After doing some suitable appreciation of the scenery, I ducked my head and went into the saloon section and from there down a short set of steps to the cabin. The circumscribed space held a two-tiered bunk, built-in shelves and a cupboard. There were two portholes and between them a shaving mirror, a wineskin, a belt with a knife in a scabbard and a heavy oilskin were hanging on hooks. The books on the shelves were mostly paperback thrillers but there were also a few navigation manuals and an anthology of sea poems. There was a plastic coat, a work shirt, a sweater and a pair of very greasy and stained overalls in the cupboard. The bed was neatly made on the bottom bunk; the top bunk was covered with a single blanket.

Ray’s personal belongings were in a tin chest under the bunk. I pulled it out and teased open the cheap padlock with a pocket-knife blade. I turned the bits and pieces over thinking how alike we all are-how we all keep the same things, the bits of paper and objects that mark the staging posts of our lives. Ray had stored away a couple of not discreditable school reports, a learner-driver permit, a swimming proficiency certificate, a half-empty box of long rifle. 22 bullets and some photographs.

I stood up from my crouch with creaking muscles, and spread the snapshots out at eye level on the tight blanket on the top bunk. There were five: one showed a big-looking, blonde kid at the wheel of the Satisfaction; another was of the same boy with a younger and slightly smaller and darker version of himself, sitting in the yacht’s dinghy; there was one of a small, handsome woman in early-middle age standing with her hands on her hips and looking amused at the camera and a fourth snap showed a teenage girl with long legs and short shorts sitting on a low stone wall. She was smiling at the camera and displaying good teeth, shining mid-length hair and an optimistic glow. If Paul Guthrie had given me intimations of hope about getting old, she was a reminder of the joys of being young. She was the sort of girl song-writers used to write songs about before they discovered Freud and drugs.