‘Arguments, aye. Blazing rows. Derek wouldn’t hear of it, and we stopped speaking of the thing altogether after a while. One night, when he was asleep, I took it out of the wall, and I smashed it up and I burned it in the incinerator, and I scraped out the ash and I drove out to Carsington Reservoir, and I tipped it in the water. And Billy was gone. For he that is dead is freed from sin.’

‘How did your brother respond when he found out?’

‘He was raving. He was never stable, Derek. Never followed God. He’d strayed off the path. God rest his soul, but he was a lost cause.’

‘We found traces of potassium nitrate in your kitchen – that’s saltpetre. And other ingredients used in a recipe for a Hand of Glory. Have you heard of it?’

‘Ah, he was always on with his messing. Meddling with things he knew nothing about. Tempting the Devil, I called it. I wouldn’t have none of it. I threw his stuff out if I found it, or chucked it down the sink. He started trying to hide things from me, but I smelled him out. The stink of evil is never forgotten.’

Cooper remembered the kitchen at Pity Wood Farm, the dripping sink and the unidentifiable jars in the fridge sitting next to the builders’ milk. There had certainly been a stink that he might never forget. Whether it was the stink of evil he supposed was open to interpretation.

‘I don’t know what you want,’ said Sutton, suddenly agitated. ‘What is it you want?’

‘Mr Sutton, it was the head, wasn’t it? It had nothing to do with a Hand of Glory. After you threw Billy out, your brother wanted a head.’

Sutton focused on him nervously, his eyes watering now, and Cooper thought he would lose him altogether in the next few moments.

‘I believe in what I believe. But Derek’s faith lay elsewhere. If you believe in something – really believe it – you’re prepared to take your belief to the extreme.’

‘What are you saying, sir?’

‘She was dead already. Dead as can be. Derek said it wouldn’t hurt her. The body is only the shell, when the soul has moved on to a better place.’

‘And so you dug her up and removed her head?’ said Hitchens, aghast. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘No, no. Well, it was already … detached, more or less.’

Cooper recalled stories of riots at gallows sites, when the families of hanged criminals fought the anatomists’ men for corpses. People had different reasons for wanting possession of a body, or parts of it.

‘Derek said we needed another one,’ said the old man finally. ‘But he was wrong. It never worked, did it?’