‘Yes, tomorrow night,’ I said, without elaborating. He took the items to the till and started totting up the cost. How the lies piled up. As I paid and walked away I could see him fussing over the masks with a slight frown on his face, re-hanging the Dolly Parton one at the front.

At the end of the day’s shopping, I had a canvas rucksack that contained the bones of my alternative identity: the Clinton mask, the moustache and the potato gun.

In a second compartment was a baseball cap, a dark blue canvas bomber jacket, a grey sweatshirt, a pair of trainers, some balls of cotton wool, and brown-rimmed reading glasses from Boots. There were also two small cushions from the home section of a department store.

In the third was wide brown masking tape and a pair of fine leather gloves from an old-style gentleman’s outfitters. The gloves were especially nice: supple, stretchy black leather, lined with silk. I caught myself regretting that they would have to be burned later on.

In the late afternoon, I stopped off at the bar of the Miller Hotel near Botanic Station and ordered myself a pint of Guinness. The barman’s face had long ago settled into a comfortable grouchiness, but his manner was friendly. An idea struck me.

‘Do you have many functions on here?’ I said, jerking my head towards the rooms behind me.

‘A couple of things every weekend,’ he said. ‘Weddings and work dos, stuff like that. Never ends.’

‘Got one on tomorrow?’ I said sympathetically.

‘Aye, a big wedding reception, about 120 people. They’re setting up some of the flower arrangements for it over there.’ He sighed: ‘The crazy money people spend on flowers.’

In the corridor outside the lounge bar I could dimly see some uniformed women reverentially carrying around small pyramids of lilies and greenery. A board outside the ‘function room’ bore the gold, stuck-on words ‘Conway and McManus: Sat: 3pm’. That could be John Mason’s wedding party, a sop to throw to Marie if necessary. I started walking back to my hotel through the late afternoon throng of chattering schoolchildren. As I was about to pass the Whistle, I ducked down a side street and took a diversion. The last thing I wanted was to bump into Murdie, or – worse still – any of his regular clientele.

I often found myself wondering whether McGee ever regretted what he had done to me and Titch. Here I was, having thought about McGee nearly every day since the beating. It seemed odd to think that I probably never entered McGee’s head at all. This was a hate affair, but the dynamics were pretty much the same as those of unrequited love. As time passed my rage had fermented and thickened while McGee was free to carry on without a backward glance.