‘Yes. They brought people here, they worked, they went away again. I never knew who they were, or where they went. I didn’t ask. I left it to Farnham. Was that wrong?’

‘Who can say, sir?’

‘The old caravan behind the house,’ said Cooper, as the wheelchair was turned round. ‘Was that used for housing some of the migrant workers?’

‘Aye, now and then. Farnham and Rourke used it for themselves, too.’

‘Did they? What for?’

‘Nay, I don’t know. And I didn’t –’

‘You didn’t ask. Of course.’

Despite Sutton’s words, his expression was tight with anxiety, his eyes close to tears, as if he was remembering more than he was telling, suffering pangs of guilt for things he’d done, or hadn’t done. Or maybe for what he’d never asked.

Sutton gazed around the farm, like a man saying a last goodbye.

‘When I die, this place will still be here, these hills and valleys, choose how.’

Fry looked at Cooper for a translation. ‘Choose how?’

‘He means “come what may”.’

‘Aye,’ said Sutton. ‘Choose how. Come what may. The hills and valleys, but not the farm. There are some cousins of ours over in Stoke – they can have whatever money there is when I’m gone, and welcome to it. I would never have given anyone the farm.’

‘This farm must have been here for centuries, Mr Sutton.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Sutton. ‘It’s middlin’ old.’

Cooper watched the old man until he seemed to be calmer.

‘Mr Sutton, we found Screaming Billy,’ he said.

‘Billy? Aye, where is he?’

‘Right now, he’s in a laboratory in Sheffield.’

‘Derek would have said it won’t do ’em any good. It was bad luck ever to move him, Derek said.’

‘But you didn’t believe in that, sir?’

‘No. Complete rubbish. The Lord has your fate in his hands, not some dirty old bit of bone.’

‘And was Derek trying to preserve a hand?’

‘A hand? I don’t know of any hand.’

But Sutton looked troubled, as if it was a possibility that seemed only too likely.

‘We found the materials in your kitchen for preserving a hand in saltpetre. It’s an old recipe. Your brother could have learned it from the museum in Edendale.’

‘I never knew what he was up to,’ muttered Sutton. ‘And never cared to ask, either. It would always end up in a row, and he knew it. Superstitious bastard, he was. I could never talk any sense into him.’