‘We both did,’ Glenn replied. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘I don’t mean then. I mean now. The man who killed my wife. I wanted you to know, I wanted to tell someone. There’s no one else I trust.’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘I told you what happened, I told you someone came to see me, someone who knew what happened that night with Angela. He came back.’

‘Who? Who came back?’

‘This same man. Same place. He knew I would be there. He came back and he gave me the opportunity to kill the man who murdered my wife. And I took it.’

Glenn’s cup was still suspended in mid-air.

‘And this isn’t some sort of a windup? A joke? Or you testing me out, seeing how I react?’

‘I wouldn’t joke. Not about this. I shot him.’

Glenn was clumsy finding the saucer with his cup; he didn’t look away, like he was waiting for Richard’s expression to break into a smile. Richard stared back. He was just as keen to see Glenn’s reaction when it sunk in, when he realised that his old mate wasn’t just some doddery old fool long past his best.

‘You’re serious!’ Glenn managed, finally.

Richard leaned back in his seat as he remembered the moment. ‘I was braced for it. It was a Browning, familiar like an old friend. Something we’ve fired a thousand times before, at targets, at people. But this time was nothing like I remember. I still felt it everywhere, but … it wasn’t like before. I used to recoil before it did, they told me that on the ranges. But not this time. It still had that same roar but it was like it was coming from me. You see this?’ Richard touched the corner of his mouth where the solid stock had split his lip. ‘I was so close to him when I did it that it caught me. I know better, but I wanted to look right at him.’

‘Have you lost your fucking mind?’ Glenn hissed. It barely registered. Richard wasn’t looking at him anymore, he wasn’t looking at anything. His eyes had glazed over, the memory of that moment still consuming him.

‘It was so beautiful, Glenn, you should have been there. All in a moment, it was vengeance and it was power … It was a release from everything! From mourning, from the feeling of utter, utter helplessness. I’ve had a problem, I thought it was stress. My heart thumps, I get short of breath, my eyes blur and I feel so weak. Like a proper old man. But today … there was none of that.’ Richard’s eyes snapped back to focus on his friend, ‘It wasn’t stress at all. It was fear. And I’m not scared of anything anymore.’