Now that I think about it, it was around this time that Mags started to behave strangely. She muttered in her sleep, and one morning I caught her in a sort of trance, sitting on the edge of her bed with one sock on and one sock off, staring dreamily at the wall. When I asked her if she was all right, she snapped at me to leave her alone. So I did. I plodded up the lighthouse stairs with my sketchbook and pencil and sat in the lantern room. I felt the need to draw something, but I ended up just thinking about the hidden photograph and doodling a pattern of waves.

It was one of those grey, heavy autumn days when endless banks of cloud roll in from the horizon, and the sun never quite manages to take hold. I watched a boy come up the cliff path towards our cottage, carrying a brown paper parcel. As he got closer, I realized it was Kipper Briggs – a boy from the village. Kipper is as big as a man, broad-backed and large-handed. He was the same age as Mags, though he had left school a couple of years ago to work for his father (Arthur Briggs was the fishmonger in the village and he owned half a dozen fishing boats, which used to head out of the harbour every morning come rain or shine).

I watched Kipper climb the last, steep stretch of the path and come through our garden gate. It banged shut behind him, and a seagull flapped haphazardly across the garden, startled by the noise. I put down my sketchbook and pencil and ran down the stairs to meet him; he was probably bringing Mutti’s order of fish for the week.

Kipper is not a pleasant boy to be around, I’m afraid – and I’m not just talking about his aroma (children can be very inventive when it comes to cruel nicknames, but whoever christened Colin Briggs ‘Kipper’ didn’t need much of an imagination – only a basic sense of smell). Kipper used to be famous for stealing the lunches of the smallest children at school. I remember him taking an iced bun from Mags, and gobbling it up right in front of her furious face. Mags had only been about ten years old at the time, and Kipper must have been much bigger than her, but she’d kicked him in the shins for that.