Peter’s problem was that just as a leaky bucket can’t hold water, he couldn’t keep a secret. So open was he, so incapable of dishonesty or concealment, that sooner or later he was bound to tell someone about the tattoo. If only for the pleasure he would derive from showing it off.

He used to sit sometimes just looking at it. Holding his arm in different positions, twisting his head this way and that to see it from various angles. The biggest kick he got was from gazing at his reflection in the mirror. Seeing it in full context, as if it were someone else, someone worthy of admiration and respect. There was a tiny broken heart between the Heartbreak and Hotel. Red. The only colour in the whole tattoo. He loved that tiny splash of crimson, and I sometimes found him touching it, almost stroking it. But most of all he loved the sense that, somehow, Elvis belonged to him, and would always be with him. A constant companion for the rest of what turned out to be his short life.

There was early snow that year. Not a lot of it. But it lay on the roofs, and in ledges along the walls, and dusted the branches of trees newly naked after unusually strong autumn winds. Everything else seemed darker, blacker, in contrast. The fast-flowing water of the river, the soot-blackened stone of the old mills, and the workers’ tenements in the village. There was a leaden quality about the sky, but a glow in it, too. Like a natural lightbox diffusing sunshine. It cast no shadows. The air was crisp and cold and stung your nostrils. The snow had frozen and it crunched underfoot.

It was morning break at the school, and our voices rang out, sharp and brittle in the icy air, breath billowing about our heads like dragon smoke. I saw Peter at the centre of a small clutch of boys near the gate. But by the time I got there it was too late. He could hardly have chosen to show off Elvis in more dangerous company. They were the three Kelly brothers, and a couple of their friends. Equally unsavoury. We only ever hung out with the Kellys because they were Catholics, too, and we were all made to stand out in the cold waiting for the Proddies to finish their morning service. It bred a sort of camaraderie, even among enemies.