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ducked through a wire fence, coming out on to the footpath that led to Raymond’s house. When they arrived, his sister, Amanda, was lying on her stomach in the front garden, reading a comic. She was wearing a lime-green bikini and sunglasses with pink plastic frames. She was only eleven, but she already had breasts.
    “You’re burning,” Raymond said as he passed her.
    Amanda gave him a V-sign without even lifting her eyes off the page.
    Billy grinned, but she didn’t notice. They were all the same, he thought, these Percivals…
    Once they had locked the dogs in the back yard, they got two bikes out of the shed and cycled down the hill to Weston Point. They had to wait at the level crossing while a train laboured past. Billy counted eighteen wagons, each one filled with chemicals. The gates lifted, and the two boys cycled on. The village streets were deserted. All the shops looked shut, even though they weren’t. You could feel the heat rising off the tarmac in ghostly waves.
    They hid their bikes in the gap between a fence of concrete slats and an old free-standing garage, then they scaled a wall and dropped down into a jungle of bindweed, lavender and nettles. Billy had climbed into other people’s gardens before, with Trevor Lydgate, when he was younger, but this felt different. There was something driven about Raymond, something merciless. Billy looked towards the house, with its black windows and its untended garden, and wondered what Raymond had in mind.
    Crouching low, they crossed the lawn, and when they reached the house they flattened themselves against the wall, their palms and shoulder blades pressed against sun-toasted brick. They must look as if they’d been caught in an invisible force field, Billy thought. Like people in a science-fiction programme. Turning his head sideways, he met Raymond’s gaze, and they both began to laugh. And once they’d started, they couldn’t stop. They bent double, gasping, trying not to make a sound.
What if someone comes?
Billy kept thinking, but that only made it worse. In the end, Raymond brought out the vodka. He took a long swig, then offered it to Billy. Billy swallowed some. It was warm and slightly oily, and he shivered as it went down.
    Just along from the back door, they found an open transom window. The frosted glass told them that it was a lavatory. Raymond heaved himself up on to the window ledge and slithered in head first, his legs wriggling comically for a few moments before they disappeared.
I hope no one’s having a crap in there,
Billy thought, and he had to pinch his arm hard to prevent himself from having the hysterics again. He glanced round quickly to see if anyone was watching, then followed Raymond through the narrow gap. He was stockier than Raymond, which made it more difficult; one of his trouser pockets snagged on the window-catch and ripped. Using both hands, he managed to manoeuvre himself down from the closed lid of the toilet seat on to the floor, landing in a heap at Raymond’s feet. He stood up. The room was only just big enough for the two of them, and he could smell the alcohol on Raymond’s breath.
    “What are we doing here?” he said.
    Raymond shook his head, then opened the door. They stepped out into a long, thin corridor with brown walls and a floor of cracked linoleum. There was a rack of musty raincoats, and a metal Hoover with a torn dust-bag. From somewhere near by came the squeaky chipmunk voice of a cartoon character.
    “‘Sexton’s have solved the mystery of elegant living,’” Raymond said.
    Billy stared at him.
    “I saw it above a furniture shop,” Raymond said, “in Widnes.”
    Later in his life, as a policeman, Billy would often walk or drive past that very sign, and it always reminded him of Raymond. It was as if, in saying the words out loud when they were fourteen, Raymond had erected a memorial to himself.
    They crept along the passageway, with Raymond leading. To the right was a parlour that gave on