Will Leach had already seen the shotgun standing against the wall, where it had been taken out of its steel cabinet. He knew this was wrong, that a shotgun should never be left out. His father had always said so. The police might call at the farmhouse at any time and see it, and then his father would lose his shotgun licence. But he didn’t seem to care about that at all now.

Will hated it when his father shouted and swore. But he hated it more when he fell into a long silence. At those times, his eyes seemed to be looking far away and his body quivered, like the strands of wire in the electric fence in the top field. Will had known what his father was thinking when he had looked at Doll and had been so silent. And now Doll had gone. Will had tried to guess what his father was thinking when he had looked at their mother and was silent, too. And now their mother was gone as well.

It was the first day of half-term, and this morning Will had listened very carefully. His sense of hearing was trained to pick up the sound of his father’s footsteps in the yard or the clink of a glass against a bottle in the front room. His father had been more silent this morning than he could ever remember. And this time, Will thought he knew what his father was thinking.

Warren Leach had never really known the meaning of shame. He had heard people talk about it, but had never understood, and had just thought them weak. Now it was an emotion that came upon him suddenly, devastatingly, roaring over the hill and scything him down like ripe corn under the blade of the combine.

His cheeks had burned under the policewoman’s stare. This woman looked at him differently from the others. It was more than antagonism, it was contempt. She had seen what had become of his life, and she thought it was his own fault. She saw the squalor and had no hesitation in blaming him for it. And, of course, she was right.

His world took a sudden shift and became vivid and clear, as if somebody had shaken it to bring the picture into proper focus. Now he saw the colours of his life distinctly, and they were all dark. The revelation coalesced in one great lump all the burdens that had been piling up on him in the last few weeks. He knew now that they had drained his strength and his will, and had been the cause of all those strange, crippling aches in his belly that he hadn’t been able to explain.