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he wiped the blood from his mouth, touched his eye.
    â€˜Christ. That man was a monster.’
    â€˜What did he want?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜Did he ask you any questions?’
    â€˜He didn’t say a bloody thing, Joe. Alright?’
    He didn’t ask any questions. That was strange. Could it have been because I’d arrived in time? It was possible, but it didn’t seem likely. From what I’d seen of Browne and the room, there had been long enough to ask questions.
    I got Browne another drink and that calmed him down a bit. He managed to stand after that. I helped him downstairs and put him into his chair.
    â€˜Christ,’ he said again. ‘Who was that?’
    â€˜Didn’t you recognize him?’
    â€˜Recognize him? No I didn’t bloody recognize him. I was too busy with other things. Getting hurt, mostly.’
    â€˜Name’s Roy Buck. He was a fighter. The Reaper. You probably patched him up before.’
    â€˜Wouldn’t need a doctor for that. You’d need a stone mason.’
    When Browne was recovered, which took about half a bottle, we set about making the house secure – well, as secure as we could.
    Out back, I cut down some of the bushes he had growing. He complained about that.
    â€˜They took me years to grow,’ he said.
    That was bollocks. The only thing he did to grow them was not kill them yet. I told him we needed to clear the ground, the bushes could be used as cover. He still complained.
    Next, I broke up the rockery and carried the rocks, one at a bloody time, and dumped them on the back patio, beneath the upper windows. Browne complained about that too. I told him it was to make it hard to use ladders.
    â€˜Men with ladders?’ Browne said. ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?’
    â€˜Half an hour ago you were flying headfirst into your furniture.’
    â€˜Good point.’
    Those rocks nearly killed me, what with my bad arm and my bad rib, and my bad everything else. Browne watched me, but didn’t help. I told him it’d be quicker if he did.
    â€˜I almost died,’ he said, ‘in case you’ve forgotten. Plus, I’m an old man. Plus, I almost died.’
    Plus, he was pissed again.
    Browne’s house was detached, one of those middle-class Victorian places, so we had a lot of privacy out back, but there was still this old neighbour of his, an ex-army major type who watered his roses and pruned his moustache, that kind of thing. Every now and then, he’d peer out of his bedroom window and see what there was to be angry about. Browne spotted him and waved, and muttered about the old bastard being a card-carrying fascist.
    I boarded up the back windows on the ground floor, nailing a piece of plywood over the inside of each one, and then doing the outside. I made sure to drill a couple of holes in the boards first, just enough to see through. I did the same around the sides, but left the front. I put some two-by-four across the kitchen door. Upstairs, I attached locks on all the windows.
    After all that, I sat down at the table in the dark kitchen and tried to think what to do next, but my thinking didn’t get very far because Roy Buck kept coming into my mind and fouling it up. What had he wanted? I asked Browne about it again.
    â€˜All I know is I was in the kitchen. I heard a knock at the front door. I didn’t answer it. You told me not to. Then I heard a knock at the back.’
    â€˜You opened the back door for him.’
    â€˜I was stupid. I thought it had to be you. I just saw a huge shape. It had to be you.’
    â€˜And then?’
    â€˜Then I got hit by a train. I ran upstairs and locked my bedroom door. That didn’t help.’
    Why would Buck show up and throw Browne around, only to leave when I came back?
    Browne made me a tea and sat down with a mug of coffee. I was pretty sure coffee wasn’t the only thing in it. We sat in