While they waited for Joseph's small gas stove to boil the water, they sat in comfortable silence, staring out at the sun-lit stones. The shed smelled of engine oil, grass and fertiliser, and was crammed with tools worn shiny with use and age. Against a bench at the back stood a headstone, one corner cleanly broken off. The break ran through the regimental badge and the name of the soldier it belonged to.

Joseph noticed Robbie's glance. "Got to fix that if I can," he said. "Otherwise I'll have to send it off for mending at the regional office. Take weeks, that will. Quicker to do it meself. Terrible if the relatives turned up and only found a hole in the ground, eh?"

"How did it happen?" Robbie asked. He wasn't really bothered, but he would have felt unkind taking the old man's tea and not showing some interest. Maybe Joseph had run into it with the huge petrol mower he used every day. Now that would be a laugh. Harry would go berserk.

Joseph shrugged with his eyebrows and sighed. "Beats me, son. Vandals, I expect. Bored kid, maybe, not kept under control by his parents." He stared hard at the stone as if it might suddenly leap up and mend itself. "Happened yesterday - down by the left-hand chapel."

"It wasn't me." Robbie said automatically. It was a reflex comment, almost second nature where he came from. Never admit to anything and deny everything. Safer that way.

Joseph nodded his head and continued staring at the broken stone. "'I know that, son. I know that."

Robbie wondered when someone had managed to enter the cemetery without his noticing. He had been hanging around the steps of the cemetery pretty much all day, apart from a brief break to have lunch, and would have been almost ecstatic to see a strange face arrive to break the monotony. Even if it had been a local kid, he could have said hello or something. 

He could manage bonjour, he reckoned. No problem. That and comment ca va? Anything more than that and he'd be into sign language. And probably a serious amount of embarrassment... especially if it were a girl. The thought of the tangle he'd get into trying to chat up one of the locals made him wince; another nul points score against being in this place - he couldn't even get a girlfriend!

When he mentioned the absence of visitors Joseph shrugged again and busied himself pouring boiling water into the pot. Then Robbie recalled the man he'd seen near the steps.

Joseph looked at him, the hand with the kettle momentarily suspended. "You sure? I haven't seen no one."

"Positive. A tall bloke. He was standing at the top of the steps, watching me. I couldn't see him too clearly. Then a car went by and when I looked back, he'd gone."

For a long moment the old man said nothing. Then he looked at Robbie with a secret smile, his blue eyes sharp and bright. "In that case," he said slowly, "it must have been one of the lads."

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