McAvoy raises his hand to protect himself from the blow. Expects to feel metal slice through his skin like wire through rotten meat. Feels the thud of the other man’s hand instead: fist and handle thumping against the bone of his wrist. Pain shoots up to his shoulder and his fingers burn as if encased in hot lead.

A blow to the gut now; fist striking him fast, hard, below the ribs. He feels his breath rush into the air, the tightness in his lungs, the sudden pain as the smaller, faster man slams his head against his chin, once, twice, three times,. His feet slip on the sodden earth and he grabs forward, both hands around his attacker’s head, holding himself up, eyes swivelling around, desperately searching for the knife, kicking out, adrenaline sprinting through him like flame.

A sharp, sudden pain in his belly: the slash hook carving a smile into his stomach. He feels his strength leave him; hot blood running onto his thighs. Clatters back, landing hard, the man on top of him, pushing the bloody blade against his cheekbone, pressing down, teeth bared, the metal touching bone; the pain a white light; a scream of crimson agony.

McAvoy locks eyes with the man who is killing him. Wonders, as the darkness rushes in, what people will say when he is found. Wonders what will happen to Roisin. Whether there’s been any point to any of it. Whether Mum and Dad will argue about where his ashes are to be scattered.

He thrusts his right hand up, his palm catching the other man below the chin. His head snacks up like a lid on a hinge. Hits him again with his muddied, bloodied left hand. Pushes him up as if trapped beneath soggy timbers. Holds him, arms braced, staring into his eyes and seeing nothing. No fear, no rage. Just an endless blackness: two obsidian holes in the universe.

Then the roar. The throaty growl of thunder; of gravel churned by spinning wheels. And then the van is smashing into the pair of them and McAvoy is pushing himself into the soft earth, hands to his face, trying to throw the other man clear, and all is just metal and heat and tyres and sound.

And then the blessed blackness of oblivion.

Roisin Teague climbs down from the driver’s seat. She’s groggy. Her mouth is dry and her head pounds as if full of ungreased pistons. She walks unsteadily to where the figure lies, sprawled in the mud and blood and glass. One leg is bent the wrong way at the knee. Steam rises from his chest as if from compost. There’s blood all over his face and it is caved in where the van struck him hard enough to crack the glass.

She turns back. Walks on jelly legs to the van. Crouches down. Sees the big man sandwiched between the damp earth and the rusting metal of the chassis. Smells blood and churned earth.