Were he not concerned with appearing rude, McAvoy would be in his bedroom, upstairs at the end of the bare corridor. He would be sitting in the hard-backed chair, feet on the windowsill, reading by the light of the street lamp. He may even have a big bag of Galaxy Minstrels open on his lap, chocolate adhering to his fingertips and leaving smudges over the neat lined pages of his jotter. He finds peace in such moments, and McAvoy knows that peace is a commodity to be treasured. He is not a man at ease with the world or his place within it. He feels permanently displaced; dislocated – endlessly cast an outsider. He’s still the lumbering, red-haired Scotsman who left the family croft at ten years old and has been looking for ‘home’ ever since. He doesn’t know what it is to fit in; doesn’t know how it feels to introduce himself and not have somebody laugh and ask him how it’s spelled. It’s been the same for twenty years. Never one of the lads. He was too poor, too shy, too big, too clever to be part of the in-crowd at boarding school. Had to sit with a teacher when there was a coach trip to an inter-school sporting event, even though the other lads knew he was their best player. Never had anybody in his corner when the school allowed him to participate in amateur boxing. Won every bout to the sound of the polite applause of strangers. He only managed a year and a half at university, quitting when he realized that he’d learned more during the shifts at the little bookshop where he had a part-time job, than in eighteen months of intensive university education. He spent time travelling, teaching rugby, fitness, English as a foreign language. He considered joining the Armed Forces, before the ethics of the whole affair threatened to tie him in knots. The idea of joining the police rather crept up on him. There was no thunderbolt moment. He just wanted to do some good; to help people, to try and stop bad people from getting worse. He’s been a copper for six years now and has answered none of his questions about the nature of people; about good and evil, decency and justice. He just bumbles through, trying to only ever do that which he can live with, and hoping that he never again finds himself in a situation where he has to choose between being a good police officer, and a good man.