He took two steps closer to the young man, and the young man made a jabbing gesture with his knife and said, ‘You want some of this? Come on, then!’

Breaslain didn’t hesitate. He dodged to his right in a feinting movement, and when the young man stabbed at him he swung back to his left, seizing the young man’s wrist and bending it backward so violently that it gave a complicated crackle, like a branch breaking. The young man let out a shrill scream and dropped his knife on to the toilet floor. Breaslain bent down to scoop it up, and while the young man was whimpering and flapping his hand, he stabbed him in the stomach, just above his belt buckle, forcing the knife in right up to the handle.

There was a shocked silence. The only sound was the disco music from upstairs. The young man’s rainbow glasses slid from his nose and he stared at Breaslain with a mixture of disbelief and sadness, as if he wished that he had never come here, trying to sell drugs, and that his life had never come to this.

Breaslain stayed motionless for a few seconds. Then he clamped his left hand on to the young man’s shoulder and dragged the knife upward as far as his ribs, instantly flooding the front of his pale-blue T-shirt with blood. The young man sank on to his knees on the floor, clutching his stomach with both hands. Breaslain stood over him and said, ‘What was it that you was going to give me some of? Remind me, would you, you caffler?’

He looked around until he saw a circular grating in the toilet floor. He used the knife blade to prise it up, and then he dropped the knife down the drain.

Darragh was waiting by the open door and Milo was standing at the bottom of the stairs to make sure that nobody came down and saw what was going on. They were both expressionless, almost bored, showing the supreme disinterest of men who had witnessed so many stabbings and shootings and beatings that they no longer found them entertaining. The bearded young man had already crawled back up to the dance floor and disappeared.

Breaslain rinsed his bloody right hand in the washbasin and shook it. The young drug-dealer was still kneeling on the floor, bent forward, rocking slowly in agony, but making no sound at all. Breaslain looked down at him, gave his sunglasses a kick, and then said, ‘Come on, lads, out the gap.’ The three of them clambered up the stairs, letting the door of the gents’ toilet swing shut behind them.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t have dropped the blade down the drain, Brez!’ shouted Milo, over the music, as they crossed over the dance floor. ‘Maybe you should have put it back into the bowsie’s hand!’

‘What? What for?’