At first, she thinks it’s a rock covered with muck, but when she prods it with the spade, she feels the softness of it. Putting down her tool, she lifts the bundle and is surprised by how light it is, lighter still after she shakes some more hardened clay from it, using her hands to sweep off the dirt. It’s a bundle of cloth – what might be a blue stripe runs through the ruined fabric. Shaking it out, something drops to the earth with a small thud. Hilary’s eyes go to the ground.

She looks down, and it’s as if she’s staring down a long, silent tunnel. The garden falls away. A great stillness comes over her.

It’s a knife. A kitchen knife, no more than eight inches long. It is caked with dirt, but she can clearly make out the shape of it, the heft of the handle, the long, thin blade.

Her limbs don’t shake when she bends down slowly to pick it up. A dead calm has come over her, a simple understanding. The long slow ‘ah’, like a last release of breath.

She sits at the kitchen table and waits.

Everything inside her has slowed, grown still. She is sitting there, perfectly calm – almost serene – when he arrives home from work.

The energy of his busy day is brought into the house with him as he comes into the kitchen, slings his bag on to the countertop. ‘Hey there, how are you?’ he says, at the sink, filling a glass with water and putting it on the table. ‘Good day? God, I’m starving. I stopped off at Supervalu, picked us up a couple of steaks …’

He has come forward to kiss her when his words trail off.

On the table in front of her is the knife, still caked with mud. The ancient T-shirt in which it had been wrapped and concealed sits alongside it. Hilary’s hands are folded neatly in her lap. She watches her husband’s face, the initial spark of confusion clearing, replaced by the shock of understanding. The blood drains from his face.

‘Jesus,’ he says hoarsely, the word a croak.

He pulls out a chair quickly and collapses on to it, his eyes fixed on the knife, staring at it with disbelief.

She doesn’t say anything, just watches as he leans his elbows on the table, rubs his nose and mouth with the back of his hand. Still he can’t drag his gaze from the knife, as if fearful it might, at any moment, jump up of its own accord and attack him. She can hear him taking quick, short breaths, and in a voice that is immeasurably calm, she tells him: ‘Have a drink of water.’