Surprisingly, Oldcastle turned out to be an easy guy to spend time with. He was quiet and knew how to occupy himself, probably from long practice. He read, mostly travel books and biographies, watched television and videos and did cryptic crosswords. His collection of LPs, cassettes and CDs surprised me. He listened to everything from Beethoven to the Black Sorrows. He told me that Joe Camilleri was the equal of any American or British modern musician and I listened and had to agree. The classical stuff tended to make me sleepy. He noticed me nodding off somewhat during something by Brahms or Bach or Haydn, one of them, and he turned the music off.

‘Show you something,’ he said.

He switched the light off in the room, slid the glass door open and went out onto the balcony. I followed him-a body that knows something about bodyguarding is that much easier to guard. He drew my attention to a smashed and twisted section of the aluminium door frame and some deep pitting of the bricks nearby. ‘You’d know what this is, wouldn’t you, Hardy?’

‘Sure. How close were you?’

‘Too bloody close.’

The damage was on a level with my nose. Oldcastle was about five foot ten, say, two and a half inches shorter than me. Forehead or temple, depending. Fatal either way.

Oldcastle stepped back inside, turned on the light and went across to a drinks tray that he kept near the fridge. Old-fashioned set-up but nothing wrong with it. He lifted a bottle of Cutty Sark and looked at me enquiringly. I nodded and he poured two solid ones over ice. We sat down well away from the still-open door.

‘Cheers,’ Oldcastle lifted his glass, drank and pointed at the balcony. ‘Trouble is, I couldn’t tell if they were meant to miss and just scare me, or if the shooter wasn’t quite up to it. The light would’ve been tricky at the time.’