Prologue

As his mind cleared, the pain returned. Pain like he had never felt before, searing through his legs, his knees destroyed. He struggled to free himself, but he was strapped to a pallet, resting against a tree. The wire cutting deep into his wrists and ankles. And as his mind cleared, his vision cleared from the bright light of the dream to the darkness of the rain-soaked wood at midnight, and he remembered. And as he remembered, he heard the voices, low and muffled inside their black balaclava helmets. Protestant, East Belfast accents as clear as if they were wearing their team colours.

‘Shall we call it a day?’

‘Did he talk?’ There was no reply. Then from the darkness, Sean Kylie could see two more torches moving, and he knew this was near the end, and for the first time since he married, he thanked God.

‘You’re a harder man than my lads thought Mr Kylie.’ He knew his mind must have wandered, this was a Derry accent, soft and familiar; and for a second, he thought the torture was at an end.

‘The lads tell me that you’ve said nothing. That’s a shame; you could have saved all this bother and awkwardness.’ Kylie could feel the bile in his throat, and if he could find the strength, he would spit it at the shape.

‘The thing is, Mr Kylie, the lads just wanted to you to tell them what you’ve found out. I know what’s on your mind. What you’ve been trying to tell me. I’ve always known, but the youth of today, they don’t trust anybody. Not even me. So they wanted to hear it from your own lips.’ The voice was so close that Sean Kylie could feel the warmth of his breath; smell the stale cigarettes. Oddly, it gave him some comfort. Then he recognised another smell; fear and frustration, and that gave him more heart. But there was another smell as well; aftershave, sweet and sickly. It was a smell he remembered, but as he struggled to put a face to it, his vision blurred into another dream.

Sean Kylie never heard the final shot.