‘Wounded?’ the cop had asked.

‘Don’t worry,’ Don had told him. ‘It’s not anyone who didn’t deserve it.’ He didn’t want to spook the cop.

But when Don called from the car, there was no news. He reached the graveyard in twenty minutes. It was even closer to Raymond’s garage, maybe twelve or fifteen minutes. No distance at all. The gates were closed. He got out and checked them. They were held shut by a chain. Don peered through the bars but couldn’t see any signs of life.

‘Just signs of death,’ he said to himself. He had already planned his own funeral, a cremation with music by Johnny Cash.

If he lived that long. He thought of the compactor and had to shake the image away. He looked around him. There were some kids further up the hill, gathered around a couple of bikes by a lamp post. Don drove towards them and stopped the car. He got out again. Twenty pounds, a fiver for each kid, and he had some more information. The guy who worked in the graveyard was called Gravy. He was ‘not all there’. Don listened, and then described his own car. There were nods. Then he described Benjy. More nods.

‘Did you see the car leave?’ The boys couldn’t really remember, until another twenty had changed hands.

‘Never seen anything as funny in my life,’ one of them said. The others were smiling at the memory.

‘Gravy, trying to drive!’ He burst out laughing, and his friends joined in.

‘Any idea where he was going?’

They shook their heads.

‘And no sign of the other guy?’

They shook their heads again.

Don just nodded slowly and wondered if another twenty might help. Probably not.