Alfie takes a moment to assemble his composure. ‘I’m fine, Parks. Thank you for the kind concern.’

‘Don’t take the piss.’

‘How was your night?’

‘Fucking dreadful.’

Alfie nods, but it seems he hasn’t digested the answer.

‘I’ll tell you about it at school tomorrow,’ Will adds.

‘Shit, school. Really?’

‘Sunday night, mate.’

‘Course it is.’

‘Don’t worry. Bunk off.’

‘No, no, no. I’ll be there. Sure thing.’

‘If you say so.’

‘We’ll be laughing about this tomorrow, Parks.’

‘Sure we will.’

‘Wanna lift?’

‘I’m good. Could use the walk. Get yourself home, yeah?’

Alfie gives him a thumbs up and snicks the car into first. ‘Love you, Parks,’ he says.

‘Love you too.’

Standing at the crossing, Will listens to the fading rasp of Alfie’s BMW as it motors into Patten’s Island. He smiles to himself, certain that his best mate will be back on fine form by the morning.

What is it about this place? Standing here with you at this level crossing, everything is so very familiar. Eerily so. Like déjà vu. I’ve been here with you before, of course, that night with Danny and April, and a hundred times since. But the familiarity runs deeper than that. I know this place. I feel rooted here. Why is every detail so well known to me?

So many questions. For the both of us.

We must meet again. We need to speak.

You’ve been looking for me, I know. I see you there every school day. Look a little harder, a little deeper.

Because there’s something coming up that you need to know about. It’s not the massive disaster that I’ve been seeing, not yet. But it is something enormously important.

And it’s something you can fix.

Keep looking.

You will find me.

Our Little Chats

Will looks at the clock on the darkroom wall. Five o’clock. He’ll give it another half-hour. The door rests half open. Sometimes he closes it, when he can bear to be in here alone.

He sits at the film-processing desk in the tiny room and glances out into the corridor, unfamiliar in its fluorescent light, night falling fast, the windows like dark-blue mirrors. The school has become a ghost town, the building somehow cavernous now it’s walked only by overworked teachers and the occasional humming hoover.

On the wall outside the darkroom there’s a poster advertising the disco. They’re all over school now, complete with their promise of a ‘Guest DJ’. Will shakes his head, glad he at least has this excuse to speak to April. It’s a week and a half away now – ten days in which to make things right with her.