“I heard you’re from London,” Mr. Leeson says with a familiar mixture of disdain and pity. The “poor sod” following the statement is always silent. I don’t want to get into this now. Telling people how I moved here to Cornwall for my wife, my son, for a better life is like being forced to repeat a joke you know isn’t funny again and again. I snap the rubber band against my wrist. The rubber band was suggested by Dr. Bunce, the relationship therapist I’m seeing twice a week with—and at the behest of—my wife, Ruth. The little shocks of the rubber against my skin are supposed to stop negative thoughts. It doesn’t work, of course—instead I have a new tic to accompany all the shit going on in my head.

“I’d better be getting on,” I say, declining to respond to Mr. Leeson’s statement. The Cornish rain is already soaking through my thin London-bought anorak and my glasses have started to steam up. I’m only standing in this God-forsaken field because I didn’t know how to tell Mr. Leeson that I didn’t want to see the mutilated sheep he found this morning—the third already this summer.

I’m here reporting for The Rambler, a magazine dedicated to all things Cornish and outdoors, and we’re supposed to be talking about the farmer’s preparations for the Ashford Agricultural Show next month. I’m here to talk winning sheep, not dead ones with jellied eyes.

Mud sucks around my Converse as we walk across the flat, boggy field towards the farmyard. I shake Mr. Leeson’s hard hand, say sorry again about the sheep, promise to be in touch about the story. As soon as I sit behind the wheel I wipe my glasses with my sleeve and reach for my phone to read Ben’s text.

Jon mate, long time no see. Thought you’d want to know. Police just removed a body from the Nichols place on Woodgreen Ave. Break-in gone wrong? Fucking nuts. The body looked too big to be the girl. Ben.

A robbery in the small town of Ashford is headline news, but a possible murder is beyond comprehension. I read the text again.

From anyone else the “too big to be the girl” bit would sound monstrous but I know Ben just wants to reassure me it’s not Grace in the body bag and I’m grateful for that. But still, shit, does that mean it’s Meg? Ashford’s darling, the perfect mum, dead? Murdered in her own home?

I wonder where they’ve taken Grace. To a neighbor’s? The police station? I imagine her mute with shock, trembling in her wheelchair, clutching that stuffed rabbit like a much younger girl. I hope someone will know how to comfort her, that they’ll call the doctor, help calm her down. I can’t imagine the trauma will do her already-weak heart any good.

Out of the grubby farmhouse window Mr. Leeson is staring down at me and frowning. His lips move, presumably saying something to Mrs. Leeson—perhaps he’s finally noticed, is telling her he remembers my face on the front of the Ashford Echo—before he walks away from the window.