‘You’re spot on there, Dor,’ said Thomas. ‘Breaslain… do you want to go back down to the jacks and sling that young feller out on his ear? And make sure you take his stuff off of him, too. Tell him this is our turf and if we ever see him or any of his pals here again, we’ll have their mebs off and they’ll be singing like the Bee Gees on helium. Darragh – Milo – why don’t you two go down with him, just to show him that we’re not messing.’

The DJ on the dance floor below them was playing ‘Here With Me’ by Marshmello, and the club was even more crowded. Breaslain and Darragh and Milo clattered down the two flights of stairs to the toilets, although the music was so loud and the strobe lights were flashing so fitfully that they attracted no attention. Breaslain shouldered his way into the door that had a picture of a male zombie on it, so that it opened with a bang. The skinny young man in the rainbow sunglasses was still in there, talking to another young man with a beard. It looked as if euros and a wrap of ketamine were on the point of changing hands.

Breaslain said to the bearded young man, ‘Make tracks, boy. Go on.’

‘You what? Who the feck are you?’

‘Are you deaf or something? I said, mowsie on. Like, now.’

‘I will in me ring. I’m not done here.’

‘You are now.’ Breaslain grasped his shoulder, swung him around and punched him hard in the stomach. Ten-euro notes fluttered to the toilet floor, mixed with a scattering of white crystals. The bearded young man doubled over, clutching his stomach, so winded that he could only squeak. Breaslain pushed him roughly towards Darragh and Milo, and between the two of them they slung him out of the toilet door so that he fell on to the floor outside, jarring his shoulder against the skirting board. Groaning, he started to climb up the stairs on his hands and knees.

The drug-dealer backed away until he was standing between the two urinals. He drew a large kitchen knife out of the inside pocket of his anorak and held it up high in front of him.

‘What the feck’s that for?’ Breaslain mocked him. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I have no poppies that need peeling!’

‘You stay back and leave me be!’ the young man retorted, although his voice was shaking, and he kept anxiously shifting his knife from one hand to the other. ‘I have friends upstairs, like, and they’ll soon sort you out!’

‘Oh, you have friends here, do you? Why don’t you whistle for them, then? But I can tell you this, boy, if your friends have been peddling the Special K here, the same as you have, they’re going to be in just as much shite as you are.’