At first, he didn’t think she was going to answer. Fry walked on a few more yards, her eyes fixed ahead, concentrating on where she was going, oblivious to the fascinations of the landscape around her.

‘Which I will,’ she said. ‘I come through everything.’

10

Ben Cooper recognized the look of a martyr when he saw one. And Yvonne Leach had that look – the defeated air of a woman worn down by many years of battling against the odds.

But it was more than that. She had an expression that Cooper had seen in the eyes of his own mother so many times. For some reason, there were women who slipped into the role of martyr as if it were their destiny. At one time, Cooper had found the tendency so frustrating in his mother that he had become angry with her, though she was not the person his anger should have been turned against. For years now, he had been drained of the anger. The sight of Mrs Leach brought it all back to him.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Leach. Is your husband around at the moment?’

‘No. I don’t know where he is,’ she said.

‘Perhaps he’s about the farm somewhere?’

‘Perhaps he is.’

She had kept Cooper standing in the yard, advancing from her doorstep so that he had to retreat to a point where he couldn’t see into the house. He noted her defensiveness without surprise. Many of these small hill farmers were used to making do on little money, especially when they had children to raise. But when things became too bad, it was often the women on whom the burden fell; the women were the first to suffer the internal fractures that could tear apart their families and their lives. They always tried to hide it. But there were inadvertent signs – little giveaways that you could learn to see, with practice.

‘I noticed the Land Rover wasn’t in the yard,’ he said.

‘Maybe he’s gone out, then.’

‘Do you know where, Mrs Leach?’

She shrugged. ‘He doesn’t always tell me where he’s going. Why should he?’

Now Cooper registered the note of defiance, and assessed the woman more carefully. Although her clothes were old, they were clean and neatly pressed. Her hair, streaking to grey, had not seen a hairdresser for some time, but it was brushed and tied neatly back. Cooper realized she had even applied a touch of make-up this morning. Her lips showed two unsteady lines of red, her cheeks traces of powder.

‘If you see your husband, please tell him we’d like to speak to him again,’ he said.