Tough woman, too. She hadn't answered anything, but her eyes that were red from weeping had told half the story, and a sergeant who was a family man had extracted from the seven-year-old out of sight on the stairs that her Da had been taken out of the house fighting and kicking and crying for his life. And that had been the start of the waiting time.

By the time the woman saw her man's body she would know what he had been, what he had suffered.

He knelt at the edge of the tarmacadam and carefully turned the body over. The player had seemed a slight man when they had met in car parks, behind pubs, at railway stations and super-markets. But he was dead weight now. The cigarette burns were bright on the pale chest amongst the sparse gingery hairs. The handler shuddered. They had had him for a week, a good clear week since the big men in their combat jackets and their balaclavas had bullocked into his house. A week before they had hooded him, trussed him with twine, put him into the boot of a car or the back of a van, and driven him to the killing ground.

He saw that the hands were tied together at the wrist and seemed to clutch at his privates, as if even at the moment of death he had flinched from another kicking. He heard the sigh of impatience from the major behind him and the fidgeting of the policemen. He couldn't blame them, couldn't blame anyone for wanting to be off this bloody awful hillside before darkness came down.

In time the player might have become seriously important. As it was, he had only been useful. He had wanted to please. That had been the worst thing about him. Pathetically eager to please. Perhaps they had rushed him.