On a summer’s day in February 1942, Mr Sammy Joseph, buyer for Riven Brothers Textile Manufactory, was going through their wool stores with the storeman. The windows had been blacked out with paint, and the storeman, as they entered, switched on a solitary lamp. This had the effect of throwing into strong relief the square hessian bales immediately under the lamp. Farther down the store they dissolved in shadow. The lamp was high and encrusted with dust: the faces of the two men looked cadaverous. Their voices sounded stifled: there is no echo in a building lined with wool. The air was stuffy and smelt of hessian.

‘When did we start buying dead wool, Mr Joseph?’ asked the storeman.

‘We never buy dead wool,’ Joseph said sharply. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘There’s a bale of it down at the far end.’

‘Not in this store.’

‘I’m good for a bet on it.’

‘What’s biting you? Why d’you say it’s dead?’

‘Gawd, Mr Joseph, I’ve been in the game long enough, haven’t I? Don’t I know dead wool when I smell it? It pongs.’

‘Here!’ said Sammy Joseph. ‘Where is this bale?’

‘Come and see.’

They walked down the aisle between ranks of baled wool. The storeman at intervals switched on more lights and the aisle was extended before them. At the far end he paused and jerked his thumb at the last bale. ‘Take a sniff, Mr Joseph,’ he said.

Sammy Joseph bent towards the bale. His shadow was thrown up on the surface, across stencilled letters, a number and a rough crescent. ‘That’s from the Mount Moon clip,’ he said.

‘I know it is.’ The storeman’s voice rose nervously. ‘Stinks, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Joseph. ‘It does.’

‘Dead wool.’

‘I’ve never bought dead wool in my life. Least of all from Mount Moon. And the smell of dead wool goes off after it’s plucked. You know that as well as I do. Dead rat, more likely. Have you looked?’

‘Yes, I have looked, Mr Joseph. I shifted her out the other day. It’s in the bale. You can tell.’

‘Split her up,’ Mr Joseph commanded.

The storeman pulled out a clasp knife, opened it, and dug the blade into the front of the bale. Sammy Joseph watched him in a silence that was broken only by the uneasy sighing of the rafters above their heads.

‘It’s hot in here,’ said Sammy Joseph. ‘There’s a nor’west gale blowing outside. I hate a hot wind.’

‘Oppressive,’ said the storeman. He drew the blade of his knife downwards, sawing at the bale. The strands of sacking parted in a series of tiny explosions. Through the fissure bulged a ridge of white wool.

‘Get a lung full of that,’ said the storeman, straightening himself. ‘It’s something chronic. Try.’