Dunne wasn’t alone in executing his duties. He just added some extra spin to the game. Even before his era, back in the 1970s, the IRA had killed local people who offended them and left the bodies by the road as a warning to others. At times they took to burying the bodies at night in the bogland. Then the captives just disappeared, gulped down by the soggy earth.

Their relatives never knew where they had vanished to, or even why. The disappeared existed only in hushed talk and creased photographs showing them with awkward smiles, in haircuts and clothes from the decade they had died in, sideburns and perms, flares or drainpipe jeans. Time dumped them there and ran on without them.

One was the widowed mother of ten children. After she was seized from the family home in West Belfast one night, her youngest children huddled close together for weeks like frightened puppies, with their fifteen-year-old sister struggling to play the role of mammy. The authorities were eventually alerted to what was going on, whereupon they promptly separated the children from each other and dispatched them to various institutions.

For many years Dunne was one of the prized British sources at the heart of the IRA, tipping them off as to who was planning what, when and how. He saved lives with his information and took others with his gun. As his story came out, I became fascinated with this man. Inside him, pulverised by his contradictions, what kind of dust was left, what smear of essence?

Dunne was different from other informers, not least in the enigma of his motivations. He was never touched or harmed by anyone. There was a good reason: for the longest time he gave everyone above him exactly what they needed. For the IRA he was the cheerful enforcer of internal discipline, the whistling butcher who was endlessly willing to roll up his sleeves and plunge into stomach-churning tasks that others avoided. For the British he held the key to the IRA cupboard of secrets. Either master could potentially have destroyed him, so he dutifully served them both.

So Dunne wasn’t a psychopathic zealot after all. He was a psychopathic pragmatist, the poster boy for everything the Troubles became once the last of the fantasies dribbled out of them. He took care of business. He sucked up the cash. He played the ball, in all its intricate moves. He stayed on his feet until the final whistle blew. Dunne’s hidden away somewhere now, hardly anyone knows exactly where. The main thing is, he’s still alive.

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