No one would find him. Not even Jonny, though he heard him calling in the yard.

Where are you? That one of the calls of the younger brother: Where are you, Wait for me, Let me come, Can I play too … There was always a choice to be made for him in those calls: would he answer, would he let him in or not? No. He would not let him in here. This must be his place alone.

Where are you? I know you’re somewhere around here. Then the creak of the metal door pushed open. Jonny was cleverer than he thought. Or it was his own fault, he must have not quite closed the door, Jonny must have seen it just so slightly open. A bar of cold light entered the grey of the shed. There was no time to move, only the cows to hide him.

What are you doing? Jonny stood before him at the opening to his stall.

None of your business. Go away.

The cows were quite gone. Only their dried-up smell remained. Jonny stood where they had been.

But there’s nothing here.

Go away.

He went on standing there looking puzzled. He didn’t even start to move.

See this, Richard said, and pointed at a little pile of blue-dyed grain.

What’s that?

That’s poison, he said. It’s called Warfarin. Matthew put it out for the rats. It doesn’t matter about the rats now so I’ve been collecting it up. If you come in here again I’ll poison you.

Still Jonny stood there, wide-eyed now. But it looks like grain, he said.

It is grain, but it’s been soaked in poison. That’s why they make it blue, so you can tell the poisoned grain from the good stuff. The rats can’t tell because Matthew puts it out in pipes on their runs, and they run through in the dark and eat it because it smells like any other grain, and maybe it tastes like any other grain because they come back for more, and because sometimes Matthew puts sugar with it to make it sweet. And when they’ve eaten enough they go and die in their holes. They die, and dry out, from the inside out, like mummies, I’ve seen.

Jonny had taken a step closer.

Didn’t you hear what I said? If I put it in your food you won’t smell it or taste it, any more than a rat does.

It’s blue. I’ll see it, won’t I? I don’t eat in the dark.

How long?

As long as it takes