You wait for him to come round but he's taking a while. You were impressed by how far the house is from any others, and decide that rather than the silenced Browning you brought you will risk using the shotgun he was carrying in the back of the Range Rover. You go back out to the car and fetch the gun and a box of cartridges. You lock the door behind you again.

He's awake, though his eyes look glazed and uncoordinated. You nod to him as you walk up and stand in front of him, slotting a couple of the brown-red cartridges into the gun. His eyes move oddly as he tries to focus on you. You are wearing dark blue overalls and a skiing balaclava similar to the one you used in London. The gloves you're wearing are black ski-silks. The Rt Hon. Edwin Persimmon MP is mumbling behind the tape and still trying to focus on you. You wonder if you hit him too hard with the cosh, and whether you ought not just to do it with the gun here and now and forget about the rest because it will be quicker and less dangerous for you, but you decide to stick to the plan. It's important; it shows that you are not just some nutter, and the extra risk lifts you onto another plane of chance and luck.

You turn and go to the pen full of foxhounds; they start barking again. You work both barrels of the gun into one of the chicken-wire hexagons at about waist height, until the gun fits, then you angle it downwards, bend slightly so that your shoulder is firm behind the stock of the gun, and fire both barrels into the mass of snarling dogs.

The gun kicks against your shoulder. The noise is stupendous in the breeze-block space. Smoke rolls through the pen, where one dog lies blown in half, two more are lying prone and whimpering on the concrete and the rest are barking madly; several of them are running round furiously in tight circles, scattering straw. You break the gun; the cartridges pop out and one of them hits Mr Persimmon in the chest. His eyes are wide and he is shaking the chicken-wire gate he's tied to with all the might he can muster. You reload the gun without taking it out of the mesh, then aim more carefully and fire a barrel at a time, killing two more of the dogs outright and wounding three or four. The smoke is thick for a moment, and tastes acrid in your throat.

The dogs sound frenzied now, howling high and anguished. One of the animals is still running round all the time, but it keeps slipping on the blood. You reload and fire again, killing another two of the foxhounds, leaving maybe half a dozen of them still leaping up at the walls and barking. The one running round in a circle is bleeding from one back leg, but hasn't slowed down.

You turn to Mr Persimmon and pull the bottom of the balaclava up over your mouth, and above the squeals and the howls and the barks you shout, "They enjoy it really, you know!" and wink at him. Then you reload the gun and blast another couple of them. You avoid the one running round in circles because you've decided you like that one.

The smoke makes you cough. You put the gun down and take the Marttiini out from the sheath in your right sock. You go over to Mr Persimmon, who is still shaking the gate he's tied to as best he can. It starts to slide down the wall with a scraping, grating noise, and you haul it upright again. His eyes are very wide. There is a lot of sweat on his face. You feel quite sweaty too. It's a warm evening.

You've left the bottom of the balaclava up so he can see your mouth. You go close to him so that he can watch you only through his left eye, and over the whimpers and whines and the few weak, hoarse barks from the pen opposite, you say,

"In Tehran, in the main cemetery, they had a red fountain; a fountain of blood, to the martyrs who died in the war." You stare at him, and hear him trying to say or shout something, the noises coming down his nose sounding clogged and distant. You're not sure whether he's swearing at you or pleading with you. "Those found guilty of capital offences during the later stages of the war weren't shot or hung," you continue. "They were made to contribute to the war effort too."

You hold the knife up so he can see it. His eyes can't go any wider.

"They bled them to death," you tell him.

You crouch down in front of him and make a deep downward incision into his left thigh, opening the artery to the air. The scream comes down his nose as he shakes the chicken-wire frame. The bright blood pumps out and up, spattering onto your gloved hand and jetting upwards in a pink spray that soaks his underpants and rises as high as his face, freckling it with red. You alter your grip on the knife to cut into the other leg. He's rattling the chicken-wire gate for all he's worth but everything holds and the gate can't slide forward because you're squatting there in front of it, blocking it with your boots. His blood spurts fiercely, shining in the overhead lights. It runs down both his legs, and drips off his underpants; it runs down to the trousers round his ankles and soaks into them.

You stand up, reach forward and take the neatly folded handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his jacket, flick it open and wipe the blade of the Marttiini on it until the knife is clean. The knife comes from Finland; that's why its name has such a strange spelling. It hasn't occurred to you before, but its nationality seems appropriate now and even funny in a grim sort of way; it's Finnish and you've used it to finish Mr Persimmon.

The blood is slowing now. His eyes are still wide but they look glazed again. He has stopped struggling; his body hangs limply, though he's breathing hard. You think he might be crying but maybe it's just sweat on his face, which is very pale now.

You actually feel rather sorry for him because he's become just another dying man, and so you shrug and say,

"Oh, come on; it could have been worse."

You turn and pack your stuff away and leave him there, the blood only dribbling now, his skin very white beneath the tan.

Some of his blood has gathered on the concrete in front of him, and joins with the pool slowly spreading from the cage full of dead or whimpering dogs.

You put the lights out and hold the Browning up at your shoulder as you open the door and then check the grounds outside with the night sight.

I want to weep. I'm with Y but she's brought her husband along. They turned up together at the paper but when reception rang through they just said that she was there so I went skipping down the stairs like a kid on a promise and then I saw them together in reception standing looking at the display showing staff photographers" most recent efforts and my heart sank into my shoes. Yvonne; tall and lithe and sveltely muscular in a dark skirt and jacket. Silk shirt. Black hair short, trimmed to the nape in a new, even more severe haircut, but jutting peaked over her forehead. She turned to me just as my face was completing its fall. She smiled apologetically.

And William, turning too; broad, handsome face bursting into a grin when he sees me. William; blond as Yvonne is dark, built like an Olympic oarsman, perfect teeth, and a handshake like a gorilla.

"Cameron! Good to see you! Been too long. How are you? Okay?"

"Fine, fine," I said, smiling as sincerely as I could, nodding up at him. William is high as well as broad; he towers over me and I'm a shade over six foot. Yvonne put her hands on my shoulders and kissed my cheek; she's almost my height in her heels. Heels; she prefers flatties and only wears heels because they bring her ass up to the right level when I'm taking her from behind. As she brushed her lips across my cheek I smelled her perfume: Cinnabar; my favourite. I exchanged pleasantries thinking, So much for taking the afternoon off.

"Right." William clapped his hands together and rubbed them together. "Where are we going to go?"