‘From years ago,’ Tony had said. ‘He came to Danny’s funeral.’

‘He gives me the creeps,’ Ann said. ‘All softly spoken and polite, wearing loafers.’

Tony had laughed at the time. ‘I didn’t even notice what he was wearing. What have loafers to do with it?’

Ann considered the question, her eyes wrinkling at the corners as she smiled at her own comment. ‘It just seems wrong. A man like him wearing something as ordinary as loafers, like a regular person.’

Tony frowned quizzically.

‘A man who orders other people dead. You’d think he’d be recognisably different from the rest of us.’

Tony had straightened a little, did so even now as he thought of the conversation.

‘That idea that you could be talking to someone and not even know that they’d once killed another person. That gives me the creeps.’

She smiled, satisfied that she’d rationalised her thoughts to herself, then padded back into the kitchen. Tony followed slowly behind.

‘He’s Mullan’s nephew,’ Duggan explained now, nodding at Barr.

Tony nodded his head a little, as if indifferent to the information. ‘I guess Mullan himself is a little too important to be wandering around woodlands in the middle of Scotland.’

‘He was always too important. That’s why he had the likes of me,’ he said, then added after a slight pause. ‘And you.’

Tony smiled mildly, more at the pause than the comment. ‘How have you been?’

‘I’m still above ground and breathing,’ Duggan muttered. ‘What more can you want?’

Tony nodded. He wondered whether the man was married, had children, grandchildren. But he also realised that he didn’t really care enough to ask and, more importantly, wasn’t sure Hugh Duggan would even want to tell him.

‘When did you come back home?’

‘A few years after you,’ Duggan said. ‘Once the heat over the guy done in retaliation for your brother had passed.’

In all the time they had spent in each other’s company, all those years past, Duggan had rarely mentioned Danny or the policeman shot on the day of his funeral. Tony was surprised that he did so now, as if inviting him to question it further.

‘What have you been doing?’

‘I was building for a while until the recession killed it all off. You?’

Tony folded his arms. ‘I taught for another few years, then my wife took sick and I had to leave altogether.’

‘How is she now?’

‘She’s a … She passed away,’ Tony said, simply.

Duggan nodded. ‘You’re lucky. My two ex-wives are both still alive and bleeding me for every fucking penny they can get.’ He cleared his throat, sitting back in the seat, his arm stretched across the back of it and the seat next to him.

Tony regarded the man, trying to find some redeeming feature. His lack of empathy over Ann’s death was unsurprising, but nonetheless hurtful. He remembered why, by the time he left Scotland thirty years ago, he’d despised the man.

‘Tell me this,’ Duggan said, leaning forward suddenly. ‘After the whole thing with Kelly, did anyone ever come after you? Were you ever questioned?’