Ellis had been the sort of schoolboy who pulled the legs off insects for fun. Will knew this because, long before a quirk of fate had reunited them, he and Ellis had been at school together. Yes, Ellis was always cruel. Immature too, for when Will had moved on to worldlier pursuits – mostly involving Jessica Moran’s brassiere and gaining unfettered access to the contents thereof – Ellis had still been torturing first formers for their dinner money.

And now here they were in the same army. Except that Ellis – having had a few years start through leaving school early, on account of being a thick bastard – had three stripes on his arm where Will had none.

The figure on the floor lay naked, bound hand and foot, curled into a semi-foetal position, and shivering in the cold of the barn. Ellis circled, his face contorted into a school-bully grin of evil pleasure.

“What we going to do with him, Sarge?” Will’s breath formed a mist in the cold air.

Ellis continued his slow circling of the prisoner. “You know what the best torture instrument is?” He could have been making polite conversation at a dinner party.

“No, Sarge.”

“The one every squaddie gets issued with on his first day in the army.” He slammed his right foot into the prisoner’s back producing a groan. “The boot DMS.” He checked to see that the man’s flesh hadn’t marked his shiny toecap.

“Shouldn’t we hand him over?”

Ellis circled some more and shook his head slowly. “You see the trouble with your terrorists is they don’t like rules. Isn’t that right, Paddy?”

The prisoner’s eyes burned up at Ellis but he made no reply. “They like to call themselves an army. Only they ain’t got no Queen’s Regulations like we have. They can go around kneecapping people they don’t like whereas we have to play by the book.” He was round the front of the prisoner now and he smiled. “Except tonight I seem to have left my rule book at home.” His right boot slammed into the man’s genitals producing a cry of pain.

“But, Sarge. . .”

“Look, son.” Ellis was only a year older than Will but he always called him ‘son’; it annoyed Will and Ellis knew it. “What happens if we hand him over?”

“He gets locked up, Sarge.”

“Precisely. All nice and cosy in a warm cell with three meals a day. Only he’s a political prisoner, so in a couple of years some chinless wonder in Westminster lets him go and calls it a peace process.” Ellis delivered another kick and a trickle of blood ran from the prisoner’s mouth. “He deserves to suffer for what he’s done.”

Will was getting scared. “We don’t know he’s done anything.”

“Don’t be a twat all your life, son. He’s a paddy, they’re all fucking at it, why else is he hanging around at night? And why did he drop this when we stopped him?” Ellis hefted the gun, an old-fashioned revolver with an eyelet on the butt to attach a lanyard.

“I swear to God, I found it, I was going to hand it in.”

“Suddenly he’s kissed the Blarney Stone. Nobody asked you, Paddy.” Ellis delivered a kick that broke the man’s nose.

“He says he found it, Sarge.” Despite the cold Will’s hands grew sweaty on his rifle.

“Found it, my fanny. He’s a provo, I can smell it.” Another kick and the prisoner spat out a tooth.

Ellis crouched down now and placed the barrel of the gun against the man’s temple. “How many squaddies have you killed, eh?” There was no answer, Ellis pulled back the hammer of the revolver and the Irishman emptied his bowels. “You filthy bastard.”

The bang echoed around the barn. A neat entry wound marked the side of the man’s head, but from the spreading pool of dark blood Will knew the other side of the skull would be shattered. Ellis straightened up. “Looks like a punishment killing to me, wouldn’t you say?”

“Y. . . Yes, Sarge.”

“I’ll call it in, wait there.”

Ellis marched out to the Land Rover, Will moved to a corner of the barn and vomited.

When Ellis returned it was without the revolver. He looked Will square in the eyes. “This is just how we found him, son, no sign of a weapon.”

“No weapon?”

“Definitely no weapon.”

Will knew Ellis had hidden the revolver somewhere, probably in the Land Rover. A deniable gun was valuable and no doubt he had other plans for it.

They waited in silence for about twenty minutes until the clatter of a helicopter announced the arrival of reinforcements. Captain Wilkins entered the barn with two local policemen.

“What have we got Sarn’t Ellis?”

Ellis snapped smartly to attention. “Looks like a punishment killing, sir!”

“Any sign of a weapon?”

“No, sir, but we can’t do a proper search until daylight.”

“No, quite.” The captain looked at Will. “Are you alright, private Lawson, you look pale?”

Will nodded.

“Good man.”

The policemen were bending over the body. “Dear God, isn’t it Mary O’Connell’s boy? Sure he was a bit of a dunce, but I never had him for a wrong one.”

