‘I s’pose it just looks so little to you because you’re used to a great old city,’ Wynne said. ‘My sister had a toy farm a couple of years back. It had little pigs, little cows and even a little farmhouse. She loved it for ages, and even now she plays with it a couple of times a week. Does your sister . . . what’s up? Why are you grabbin’ my arm?’

Silently, Jimmy pointed down the hill towards the town. Glenys had bought him an old pair of rubber boots just like Wynne’s, and now he was pointing at their tracks, which led plainly from the town below. ‘See that man follerin’ our boot marks?’ he said in a hollow voice. ‘He’s too far away for me to see his face. Is he – is he anyone you know?’

Wynne shrugged. ‘I dunno. Does it matter?’ he said indifferently. ‘I don’t know every bleedin’ feller what climbs in the hills. I expect he’s a farm worker takin’ a short cut home for his tea.’

Jimmy looked desperately around him, but all he could see was snow, smooth and even, with only their footprints breaking the monotony. And the man was getting nearer; a big man, red-faced from the climb, but even as Jimmy moved closer to Wynne he realised that the man was a stranger; not a Huxtable but an unthreatening farm worker, as Wynne had guessed. The man grinned at them. ‘Afternoon, both,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Make the most of the weather, because there’s a thaw forecast for tomorrow.’

‘Thanks for the warnin’, Bob,’ Wynne said cheerfully. ‘We’ll get some tobogganing in whilst the snow lasts, though.’

The man continued on his way and Jimmy felt quite light-headed with relief, but the small incident had reminded him that they were not here just to enjoy themselves. Glenys’s job finished today and he supposed that, since he had visited every Griffiths in the area without finding one who had heard of his mother, it was pointless for them to remain. He realised Wynne was staring at him. ‘What was up with you when you first saw Bob?’ his friend asked curiously. ‘I can tell you, you looked as though you’d seen a ghost. Did he remind you of someone? Someone who scares you? Now I come to think of it, for all I know you could be a thief or a murderer, fleeing from the cops as they say in the cinema. I’m sure you looked scared enough.’

It was Jimmy’s turn to shrug and feign indifference. ‘You don’t know much about me because there isn’t much to know,’ he said. ‘But if you’re interested, from a distance Bob looked a bit like a neighbour of ours back home in Liverpool. He’s a seaman, and Mo and I steer clear of him when we can, so it was a nasty shock to see someone who looks like him coming up the slope of the hill.’

‘But why should he be here, in the middle of nowhere?’ Wynne persisted reasonably. ‘I don’t get it, laddo. You said he’s a seaman, but we’re miles and miles from the sea. So why did you look so scared?’