‘I’m so glad you remember,’ he says, regaining his composure and looking between the two of us. It really is as though a mist has just lifted in his head. ‘Your teacher said you were curious and diligent. I was beginning to wonder. Had I got to the bit about the warning? Had I?’

A warning? What was he warning us about? We both shake our heads.

‘Hmm. Aye, well, Andi – I think we should take these two home with us. Let them have a wee look at that stuff out in the shed. I mean – no one else has ever shown any interest, and there may not be … may not be …’

Whatever there may not be is lost in a coughing fit of a violence like I have never seen before. This is not a cough from the throat, or even the chest: the poor man’s entire thin body convulses, lifting his feet off the footrests of the wheelchair and turning him dark pink as he coughs again and again and again, louder and louder. He flaps his hands as if trying to fly.

Andi holds him by his narrow shoulders, saying, ‘There, there, Kenneth …’ After several more coughs, he stops, and I genuinely worry that he has died in front of me, but a few seconds go past and then he takes an enormous, groaning, inward breath. He leans back in his chair while Andi gets a small canister of oxygen from the shelf under the seat. She holds the mask to his face, saying, ‘Okay, okay, there you go.’

And, during all of this, I have a chill passing through me.

That stuff out in the shed. Surely he can’t mean …?

What the heck ELSE would he mean, Malky?

No, no. There were other things in the shed. He could mean anything. Pots, a spade, tins of old paint …

No, he means the bag of stuff that you stole, Malky. Obviously. Because he’s got one hanging over his bed. And you’re going to be found out …

As he sucks greedily on the oxygen, Andi turns to us, a sad look on her face. ‘I’m sorry, kids. That must have been frightening for you. He’ll be all right in a minute.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’ says Susan, asking exactly what I want to know.

Before she answers, Andi looks at Kenneth, who has heard this. He gives a little nod – permission, I guess, for Andi to tell us. I hardly understand a word: there’s something ‘pulmonary’ and ‘acute’ and ‘syndrome’ and other words as well.

Susan nods sympathetically and I imitate her.

Another look is exchanged between Andi and the old man. Andi says, ‘You may as well know. The outlook is not, shall we say, very optimistic.’