“That’s the garden here, in summer. It might be the summer after we left school. Where did you get—”
“That’d match the date stamp, all right. See what you’re wearing?”
Jeans, white T-shirt under an unzipped red hoodie. “Yeah.”
“Would you say that’s the same hoodie we took with us?”
“I don’t know. It could be.”
“Same-shape pockets,” Rafferty pointed out, leaning over to swipe between the two photos. “Same-width cuffs. Same leather tag on the zip pull. Same little round logo there on the left breast. Same binding at the base of the hood, see inside there? The white with the black stripe?”
“Right,” I said. “Yeah. It looks like the same one.”
“Not exactly like, though,” Kerr said. “Spot the difference.”
I already knew I wasn’t going to find whatever it was they were talking about. They waited patiently while I swiped back and forth, feeling stupider every second. “I don’t have a clue,” I said finally, handing the phone back to Rafferty.
“No?” He kept it in his hand, turning it deftly like a conjuror’s deck. “No problem. It’s only a small thing. I’d say we can go ahead and confirm that that’s your hoodie, yeah?”
“I guess,” I said, eventually. “Probably.”
Kerr wrote that down. “It’s not a trap, man,” Rafferty said, amused. “We’re not going to arrest you for possession of a controlled hoodie. Your cousins were the same way: I don’t know, might be his, might not, lot of hoodies out there, have you checked how many of this model were sold in Ireland . . . They’re pretty protective of you, aren’t they?”
That wasn’t the word I would have used, at least not that week. “I guess so,” I said.
He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t be saying that like it’s no big deal. That’s a wonderful thing to have. Friends are great, but when the chips are down, it’s blood that counts. Look at you, sure, moving in here to look after your uncle when he needs you. That’s what it’s all about: sticking by your family.”
“I do my best,” I said, moronically.
Rafferty nodded approvingly. “That’s what your cousins say, all right. It means a lot to them, you being here, you know that? They’re not surprised, though: they say you’ve always been pretty protective of them, too.”
That seemed unlikely, at least from Leon, although who knew what he was playing at— “I suppose. I try.”
“Good man.” With a finger-snap, remembering: “Speaking of looking after your uncle, I meant to say to you: maybe have a bit of a look at the security in this place, yeah?”
“What? Why?” Flash of animal terror, Martin’s hints about revenge, my patio door splintered and gaping open—
“Ah, no, we’re not thinking anyone’s planning on coming after you.” Kerr snorted. “But we found a load of other stuff down that tree, as well as the remains. Lots of acorns, hazelnuts—I’d say you’ve got a few pissed-off squirrels out there, trying to work out what happened to their stash. Half a dozen old lead soldiers, did you have those as a kid?”
“No. I don’t think so.” The adrenaline was subsiding, leaving me feeling slightly sick.
“Jesus,” Rafferty said, grinning. “I’m dating myself. They must’ve belonged to your dad, then, or one of your uncles—they all remember stashing stuff down there, when they were kids. The soldiers were all together, with a bit of rag round them, might’ve been a cloth bag before it rotted away; one of the four of them hiding his best stuff from his brothers, looks like. I’ll have to find out who to give them back to. There’s a bunch of marbles, too. And this. You know what this is?”
The phone again. That same white surface; a long brass key, crusted with bits of dirt and attached to a keyring, along with a black metal silhouette of a German shepherd.
“That’s the key to the garden door,” I said, “or anyway it looks like it. The one that went missing, that summer. It was down inside the tree?”
“It was, yeah,” Rafferty said. “And it fits the garden door. That’s what I’m telling you: your uncle should’ve changed that lock when the key went missing. If he didn’t bother, then who knows how many other keys to the other doors are floating around out there? The last thing he needs right now is a burglary.”
“Right,” I said. “OK. I’ll get onto that.”
“Good idea. Not that I’m complaining; it made our lives a lot easier, being able to check