Michael shrugged. He knew already that the Bickerstaffs were providing the contraceptive pill to many women in the commune, knew that Colleen was diligently taking it. He didn’t ask what other drugs the Bickerstaff sisters were doling out, or why the pregnant Janie was clearly chain-smoking her way through packets of Lambert & Butler. Instead he gently unhooked Colleen’s arms from his waist and stepped back towards the flimsy door.

‘Don’t go,’ said Colleen quickly. ‘We were just …’

‘I’ll be back in a little bit, I just need some more fresh air.’ He didn’t miss the look Beryl Bickerstaff gave him as he stepped out – flat and calculating, like a cat trying to decide if a mouse was worth the effort.

After just a few minutes inside the smoky campervan the night air tasted sweet and welcoming, and he walked back towards the house gratefully even as he felt a pang of regret at leaving Colleen behind. She did not like the big house, wouldn’t stay in it overnight, although she’d never been especially clear on why – it was an attitude that mystified Michael. After all, it wasn’t a run-down farmhouse surrounded by bleak fields, it wasn’t a suffocating cupboard. Halfway up the hill he came across the man coming down. The dog was nowhere to be seen.

‘Good night, lad?’ It was too dark to see his face clearly, but Michael heard the grin in his voice all the same.

‘The Bickerstaff sisters. What do they know?’

The man turned away, and a sliver of moonlight picked out his features in beaten silver: the big nose, an old man’s expansive ears, the dull sheen of his false eye. He was still grinning.

‘They’re useful,’ was all he said.

Michael nodded, although he didn’t agree. After a moment he said, ‘I wish you hadn’t made me leave that note.’

‘Why not? Why shouldn’t they know your name?’

‘The Red Wolf.’ Speaking it aloud was thrilling, but it also gave him a deeper, unhappier ache that he couldn’t explain. It was coming too close to talking about the things they never talked about, and once they named them, he felt certain everything would vanish, like a soap bubble. ‘The papers have taken it. And they don’t understand. Not really.’

The man snorted. ‘That’s our burden, lad. To never be understood.’

For some time, Michael didn’t move or speak. He could hear voices laughing and talking some distance away, and there were points of orange light from campfires away to his right, but up here on the hill it was cold, and the darkness of Fiddler’s Wood seemed to tug at him eagerly. He longed to go there with the images that were still fresh in his head, visit the hearts that beat under the earth for him, but the thought of Colleen held him back.