‘Very little,’ Duggan said. ‘Or a lot. It’s up to you, really. Whatever you feel comfortable with.’

Tony glanced across the bar as the doors opened and a group of youths poured in. He recognised a number of them from the previous year’s group of school leavers. Among them, he spotted Shauna Laird. She looked very different out of uniform, her eyes heavily made up and smoky, her hair styled, her lipstick bright red. She seemed to be aware she was being watched for she looked across and smiled brightly when she saw him. She said something to her friends and moved across to where he sat.

‘Hi, sir,’ she said. ‘How’re you?’

‘Tony,’ he said. ‘You’re out of school now. What’s the craic?’

She laughed exaggeratedly at the idiom and he began to suspect she’d taken something. Her pupils were wide, almost filling the iris, her mouth seeming frozen in a smile, her foot tapping to a different beat from the music playing through the bar’s speakers.

‘Drama Society night out,’ she said.

‘How’s college?’

‘Amazing,’ she smiled. ‘Not as good as your class, though!’

She laughed, then stood, waiting for Tony to say something.

‘It’s good to see you, Shauna. Have a good night,’ he said.

‘And you, sir,’ she said, then corrected herself. ‘Tony.’

He watched her walk away, her skirt barely reaching halfway down her thighs, her legs bare.

‘She’s only out of school?’ Duggan whistled. ‘She’d get a man in trouble.’

An hour and three pints later, Duggan excused himself to go to the toilet. A television played soundlessly above the bar. The report focused on a boat, the Eksund, which appeared to have been boarded by the French police. The officers in question beamed at the cameras as they displayed an array of weaponry. One of them held a small, red hexagonal block, the size of an altar candle. The report cut to footage of a car exploding on Royal Avenue in Belfast, then back to a reporter standing on a docks, behind which the police could be seem carrying boxes off the boat.

‘Hey, hey! Martin!’

The sound of Duggan’s voice, raised in greeting, caused Tony to turn. Hugh was shaking hands with a younger man, heavy built, soft featured, his hair cut tight to his scalp, who wore a satchel across his body so the bag rested on his hip.

‘Another one, love?’ Betty asked.

Tony nodded. He already felt groggy, the stout heavy on his stomach. He’d struggle through school the next day. He’d a Year 8 class who were over-enthusiastic to say the least. That first thing in the morning, combined with a hangover, didn’t bear thinking about.

Duggan came across, just as Betty set down the pair of single malts.

‘Good man,’ he said, raising the glass in a toast. ‘Slainte,’ he said, then drained it. He spotted the tail end of the news report.

‘Fucking awful business,’ he said.

Tony glanced up at the screen again, shrugging. ‘What happened?’