‘We don’t have to do this,’ Jenny said. ‘There’s still time to turn back.’

Dorothy stared at the gravestone for a while then crouched and touched it, running her finger along the engraving. There was a shadow of moss along the bottom edge of the dates and Dorothy scraped it away. Then she touched the grass beneath her, felt the dampness and the earth underneath, the beating heart of the planet, the thrum of the city echoed in tremors that sank to the centre of the Earth, way past the few feet Barbara occupied.

‘If you want to go, that’s fine,’ Dorothy said.

Jenny stared at her.

Dorothy dropped the holdall and undid the zip. ‘But I need to do this.’

She pulled out a shovel, ran a finger along its edge, and looked at Jenny. The way Jenny’s torch was pointing, her face was mostly in shadow. Dorothy saw her eyelashes illuminated like some fantastical night creature. Eventually Jenny held out a hand, her mouth tight.

Dorothy handed her a shovel then placed the blade of her own shovel against the earth. She put her heel against the shoulder of the shovel and pushed until she felt the earth break underneath her.

‘Sorry, Barbara,’ she said.252

She could smell her own sweat mingled with the stench of mulch and loam, the earth damp and clinging to the blades of their shovels. They’d been at it for two hours, setting the turf to one side then digging out the soil on the other. Dorothy’s back was aching, her shoulders hunched, but she kept on, stopping for an occasional swig from a water bottle.

She paused and looked at Jenny. Digging in a solid rhythm, dirt smudged across her cheek and caked on her hands, like a prisoner digging to escape.

Dorothy looked at the hole. She was surprised how far down they’d got already, the earth easy to shift, worms shrinking from the air when exposed, that owl still hooting in the trees somewhere. At one point a fox came padding along the path, spotted them and calmly headed away. The night was still dark, the sky black, only their torches propped against the headstone to see by.

They were properly in a hole now, a few feet below ground level, and Dorothy began digging again, the earth flying behind her shoulder as she heaved each shovelful out of the earth. The secret was rhythm, and she understood how those working songs came about for slaves in the cotton fields or building railroads. Jenny was digging like a woman possessed, maybe working out aggression from something else, her anger and grief at Jim, or the adultery case, or everything with Melanie.