“They’ll not bother with a new one,” Carol says authoritatively. “It’ll be stand in the rain and catch your death!”

The younger woman hums agreement while the butcher, George, slices thin slivers of red meat for her. “It’ll be kids smoking, I shouldn’t wonder,” he tells them.

Carol shakes her head. “Arson, according to our Philip. Went up something fierce, it did.”

George shouts over his shoulder to the back of the shop. “Where are you, lad? Barry!”

Young Barry emerges from the back absently wiping a finger on his apron. The butcher’s boy has also grown since Lily last saw him, but outward rather than upward. “Yeah?” he asks sullenly.

“Any chance you might put that bleedin’ phone down for five minutes and lend me a hand?” George points to Mrs. Mink, who gives the lad her order.

Lily watches him cut the meat. He’s wearing no gloves and his fingers are reddened with blood. He has his nose pierced in three places. One of them is adorned with a ring that, given his size, makes him look not unlike the fattened pig he is working on.

“Eight-fifty, luv,” says George, and as Carol reaches into her purse he adds, “Any idea what the news is up at the Old Vicarage?”

Lily experiences a wave of nausea as the young lad slaps another cut of meat onto the counter.

“I was just coming to that,” says Carol, perhaps put out at having her thunder stolen. When she answers, it’s the younger woman she addresses. “This body they’ve found. Philip’s saying it’s him . . .”

But Lily struggles to hear the rest. Her ears are full of the sound of Barry’s rasping blade as he hacks off a strip of thick, white fat, his knife scraping along the bone.

“You used to work up there, didn’t you?” George asks.

Carol is in her element. “Always said he’d come to no good, that one. He was a tyrant, you ask anyone. No place to raise a child. And the times I had to throw good food away just ’cause he decided to change his plans!”

Lily wants to turn and leave, but it feels like her feet have taken root.

“Of course, the police will want to talk to me again, no doubt. Not that I can tell them owt I didn’t six year ago, mind. I told them all about how it was up there, all sorts coming and going at all hours. I, for one, weren’t the least surprised when they found out he was a wrong ’un.”

And now George notices Lily.

“Well, here’s someone who can tell us what’s what. Ey up, Miss Bainbridge? What’s all this about a body then?”

Everyone turns at once. Mrs. Mink pauses in the midst of negotiating her snap coin purse. The fat man wipes his nose. The daughter-in-law stares at her blankly. And Carol flushes a bright crimson.