‘It’s locked, Ben,’ said Owen. ‘The church is locked.’

‘Too much trouble with thieves and vandals, I suppose.’

‘After she was gone, I didn’t think I needed the church any more,’ said Owen.

‘Your mother?’

‘We always used to come on a Sunday when she was well enough. After she died, I didn’t think I needed it any more. Then suddenly today I thought I did, after all. But it’s locked.’

Dozens of starlings were flocking in the churchyard, chattering to each other as they rustled from one yew tree to the next, deciding on a place to roost for the night.

‘Look, it might be a good idea if you stayed at home for a while, Owen,’ said Cooper. ‘Watch the telly, read a book, mow the lawn, feed the cats. Anything. Go home.’

‘I can’t.’ Owen scowled across the churchyard at the valley and the opposite hill. ‘Not knowing your lot have been through the house and pawed over my life. It doesn’t feel like my home any more. It’s a place where I’m a pervert, a sicko, the lowest of the low. But not outside the house. Outside, I’m someone else entirely.’

Cooper looked at the notices pinned to a board inside a glass case next to the slate slab.

‘According to this, you can get the key from the churchwarden at 2 Rectory Lane. The white house across the churchyard, it says.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Owen.

‘It’s just over there, look.’

‘Yes, I know.’

Cooper looked at the house, studying its curtained windows and tall chimneys. There was smoke coming from one of the chimneys, and it looked as though there was somebody at home.

‘In this village, the churchwarden is also the chairman of the parish council,’ said Owen. ‘Councillor Salt. She knows me well enough.’

Then Owen changed the subject. It might have been the subject that had been running through his mind all along, whatever the words he had been speaking. It all spilled out as if Cooper had suddenly tuned in halfway through a conversation.

‘I looked after Mum for so many years, you know,’ said Owen. ‘We were more than mother and son. We were a team. Do you know what I mean? It was like a marriage, in a way. I looked after her, and she looked after me – or she liked to think she did. She used to drag herself out of bed to get a meal ready for me when I came home. I would find her sitting on the kitchen floor, with the cutlery tipped out of the drawer and a pile of unwashed potatoes. And she would be apologizing for dinner being late.’

Owen’s voice cracked. Cooper looked away, over his head, to avoid seeing his expression, waiting while he recovered. He felt like a voyeur suddenly faced with something far more personal and intimate than he had expected.