It turns out that here isn’t much better than there was. For a start, Cloisters has gambling only a bus ride across the Hudson. Which means on the weekends all the city arseholes come to throw away their hard-earned, watch one hundred per cent nude ladies and crash in hotels that are a lot cheaper than Atlantic City. Plus we’ve got our indigenous arseholes too. Six years have gone by and sometimes I think I should have stayed in New York. More than sometimes.

I’m moving on as soon as the hair grows in. Once I have hair I’ll be happy. That’s what I tell myself. I may have left it too late.

I make myself watch Macey Barrett die, because that way it means something. I don’t want to kill a man then shut my eyes while he dies. You make these things hard, or else they get easy. I’ve killed men before, but only three, and never like this. Never so close that I can see eyelashes flickering or hear the rattle in their chest like there’s a handful of beads in there. In the army you could always tell yourself: This is war. You get a pass for war. But here and now, in a pill shop in Jersey, it feels like this sort of thing shouldn’t be happening. Violent death is supposed to be consigned to my past. Dr Moriarty would call it an anachronism.

Barrett goes slow, jerking like there’s a current passing through him. Blood everywhere.

What do you expect? You put a spike in his jugular.

For some reason, my subconscious sounds like Zeb.

In the final spasm, Barrett loses his grip on the stiletto in his fist. It twirls straight up like a cheerleader’s baton, burying itself in a suspended-ceiling tile.

I relax a little. That’s justifiable homicide in my book, but perhaps not in every book. Michael Madden, for example; his book might read a little different. Irish Mike will cut me down for killing his man. Simple as that. I need to confuse this issue as much as possible.

First step, lock the goddamn door, stupid.

The key is still where I put it. I’m not a squeamish individual, but pulling that key out makes me cringe a lot more than sticking it in did. It comes loose with a familiar sucking noise, as though it’s found a nice warm home and doesn’t want to leave.

Familiar sucking noise? No one should be familiar with that particular sound, but I am. It reminds me of the time I decided to have a go at pulling a triangle of shrapnel out of my own side; it was just before I passed out.

I fumble the key into the lock and twist it, about fifteen seconds before one of Zeb’s customers tries the handle.