It doesn’t take much to kill a man. A quick push over a bridge. A blow to the back of the head. You’d think it would be like riding a bike; something you can never unlearn. And yet, getting rid of your brother is proving harder than I thought. Who could have imagined that he would be so difficult? That boy I once called Piggy, who used to cry when we drowned the rats? Of course, he isn’t fat anymore. And he was never stupid. Careful, but not stupid, which is why he’s still alive.

I paid the ten thousand pounds, of course. Goldie did too, which rankled, given how reluctantly he always pays my salary. As if it were some kind of charity, instead of what he owes me. But I got my pages back, and burned them in the fireplace, which means my mind should be at rest—except for your brother, Mousey, who knows what happened to Ratboy, and, remembering the clay pits and the games you and I used to play there, must have a pretty good inkling of what happened to Poodle.

A month has passed since he sought me out. Since then, I’ve been making inquiries. I’ve found out quite a lot, actually. His name is B. B. Winter. I’ve seen him in the Village. He lives in White City—I know the address—with his elderly mother. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t seem to have any friends. A loner. He should have been easy. But, after our first meeting, he never met me alone again. He arranged to receive the cash in the coffee shop at our local supermarket, inside a bag of groceries. Ten thousand pounds doesn’t take too much space. And inside a jumbo shopping bag, under a loaf of bread, some eggs, and a carton of milk, it all looked perfectly innocent. I ordered a pot of tea and some toast, and he handed me the pages from my diary inside what looked like a birthday card. No one would have guessed the truth, not even if they’d been sitting right next to us.

After that, there was no need for me to see him ever again. And yet—Mousey, I kept on seeing him. One day it was in the park, walking back from St. Oswald’s. Another time it was in the Pink Zebra, the organic café at the edge of White City. Another time, he was driving his car, that little blue Peugeot of his, and I was on foot, and he waved to me. What was he waiting for, Mousey? Why hadn’t he left town, like he’d said?