As always on these occasions, he found his brain spilling out memories like sour wine from an uncorked bottle; deeply stored images of his father that were preserved as if in vinegar. There were glimpses of a tall, strong man with wide shoulders and huge hands tossing bales of hay with a pitchfork, his face flushed and laughing. At other times he was frowning and angry, a terrifying figure in a dark uniform, opening his mouth to bring down the wrath of God on his sons. But among Ben’s memories was also a picture of his father lying dead and bleeding on the stone setts of Clappergate. It was a sight Ben hadn’t even seen, yet it was etched on his mind like a nail embedded in a tree – it was long grown over, but still there, hard and sharp, splitting the flesh that pressed too tightly around it.

But Ben had to close the stopper tight on his thoughts. He couldn’t bear to taste those memories. The pain of them was too thick for him to swallow.

‘He always expected great things of you,’ said Matt.

‘He didn’t just expect great things – he demanded them.’

‘He demanded a lot, that’s true. But he was very proud of you. And you did exactly what he hoped for, always.’

Ben looked at his brother. ‘Matt, he gave me an appalling time. He drove me like a maniac. Nothing I ever did was good enough for him. I always had to do better, to work a bit harder. But you were different. You were the favoured son.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘He never drove you like he did me. He left you alone to do whatever you wanted.’

‘Exactly,’ said Matt.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It shows that it was you that he cared about, Ben. He cared about you more than anything.’

‘It didn’t feel like it at the time.’

‘It was obvious to everybody else. Obvious to me, anyway. It didn’t matter to him what I did. It didn’t matter how hard I worked, how successful I was at what I chose to do. It meant nothing to him. He would just say, “That’s fine,” and he’d turn away to ask how your training was going, or how you’d dealt with an incident, and what your feelings were about it. Every last detail about you was important to him. But me, I could just do what I liked. I might as well not have been there.’

Ben thought he and Matt had little in common physically, except perhaps a look of their father around the eyes and nose. Their mother was blue-eyed, but the eyes of both her sons were brown, their hair dark where she was fair. Though Cooper was five foot eleven, it was Matt who had inherited their father’s size, the wide shoulders, the enormous hands and the uncertain temper.