To begin with, Aunty Helen had allowed it. He’d spent hours in the garden at the weekend with the engine parts spread out on newspaper, wire-brushing them, discovering which pieces needed fixing, how to slot them all back into place. But then, at church that Sunday, his aunty had been pulled aside before the service by the vicar. It turned out that the padlock on the groundsman’s shed had been sawn through on Wednesday night and several tools were missing. ‘Plus a petrol mower that was always conking out. Nothing of much value, to be frank,’ the vicar had explained, while Aunty Helen’s face grew hot with shame, ‘but they’re going to need replacing. So I thought perhaps you might get word out to the congregation, see if anyone has any spare equipment we could borrow.’ His sister hadn’t taken kindly to the accusations when they’d got back home. ‘You can bloody well piss off – you and that vicar both!’ she’d yelled. ‘I found it lying in the bushes. Halfway up the hill on Sandy Ridge. I didn’t know someone had gone and robbed it, did I?’ All her explanations had the gloss of salesmanship. On an ordinary day, she couldn’t recollect what she’d put on her toast at breakfast, but ask her to explain her whereabouts when things got pinched and she could tell you to the nearest second. She’d always add one reasonable detail for you to orient yourself – a local landmark or familiar street – as if this certified her story.

In the end, their aunty had grown tired of confrontation. She’d given Charlie orders to pack all the parts into a box and carry them back to the church – it must’ve been over a mile on foot. As punishment, his sister had to drag the mower’s rusty frame beside him, rattling like an empty can the whole way there. She wouldn’t even look at him. She’d cursed their aunt. She’d said, ‘I only wanted you to have something to do. I never stole the bloody thing – I found it. You believe me, right?’ When he’d shrugged back at her and said, ‘Dunno,’ she’d made an injured noise, not quite a cough, not quite a laugh. ‘Oh, so that’s the way it is,’ she’d said. ‘You’re on the other side now, too.’

The vicar had accepted her account of things, but said he’d have to notify the local constable in charge of the investigation. Early Monday evening, a young copper had come strolling up the front path, knocking on the door so hard that Aunty Helen flinched. He’d let Joyce off with just a caution: after all, there was no proof she’d stolen anything, only that she’d had the mower in her possession. But she’d had prior charges on her sheet – one of which had been for nothing more than snatching a few apples from the greengrocer’s stand – and so the incident was put on record. After that, his sister never gave him anything again, except at Christmas and on birthdays, when her gift would be the same: a book with the receipt inside.