The day of Phyllis’s scheduled departure from Julie’s house was creeping nearer, and the Whartons had seemed okay with the notion of her visiting in exchange for a dollop more rent. As I boarded the packed bus home I decided to go to the travel agent’s in my break the following day and book her ticket. I found a cramped seat on the top deck, where the air smelled of damp woollen coats, and inched open my copy of the Irish Times. Two stories in, my eye fell on this:

KILLING CONNECTED TO INTERNAL LOYALIST FEUD, POLICE SAY

A man shot dead in the Sandy Row area of Belfast had close connections to loyalist paramilitaries, an RUC statement said yesterday. Witnesses said that Ronald ‘Rocky’ McGee, 28, was sitting in a parked car when he was approached on foot by two masked gunmen, one of whom fired several shots through the window of the driver’s seat, killing Mr McGee instantly. The men made their getaway in a nearby car which was later found burned out in a nearby estate. It is thought that the shooting is linked to an ongoing internal feud which has claimed several lives, beginning with the car bomb attack which killed Kenneth Bates, a father of two, in Bangor last January.

McGee was unmarried and lived alone in the Village area of South Belfast: he had a seven-year-old son by a previous relationship who lives with his former partner.

The victim’s Alsatian dog, which was in the back seat of the car, was unharmed after the attack.

I read it twice. I was shocked, I admit. It was such a stark form of resolution, the fact of his death.

I couldn’t deny the deluge of relief. If a desire for revenge had been warming in him regarding me or Phyllis it would never now get the chance to boil over. Just like that, a flick of fate from out of the blue, a wee tap from God’s finger, and I was rid of him.

Except that it wasn’t out of the blue. His end just came flying in from another direction, one I hadn’t considered. I wasn’t the only player in his drama. He had been planning something, that night with Marty. Perhaps his intended targets had got to him first.

I felt dizzy, as though the news had rushed too fast into my system. When I got off at the bus stop the glittering lights and sounds of the city seemed to swim and reel around me. I stumbled from the kerb to cross the road and a black cab gave a long, furious blast of its horn.