I tried not to brood on it, but I fiercely regretted the way I had lied and begged to him when I was frightened. Since a beating was coming anyway, I might as well have hung on to my dignity. The memory of how I had acted burned away at me, when I let the thought resurface. I hadn’t yet realised that one of violence’s slyest tricks is to make you feel dirty for having been on the wrong end of it.

I resented my preoccupation with McGee. I had never wanted someone like him in my thoughts at all. What did he think happened to us afterwards, the people he left cringing and bloodied on the ground, curled up like smashed hedgehogs? He didn’t think about us, of course. We were done deals, finished business. The idea that one of us might come back to destroy him would have seemed absurd.

I pictured him sprawled out on a cushion on his living-room floor, relaxing after his gym session, watching mafia films back to back surrounded by half-drained cans of tepid beer and empty takeaway cartons as the light died outside. Over-muscled stock phrases must sit around in his head, I imagined, ready to club to death any puny dissenting thought. ‘That wee shit had it coming to him’, ‘He should have shown me some respect’, ‘Nobody messes with me or my family’, ‘Let that be a warning to any other wee fuckers trying to take the piss’.

This last phrase was the precise point, in my imagination, at which I usually walked through the door and shot McGee dead.

Except that I wasn’t going to shoot him. It is difficult to get hold of a gun in London unless you hang around with gunmen, and I didn’t. Any such attempt would mean involving at least two other people in my plans.

I imagined asking Francis casually, for example, ‘Hey, where would I go about getting a handgun?’ His nostrils used to flare excitedly at any whiff of illegality like a horse’s snuffling above a ripe apple. He wouldn’t have been able to get me one himself, but among his so-called ‘underworld connections’ he probably knew someone who could.

I couldn’t bear the thought of being united with Francis in any kind of conspiracy, though. It was in his nature to blab. First he would gab to his coke buddies, excited for once to have some bona fide tale. Then, if he found out that I had actually used the gun, he would try and shed responsibility like a tight, itchy suit. One sharp query from an interested police detective and he would flood the room with wet confessions. It was clear that a real gun might create all kinds of unnecessary mess. So that’s how I had ended up with the Spud Gun, and the rudiments of a plan.

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