I said I might be back the following summer, but secretly I felt this would be the last time I would ever visit. ‘I’ll have it winterised,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the police to stop by once a day. We don’t want another break-in.’ ‘You might invest in a burglar alarm,’ I said.‘I’ll put it to the trustees.’‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘I came across this story while I was going through my uncle’s things. I’d like you to read it. I’d like to know what you think of it.’ He looked at me with a slightly puzzled smile. ‘May I ask why?’ ‘I’d rather not say,’ I told him. ‘I’d like you to read it with an open mind. I found it somewhere that makes me think Patrick felt it was important.’ ‘Moby-Dick important, or Headline Rate of Inflation important?’ ‘That’s why I wanted you to read it,’ I said, and he slapped my back and chuckled. He met me the following afternoon at one of the harbour bars in Westwich.
