‘He wore a carnation pinned to his coat,’ said Johnny.

‘That’s right! Every day. Never saw him without one. Always very smart, he was. He used to be a conjuror. Haven’t seen him around for years.’

‘Grandad?’

‘It’s all changed around here now. I hardly see anywhere I recognize when I go into town these days. Someone told me they’ve pulled down the old boot factory.’

‘You know that little transistor radio?’ said Johnny.

‘What little transistor radio?’

‘The one you’ve got.’

‘What about it?’

‘You said it’s too fiddly and not loud enough?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Can I have it?’

‘I thought you’d got one of those ghetto-blowers.’

‘This is . . . for some friends.’ Johnny hesitated. He was by nature an honest person, because apart from anything else, lying was always too complicated.

‘They’re quite old,’ he added. ‘And a bit shut in.’

‘Oh, all right. You’ll have to put some new batteries in – the old ones have gone all manky.’

‘I’ve got some batteries.’

‘You don’t get proper wireless any more. We used to get oscillation when I was a boy. You never get it now. Hehe! There he goes – look, right through the ice—!’

Johnny went down to the cemetery before breakfast. The gates had been locked, but since there were holes all along the walls this didn’t make a lot of difference.

He’d bought a plastic bag for the radio and had sorted out some new batteries, after scraping out the chemical porridge that was all that was left of the old ones.

The cemetery was deserted. There wasn’t a soul there, living or dead. But there was the silence, the big empty silence. If ears could make a noise, they’d sound like that silence.

Johnny tried to fill it.

‘Um,’ he said. ‘Anyone there?’

A fox leapt up from behind one of the stones and scurried away into the undergrowth.

‘Hello? It’s me?’

The absence of the dead was scarier than seeing them in the flesh – or at least, not in the flesh.

‘I brought this radio. It’s probably easier for you than newspapers. Um. I looked up radio in the encyclopedia and most of you ought to know what it is. Um. You twiddle the knobs and radio comes out. Um. So I’ll just tuck it down behind Mr Vicenti’s slab, all right? Then you can find out what’s going on.’

He coughed.

‘I . . . I did some thinking last night, and . . . and I thought maybe if people knew about all the . . . famous . . . people here, they’d be bound to leave it alone. I know it’s not a very good idea,’ he said, hopelessly, ‘but it’s the best I could come up with. I’m going to make a list of names. If you don’t mind?’

He’d hoped Mr Vicenti would be about. He quite liked him. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t been dead as long as the others. He seemed friendlier. Less stiff.