Well, of course, it wasn’t you. I know you’ve been dead for years. But he looks so like you, Mousey. Same hair; same eyes; even the same kind of clothes. He might be a few years older than me, but now he looks much younger. And he’s lost a lot of weight since we were boys, which is why for a moment I was confused. But then I recognized the man in the dark blue parka—you know, the one I saw the night that Poodle fell from the bridge. It was your brother—Piggy, as was—standing in the doorway, looking at me with your eyes. He was holding something under his arm. It looked like a copy of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

He smiled at me. “Can I come in?”

For a moment I just stared.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” he said.

I nodded.

“It’s been a long time.” From the album sleeve he pulled out a Xerox copy of an old School photograph. I’d seen it before, lots of times. It came out at Harry’s trial. Harry and Johnny, at Sports Day, with me in the background.

I nodded again. “Come in,” I said. “I’ll make a pot of green tea.”

I think that, even then, I must have been contemplating murder. That album under his arm was the clue; the sleeve now spotted with age and neglect. He must have retrieved it very soon after I buried my time capsule. Maybe he watched me hide it there, from behind a burned-out car. My treasures; the Christmas card to Harry; the list of albums I’d meant to buy; and the pages torn from my diary that I couldn’t bear to burn.

“My brother liked the clay pits,” he said. “There was always lots to do. Catching mice. Killing them. We used to look for comics too. Things that people had finished with.” He followed me into the living room; sat down on the sofa. “We liked to watch in secret too. You wouldn’t believe what sometimes went on.”

“What sort of things?” Even then I was wondering whether I could take him. He didn’t look like a fighter, but then, neither am I, Mousey. A blow to the back of the head? No. Poison? I doubted he’d fall for that. Besides, I’m a pusher, not a poisoner.