The waiting parents, mostly women, stand to attention at his appearance. He fights the instinct to crumple the shirt in one fist behind his back. He doesn’t like being watched. And never, not even as a soloist in Cambridge, has he felt so scrutinised. But in that second something happens; a peculiar emptying sensation, as if everything that has mattered this far drains away through the soles of his shoes into the slurry-slick pavement. Everything he must do this day is about these people standing before him now; that woman in the tweed coat and torn stockings, that man with the ragged shirt and terrified eyes, and that little boy on the table with smashed legs. William is here now because he has a skill that nobody wants to need. But they do, and he will provide it.

His breath catches as he inhales, his throat suddenly too big. He lifts the shirt aloft and calls on every bit of voice control he’s ever learned.

‘Whose little boy went to school—’

‘Owen! ’

There is a low thump and crack as the woman’s knees hit the pavement. Others gather around her, take her elbows, pull her up. A speck of rain taps William’s cheek. One woman turns away from the chapel and shouts, ‘Get Evan Thomas!’ A series of male voices call out, a vocal chain leading back to the mountain with a school roof poking out of it.

The mother emerges from the throng of parents, like someone coming through a drawn curtain. She approaches William with her arms out and it takes him a moment to realise she is reaching not for him, but the shirt. Long seconds pass as she holds it to her face. A man appears, the whites of his eyes startling against his skin, shirtsleeves rolled up, breathing heavily. He rests his filthy, strong arm across the woman’s shoulders. She’s stoic now. Blank-faced. Blood on her knee. They both look beyond William to the chapel, not at each other. They want to see their boy.

‘Come with me,’ William says softly once they are close enough, and opens the door.

It’s him. It’s their son.

‘Owen Elgar Thomas,’ the father says in response to Harry’s question. The mother is silent and dry-eyed as she gently touches the hand, the head, the chest, of the little boy. Harry tells them they will see their son again once he’s been embalmed and put in a coffin.

‘Maybe you should try and rest now,’ William says, walking them out of the vestry and through the chapel, past the remaining blanketed bodies. He holds the door open for them. ‘I promise you, we’ll look after Owen.’

‘Nicely done, William,’ says Harry quietly, when he returns to the table.

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