Yes, the sitting room. Just herself and the constable and Billy now. Billy had barely ever been in the sitting room before though he came almost daily to the kitchen. They didn’t sit in the room but only stood. That annoyed her. She felt annoyed with them for making her go there, for coming to her and taking her there to say whatever it was they were going to say, which already perhaps she knew, which was why she was angry. They were so awkward, standing there before her. Better if they had gone back outside. Outside at least they would have had space around them for what needed to be said. No weight of ceiling over their heads. No things pressing about them, no soft carpet or curtain or upholstery, but only cold space.

I have to go out and see. I want to see.

Are you sure? Perhaps you should wait a while, madam, let us bring him in first.

Yes. No. Now.

She led them back into the kitchen, where just the boys and the dog now remained, and spoke to Billy, her eyes to his high above the boys’ eyes, adult to adult. Her voice surprisingly controlled. Billy, would you be very kind and stay with the boys just a bit?

She put on her coat, hastily tied a scarf over her head.

Took up her gloves from where they lay on the table.

Put on her boots by the back door. Jonny’s stood beside them, neatly placed but wet with mud. How odd, could he have been out already? The thought registered but only superficially. It was nothing beside the shock of the other thoughts in her.

The air was cold, moist with fog.

The constable spoke plain words to prepare her. It’s a bit of a mess, Mrs Ashe. Might be best if you could wait and see him later, when they’ve tidied him up a bit.

How could she say that she must see the place? See him. Be outside in the cold air where words were not only words but visible as breath?

The constable knelt on the leaves on the ground of the spinney and lifted the edge of the coat that had been thrown over him. That was enough. She did not need to see the rest. She saw the twisted way that he lay, the length of his body, his hand that had let go its hold on the gun. The constable looked up at her with a question and she managed the smallest shake of the head that stopped him from going any further, an answer in her eyes as much as anywhere. No more.

In the kitchen, the boys had got themselves some cereal.