“It’s rough justice all right. He must have upset the wrong man.”

Yes, thought Will, he’d certainly done that.

Norfolk, September 2000

Isolated was the word that best described Will's smallholding. The nearest village stood almost two miles away by winding lanes and then you faced a further mile of rutted track before you reached the two-room cabin with its clapboard walls and corrugated roof.

Will lived alone, though Megan the border collie was seldom far from his side. The locals viewed him as a bit of a recluse but that was the way he liked it. He didn't read newspapers, seldom had time for TV or the radio, just tended to his livestock, scratched a living from his land and kept himself to himself. But at night Ulster still haunted his dreams.

He knew, deep down, that he ought to have reported Ellis, but who would have believed him? A lowly squaddie's word against that of a respected sergeant? And in any case, Ellis was a dangerous man to cross, Will himself could have ended up as just another statistic of the troubles. That was how he justified his lack of action to himself, but it didn't stop him waking in the night, drenched in sweat, the name Ellis turning to a scream on his lips.

The town was a place where Will ventured only out of necessity. Now as autumn neared and the spring lambs, grown nicely fat, were ready for market that necessity called. He loaded four reluctant sheep into his battered pickup and headed for the fortnightly cattle sale. Megan rode alongside him in the cab, sitting upright on the seat and leaning into the corners like a motorcyclist.

It was on the way back that he spotted the placard outside the newsagents. 'Bandit Country Enquiry Grips Nation' in thick, black marker on the yellow sheet. And Will knew. Without even seeing a copy of the paper he knew the past was about to reassert itself.

Will threw himself into his chores that evening, mending the damaged boundary fence, feeding the animals, faithful Megan always at his heels. But then came darkness. Jobs completed, supper eaten, he paced the inside of the cabin as the sightless, grey eye of the portable TV followed his every move.

Eventually he succumbed and switched it on. The picture arrived distorted and snowy, and Will spent a few minutes fiddling with the loop aerial until it became half watchable. Then he slumped into the sagging armchair and stared at the screen as Megan dozed with her nose resting on her front paws.

((“Good evening and welcome to Newsnight. As Lord Bullen’s public enquiry into the so called ‘Bandit Country Killings’ in the mid-1970s moves into its second week, we can go over live now to our reporter, Julian Hayes, who has been watching the proceedings, Julian.”

“Thank you, Kirsty. Events in the Bullen enquiry took a dramatic turn today, as Roger Merchant QC – acting on behalf of the victims’ families – began his cross-examination of the man identified only as ‘Soldier X’.

“Giving his evidence from behind a screen, and speaking in a low voice, Soldier X revealed that he had been present at all five killings but that he was too scared to speak out because he feared for his own safety.”))

In the cabin Will swallowed and gripped the arms of his chair a little tighter. No one had been present at the murders except himself and Ellis. And that meant that Soldier X was either lying or...

((“When Mr Merchant asked him why he’d come forward now, Soldier X explained that after twenty-five years he could no longer stand by and see the culprit escape justice.

“Mr Merchant then asked Soldier X if he’d be willing to name the killer. There was a long pause before he answered, ‘Yes.’ At that point Lord Bullen intervened and asked Soldier X to write the name on a slip of paper rather than speak it aloud. Shortly afterwards proceedings were adjourned for the day. Back to you in the studio, Kirsty.”

“Thank you, Julian. And we have news just coming in that police have issued a warrant for the arrest of a man in connection with the murders of five people, in South Armagh, over the winter and spring of 1975.

“He’s believed to be a former soldier in the South Staffordshire Regiment and has been named as William Lawson.” ))

Will wouldn't have been less able to move if he'd been paralysed. The TV moved on to different pictures and sounds but they didn't register on his brain. Fifteen minutes of a late night movie had passed before, with a superhuman effort, he forced himself up from the chair and turned off the set.

For a moment there was silence, then from outside came a distant bark that might have been a fox, and which caused a cackle of unease amongst Will's chickens. Suddenly he knew what he must do, he drew himself up to attention with a smartness that would have made his sergeant-major proud. The sudden movement woke the dog and she raised her head and cocked a quizzical ear.

Crossing to the steel cabinet, shiny and incongruous against the exhausted furnishings of the rest of the cabin, Will took out the shotgun. The well-used mechanism broke easily and he loaded a single cartridge. He snapped the gun closed and stepped outside.

Alone in the cabin, Megan whimpered and scratched at the closed door.