It must have scared him, McGee’s murder. From what I had overheard out in the yard that night, he was already getting frightened before it. He understood right from wrong; not enough yet perhaps, but a bit at least. I thought about his pale face the night he had tried to warn me to get out. He had taken a risk for me, that night.

If I left him alone there I knew it was only a matter of time before someone else found him, someone built along the same lines as McGee.

The next time I went back to Belfast I didn’t see him around at all for a couple of days. Then I spotted him one evening hanging out alone on his wall as the daylight died, hunched in his bomber jacket. I sneaked up behind him.

‘Hello stranger,’ I said.

He jumped and turned around to look at me, surprised for a second before he remembered to seem blasé.

‘I thought you were in England.’

I vaulted over the wall. He wasn’t smoking, but there were two squashed cigarette butts on the ground directly beneath his dangling trainers.

‘Well, not at the moment,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t be here talking to you.’

‘Aye,’ he said.

‘How’s tricks?’ I said.

‘Okay, I suppose. Jeanette’s gone off to college.’

‘D’you miss her?’

‘Now and then. When she’s not here I’ve got her room, though.’

‘Come on and I’ll buy you a plate of chips and a cup of tea in the café.’

He liked the sound of that: although his shrug affected indifference, he was down off the wall in a jiffy.

The café combined a general air of decline with a brisk trade: its paintwork was peeling, but its deep-fat fryer was rarely out of action. Once we were sitting opposite each other over the scarred Formica table top, I got down to business.

‘I heard you got a bit too close to the action not long ago,’ I said.

He looked at me warily with his light, narrowed eyes, trying to work out what I knew and how.

‘McGee,’ I said, and took a slurp of my tea, watching him.

There was a silence, as he fussed about with the salt and vinegar on his chips, buying time.

‘Who told you that?’ he said.

‘A wee bird.’

He paused for a second, then dropped his voice.

‘Was it you that shot him?’

‘Now why would I do that?’ I said.

‘You know why,’ he said.

He sat back in his chair, staring.

‘I suppose I did have a reason,’ I said with a minimal smile. ‘But you know I’m not really that kind of person.’