where they found this monster, it was like a fucking Plesiosaurus. And suddenly everything starts moving in slow motion.

I catch Tommy as he’s looking at himself in the mirror – just for a split second – a split second that seemed to last forever – and his eyes are smiling, I’ll never forget it, Irish eyes just smiling right back at himself; everything they say in the songs is true. And he fixes his hair. He licks his finger and he runs it through his hair and he fixes his parting. All in this film that has slowed to the point where you feel like you could live in it forever. And then he pulls the chatsby out his trousers in one big sweep and he looks down at Bobby and he smiles and he looks back at himself in the mirror and he pulls the trigger and he blows this guy away without even looking at him.

Three shots in the head and the guy’s face is a fucking mess. I says to him, ah for fuck sake, Tommy, why didn’t you put a fucking cushion over his head or something? But he grabs me in a headlock and starts playing with me the exact same, wrestling me around the room and rubbing my hair, like I was taking things too serious, or what.