“You’d be amazed at the number of times I got to watch people having sex. They did it in abandoned cars, or out in the open, on mattresses. I didn’t like watching my brother kill mice, but watching people have sex was okay. I used to have a couple of dens I’d built from wooden pallets. Like the kind bird-watchers use, with little slatted windows. A couple of times, I saw a boy from St. Oswald’s, with his girl. Not like the girls at Sunnybank Park. Bright red hair, and gorgeous.”

I took a couple of beers from the fridge. Handed one to the visitor. I could see where he was leading, and I, for one, needed a drink.

“That’s where I was hiding the day I saw you bury the box,” he said. “Right up by the big rock between two of the flooded pits. At first I thought it was money, so I waited till you’d gone away. Then I dug where the earth was loose, and I found this.”

He took the album from under his arm and put it on the coffee table. Then he drank his beer while I looked for the pages torn from my diary. Of course, they weren’t there, Mousey.

Your brother looked at me and smiled. “Of course, I had no idea what it was. I had no idea who you were. At the time Harry Clarke was arrested, I didn’t make the connection. I thought what I had was a story, written by a sick little shit who’d buried it in the clay pits for fear that his parents might read it. But I’ve been making inquiries, and now I think it’s something else. I think it’s my pension fund. What do you think, David?”

It was blackmail, pure and simple. Simple, because what he wanted was simple enough for me to provide. He wanted money, that was all; a single payment of ten thousand pounds from each of the people concerned. That would ensure delivery of the missing pages; after which your brother would vanish from Malbry forever.

“I don’t care about what you may or may not have done back when you were a kid,” he said. “All that’s ancient history now. I don’t see the point of dredging it up. Ten thousand pounds isn’t a lot. I know you can afford it.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “How stupid do you think I am? Why should I accept your word that you won’t take the money and keep coming back?”

“Because I want to live,” he said. “And both of us know what happens to anyone who gets in your way. Trust me, Dave, I’ll be out of your hair as soon as you deliver the cash.”