‘It might look like a toy soldier,’ George said, ‘but I’m told it’s not. I had toy soldiers too, as a child, as every boy does, but this was always kept separate. It’s a family thing of my mother’s – an ancestor, apparently. An ancient uncle of some kind who fought Napoleon. At least that’s what she told me. But he should have been Irish – my mother was Irish – and I showed it to an old RAF friend who’s now a military historian, and it’s not British at all. The uniform’s not right. So, for whom did my ancestor fight in the Napoleonic Wars? Or is it just an old toy soldier after all? With those questions unresolved, it earns a place among the curiosities.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t Irish.’ I stood the soldier up on my hand. Most of his head had been rubbed bare, but there was paint in a lighter grey between the dull metal waves of his hair. ‘I’ve never seen a grey-haired toy soldier before, so maybe it is of a real person. Take a look there. His hair’s grey.’

I held it up and George’s forehead furrowed with the effort to see it properly. ‘Yes, I think you might be right. It’s almost identical to the lead, isn’t it? Well spotted.’

‘I had a Dutch ancestor at Waterloo.’ I had remembered something my grandparents had told me. ‘The oldest person at my christening was my great-great-aunt Anne, and the oldest person at her christening in 1880 fought at Waterloo as a teenager, and he was Dutch. He was my great-great-grandmother’s brother, or something like that.’

‘Oh, really?’ He leaned back as if he was taking a fresh look at me. ‘Waterloo? Well, perhaps my chap’s Dutch too. Perhaps your many-greats uncle fought right beside mine.’

He turned the figure around in my hand so that it was facing me. The expression was gone from its face, if it had ever had one. The eyes were recessed and still had paint on them, white with dark irises, and there was pink left on the upper eyelids since they were protected by the ridge of bone above, but most of the face was bare.

‘I’m the last of my family line, you know,’ he said. ‘So, when it all goes pear-shaped and they carry me out of here, this must be yours. Can’t have it going to a vulture who’s here to pick at my bones.’

From the landing on the stairs, George’s grandfather clock rang the hour, five o’clock. It was dark outside.

‘I should go home,’ I told him. I hadn’t noticed the time. There were still curiosities in the cabinet I hadn’t looked at.