He gave up with his glasses and leaned back against the wall. “You stupid girl.” He rested his arms across his stomach, one half of his broken glasses in each hand. They lifted and lowered with his raspy, painful breaths. “You stupid, stupid girl.”

“You’re lying,” I said, but I whispered it this time.

Dirty.

Dangerous.

Deceitful.

He took an extra-deep breath and sat back upright. “Make yourself useful,” he said. “There’s some tape in one of those sacks. The green one. See it?”

I found the sack, got the tape out.

“Stick this arm back on to my glasses. It’s the least you can do.”

I took the glasses, stuck them back together. There was a messy clump of tape at one side, but they stayed on his face without him holding them.

“Now, that book.” He pointed to the curled, soggy pages, still all over the place. “Find me the cover.”

“The cover?”

“Now, Maggie. Right now. You say you’re Una’s friend? Well, I’m going to prove to you she shouldn’t be at camp – or wherever she’s going – and if you’re really her friend, you’ll listen. Find. Me. The. Cover.”

I searched inside half-emptied sacks, between broken cups, under torn clothing.

I found it round the back. A stiff book cover, lying open, front side down in the damp. The New Poets. Didn’t look new. Looked ancient. I wiped it against my trousers.

“Good. Now, I need my knife,” said Mr Opal. He pulled himself across the barn floor, searching for his knife.

He wasn’t going to find it.

“Does it have butterflies carved into the handle?”

“Mmm?”

“Your knife. Has it got butterflies on the handle?”

“Yes. You seen it?”

“I took it. Yesterday, when I was here. The mayor’s got it now. I’m sorry.”

He sniffed. Scratched the side of his face. Winced.

“You really did us over, didn’t you, Maggie? Good and proper. That green sack again – you got it? Should be a penknife in the inside pocket. If you didn’t give that one to your mayor as well.”

The penknife was still there. I passed it to him and he pulled it open. He set the book cover across his knees.

There was tape – like I’d fixed the glasses with – all round the edges on the inside of the cover. He used the knife to score along three sides, then picked at one corner. He peeled back a layer of paper and eased something out.

A photograph.

A boy’s face grinned out from the shiny surface. Big gap between his two front teeth. Hair the exact same yellow as pound-cake mixture, right before you bake it.

Mr Opal held the photo by its very edges with his muddy, bloody hands.

“Felix,” he said, his face wet with tears. “My boy, Felix. Went to camp. Proper camp. Thirteen years ago.”

CHAPTER 24