In the crew yard at Ringham Edge Farm, Warren Leach spoke to his sons in a voice thick with suppressed anger.

‘Bring that beast down here,’ he said.

The boys stood open-mouthed; Dougie was close to tears. They both knew about the death of animals. They had both seen the huge pit that the excavator had dug behind the barn a while ago, and had heard the shots as the ewes were dispatched one by one. Afterwards, they had crept out of the house to stand in horrified fascination on the edge of the newly turned earth. They had tried to imagine the lifeless bodies of the sheep below their feet; they had pictured them lying on their backs with their eyes blank and their thin legs stiff and pointing upwards, and the wet soil thick in their fleeces and in their mouths.

‘No. Please, Dad,’ said Will.

Leach lost his temper at the pleading tone, driven beyond patience.

‘Am I talking to that wall? Now shift your arses and get that beast down here! Do as I say! If I have to say it again, I’ll be saying it with this belt.’

Will pulled Dougie’s arm and dragged him reluctantly away. Leach dug into an old canvas satchel and checked the captive bolt pistol that Keith Teasdale had given him. The steel casing of the gun was heavy and solid in his hand.

‘Bloody animal,’ he muttered to the gun. ‘Draining money from me like water. Not any more.’

There was no one in the yard to hear him. He was thinking of the day they had bought the calf at Edendale cattle market. It had been Yvonne herself who had picked it out, and it had been her idea to buy it for the boys. It had been a fine young animal, too, and would have made a handsome heifer. But for weeks, Leach had found he couldn’t bear to see the calf. Its eyes rolled at him accusingly, like the eyes of another bloody martyr; its coat gleamed with the gloss of an extravagance that he couldn’t afford.

Now he couldn’t even stand the thought that the animal was on the premises. He couldn’t concentrate on any of the pressing problems that were piling up on him because of the time he spent dwelling on the calf. It had to be disposed of before he could work out how to get the farm and his life out of the mess they were in. It had to go. It was standing in his way.

‘We’ll sort this out once and for all,’ he said, and snapped a cartridge into the gun.

Finally, the boys dragged the calf, protesting, on a rope halter into the yard.

‘Dad –’

‘Just shut up. Just bloody shut up!’