‘He’d only been in Mardle for a few months and he was throwing his weight about. He had this attitude. You know, cocky. But cruel with it. Always carried a knife to show he meant business. He said he couldn’t have Margaret working freelance on his patch. She should work for him or leave. Or he’d change her looks so that she’d never work again. You could imagine him, his knife on her face. He’d have loved the excuse.’ Malcolm’s voice was flat and hard. Joe believed every word he said.

‘So you decided to sort him out.’ Vera wasn’t asking a question now, just acting as straight woman, moving the story along.

‘I decided to have a word,’ Malcolm said.

‘The night of your father’s fiftieth birthday party. The night that photo was taken.’ Vera leaned forward across the table and her eyes were bright. You wouldn’t have thought that she’d had no sleep for forty-eight hours.

I asked him to meet me in the yard,’ Malcolm said. ‘Told him I thought we might do some business together. That was the only language he understood. Business.’ Coughing out the last word like an oath. He paused for a moment and then he continued. ‘It was hot. During the day so hot that the tar on the road had melted. The heat made everyone crazy. It made me crazy. Butt was just a boy, but he had no respect. No sense of how things worked in Harbour Street.’

‘Your dad had a certain position,’ Vera said. ‘Cox of the lifeboat. It had run in the family. And you had a certain position too.’

Malcolm nodded briefly to show that she’d got that bit right. ‘Ricky Butt offered me a cut,’ he said. ‘He sat swinging back and forth on his chair in the office in the yard. Smirking. Talking about Margaret as if she was shit. “She’s got class. Worth a fortune, a bit of class. Bring her onside and you’ll get your cut.” But Margaret wasn’t that sort of woman.’

It was still dark outside, but Malcolm was staring out of the window.

‘So you lost your temper.’ Vera’s voice hardly more than a whisper.

Another pause, then a nod. A brief triumphant grin. ‘I hit him. He wasn’t expecting it. Not time to get out the knife. He tilted back in his chair and hit his head on the floor. I think that might have killed him. It was a hell of a crash and there was blood and brain everywhere . . .’

Joe thought Malcolm might have meant to continue, to confess to another blow, just to make sure the man was dead, or because he was crazy with the heat and the temper, but Vera interrupted. She raised her hand to stop him in mid-flow.

‘Not murder then,’ she said. ‘Manslaughter, if you didn’t mean to kill him.’