He’d started using the path along the canal instead of going home on the bus, and found that if you climbed over the place where the wall had fallen down, and then went around behind the crematorium, you could cut off half the journey.

The graves went right up to the canal’s edge.

It was one of those old cemeteries you got owls and foxes in and sometimes, in the Sunday papers, people going on about Our Victorian Heritage, although they didn’t go on about this one because it was the wrong kind of heritage, being too far from London.

Wobbler said it was spooky and sometimes went home the long way, but Johnny was disappointed that it wasn’t spookier. Once you sort of put out of your mind what it was – once you forgot about all the skeletons underground, grinning away in the dark – it was quite friendly. Birds sang. All the traffic sounded a long way off. It was peaceful.

He’d had to check a few things, though. Some of the older graves had big stone boxes on top, and in the wilder parts these had cracked and even fallen open. He’d had a look inside, just in case.

It had been sort of disappointing to find nothing there.

And then there were the mausoleums. These were much bigger and had doors in, like little houses. They looked a bit like allotment sheds with extra angels. The angels were generally more lifelike than you’d expect, especially one near the entrance who looked as though he’d just remembered that he should have gone to the toilet before he left heaven.

The two boys walked through the cemetery now, kicking up the drifts of fallen leaves.

‘It’s Halloween next week,’ said Wobbler. ‘I’m having a disco. You have to come as something horrible. Don’t bother to find a disguise.’

‘Thanks,’ said Johnny.

‘You notice how there’s a lot more Halloween stuff in the shops these days?’ said Wobbler.

‘It’s because of Bonfire Night,’ said Johnny. ‘Too many people were blowing themselves up with fireworks, so they invented Halloween, where you just wear masks and stuff.’

‘Mrs Nugent says all that sort of thing is tampering with the occult,’ said Wobbler. Mrs Nugent was the Johnsons’ next door neighbour, and known to be unreasonable on subjects like Madonna played at full volume at 3 a.m.

‘Probably it is,’ said Johnny.

‘She says witches are abroad on Halloween,’ said Wobbler.

‘What?’ Johnny’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Like . . . Marjorca and places?’

‘Suppose so,’ said Wobbler.

‘Makes . . . sense, I suppose. They probably get special out-of-season bargains, being old ladies,’ said Johnny. ‘My aunt can go anywhere on the buses for almost nothing and she’s not even a witch.’

‘Don’t see why Mrs Nugent is worried, then,’ said Wobbler. ‘It ort to be a lot safer round here, with all the witches on holiday.’

They passed a very ornate mausoleum, which even had little stained-glass windows. It was hard to imagine who’d want to see in, but then, it was even harder to imagine who’d want to look out.