‘Her mind was fine, but her body was long past being able to keep up with her,’ said Owen. ‘I think that’s the saddest thing of all, don’t you? It meant she knew exactly what was happening to her. It was a long drawn-out torture.’

‘How long did you live together, just the two of you?’

‘Thirty years.’

‘Thirty years? Owen, you must have been –?’

‘Since I was twenty-three.’

‘Well, you’re right about a marriage. Except that not many couples stay together so long these days.’

Owen nodded. ‘We depended on each other. That’s the difference, isn’t it? You stay together when you need each other. Most of the couples I see, they don’t really need each other – not after the sex thing is done with and the kids have grown up. Sixteen years at most, and the reasons for their marriage have gone. There’s no real tie to keep them from drifting apart. No ties like there are with a parent. Real blood ties.’

‘But never to have your own life, Owen . . .’

‘You still don’t really understand. Mum was my life. Oh, I had the job. I’ve always loved being a Ranger, and I wouldn’t have done anything else. But I’ve never really had friends – plenty of acquaintances, but no friends. And I was never going anywhere else, because I was needed right here, in Cargreave. I had a purpose. Until she died.’

‘That must have left a big hole in your life,’ said Cooper, aware of how inadequate the words were. He had an inkling of what it must have meant to Owen – not just to lose a part of your life, but to lose its entire purpose. It made him think of Warren Leach, who had come to the same point himself, in his own way, but had chosen a different method of dealing with it. Owen had followed a different path – less violent, perhaps, but just as destructive.

Cooper ran his eye over the ornate writing on the stone slab. The old-fashioned letters were difficult to read, full of curlicues and elegant swirls, not like the nice, plain print of a newspaper headline. The effects of the weather and the rubbing of many hands had worn the inscriptions down so much over the centuries that they had almost been lost entirely. The Commandments were so difficult to see that they were easy to ignore, too empty of significance to draw meaning from any more. Cooper traced the wording of number nine, taking his time, almost reluctant to get to the end of the sentence.

‘“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,”’ he said.