It all began smoothly on day one, with the Sergeant Major strenuously demonstrating the correct procedure on his own father’s gleaming red Ford. It was to be Titch’s job to fill the water-buckets, and mine to rinse and clean the different cloths. Then we set to work, but by midday I could see Titch’s mouth drooping sullenly, and a lead-limbed, lackadaisical quality sneaking into his polishing. Titch never really understood the concept of delayed gratification. At one point he went off down an alleyway on his own, and was sitting there gratefully peeling a chocolate bar when I found him and dragged him back.

The next day, at the appointed hour for beginning the car-washing, I was there all by myself. There was no sign of Titch, or the water-buckets which he had carted home the day before, grumbling. Sammy and I went round to Titch’s house: nobody there, and no explanatory note – nothing. Sammy was livid. He had to go begging for water-buckets and help me do it himself, abandoning his superb supervisory role as our manager, or risk angering his new customers. He damned Titch – the lazy big fathead – to high heaven. When Titch and his mother arrived back the next day, from a visit to his grandmother in Larne, the Sergeant Major wouldn’t speak a word to him for a fortnight.

‘Titch isn’t too good,’ I said. ‘Four paramilitaries dragged him out into waste ground last night and gave him a terrible hammering.’

Sammy’s expression took on a curious mixture of surprise and intimate understanding. He leaned close, and asked in a lowered voice, ‘Was he dealing drugs?’

I stared back at him. ‘Sammy, catch a grip. Titch can hardly get around to dealing you a hand of cards, there’s no way he’d be up to drugs.’

‘Well why did they do him, then?’

‘He got into a row with old McGee, who runs that corner shop. Titch nicked a packet of Jaffa Cakes. McGee’s son is involved.’

‘Jaffa Cakes.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘And they did him for that?’

‘They did him for that.’

‘Poor bastard.’

Sammy started chewing over this information, soaking up its future implications for himself. He shook his head, slowly and sorrowfully: ‘They’re really getting out of control now. Everything you want to do, or think of doing, they’re on your back. They came round the other month asking for a slice from the car valeting business.’

‘And what did you tell them?’

‘I cut them down. What they were asking for at the beginning was a joke: there wouldn’t have been any business left in a year to take anything out of. But you’ve got to give them something, or—’ he broke off, raised his eyebrows, and mimed striking a match ‘—and I don’t want to collect any insurance money on my place just yet. I like it where I am.’