Connor tried to get the pickaxe under the edge to lift the stone. But it was huge and too bloody heavy for one man to budge. So now Connor flung the pickaxe aside and took up the sledgehammer again. He was taking aim . . .

Oh shit, thought Aysha.

. . . and the hammer swung fast, up and then down. It hit the ancient stone and bounced off.

‘Fuck,’ said Connor, peeling off his shirt and tossing it aside.

Despite the bitter chill, there was a sheen of sweat on his brow and an alarming intensity to his face when the torchlight caught it. Aysha watched him, thinking that this was crazy, that they couldn’t be doing this, that he must be wrong.

Connor shot his sister a look. ‘Steady,’ he said, and swung again.

No luck.

‘Connor, we shouldn’t—’ said Aysha.

‘We have to,’ he cut her off, and swung again, and again, and . . .

Suddenly it happened: the stone cracked. Connor hit it once more, and the crack widened into a fork and split. Connor downed the sledgehammer, grabbed the pickaxe again and levered one of the smaller sections away. It tipped up and then crashed to the side, echoing mournfully in the tomb-like silence of the church. Dust plumed up, and Aysha recoiled, coughing. Connor levered the pick under the remaining section, and heaved. That too gave up and fell aside.

‘What the hell is that?’ asked Aysha, her voice shaking as she focused the torch’s beam on what was revealed.

Connor leaned forward. He’d hoped to find nothing but an ancient skeleton. It was Aysha who stretched down a hand. With a shiver of revulsion she brushed away dirt from the stuff Connor’s blows had revealed.

‘It’s fur,’ she said. ‘Grey-blue fur. Oh yuck.’

‘Something blue,’ said Connor. ‘Holy shit. That’s Blue. That’s Claire Milo’s dog. They killed him and put him in here. You know what this means? It’s true. It’s all fucking true.’

‘What?’ Aysha looked ghostly pale in the torchlight.

‘Fuck it,’ said Connor.

He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but here was the proof. The Cleavers really had killed the dog and raped Claire on his mother’s say-so. Given her a child; given her Suki. He believed it all now.

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There was very little left of Blue except fur, bones, teeth, and bits of catgut where he’d been stitched up time and again by Claire’s dad after running through barbed wire after hares.

‘Christ,’ said Aysha, coughing and almost gagging as Connor started lifting bits of the dead dog out to see what lay beneath. The smell in here was ancient, dusty. It clawed at the back of her throat and made her breath catch.