At the appointed time the next day, his mother drove him up to the entrance to the alley and sat waiting in the car while he made his way along to where the man stood, masked, gun in hand. The boy’s mother had made him wear shorts, to keep both the bullet wound and his clothes clean and save the expense of buying a new pair of tracksuit bottoms. She’d sat in the car, waiting for the punishment to be done, fingering a pair of rosary beads as she convinced herself that she’d done the right thing. When she heard the crack of the shot, she got out. The masked man passed her, pulling off his balaclava. ‘Tell him it’ll be in the head the next time, if he doesn’t clean up his act,’ she’d been told.

She went up to where he lay writhing on the ground. They’d shot him through the calf muscle, the bullet exiting the other side so that the wound was clean. She helped him to his feet and drove him to the hospital. A month later, he was back in school, hobbling along the corridors, on his way to the toilets at breaktime, business as usual.

Tony had reflected on the discussion in the staffroom after the events, the scornful manner in which his colleagues had spoken about the mother, about her choices. In doing so, he’d assumed that everyone felt the same way, that everyone considered this abnormal, could see that such behaviour was aberrant, and was destined to dwindle and die. Recent events had forced him to reconsider, though. The rise in populism in the community had strengthened feelings in favour of such rough justice. As such groups tightened their hold on the local estates, their rejection of the uneasy peace inculcated itself among the generations growing up. It was children such as those whom Tony had assumed would want to see a return to violence, not those like Barr whose family had suffered through it.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, about your grandfather,’ he managed, finally.

They’d moved deeper into the forest now. Across to their left, a huge elm had fallen, its broken bough resting against the limbs of an oak next to it, supporting its weight. For a moment, he wondered if it was the trunk they had used as a makeshift bridge, but this tree fall was too recent, the leaves still fresh on the branches. Besides, there was no stream nearby that he could hear.