Then, striking the spade into the hard, dry soil and pushing down on it with his foot, he began the laborious task of digging, wanting to make a hole deep enough so the unfortunate creatures would not easily be dug back up by a fox.

As he worked away, perspiring heavily from his exertions, he was thinking about both his conversation with Glenn Branson and with the hospital team, who had given him a helpful step-by-step postmortem leaflet for the loved ones of organ donors.

First up, tomorrow morning, he had to go to the Brighton Register Office to register Bruno’s death and obtain the death certificate. Then he and Cleo needed to appoint a funeral director. A huge number of decisions would have to be made about Bruno’s funeral, starting with what kind of coffin, what kind of service. His one certainty was that the boy should be buried in the same graveyard as his mother and as close to her as possible. Bruno’s grandparents had agreed with his thinking.

But all of this was for tomorrow, not now.

He stood staring at the sky and soaking up the beautiful evening, remembering the good times with his eldest son.

He continued to dig until he felt the hole was deep enough. He knelt and laid each of the hens into it. Close by, he saw a pink wild flower. He walked over and picked it, then laid it on top of the birds, before beginning to shovel the earth back onto them.

68

Friday 6 September

Arrangements had been made for Bruno’s postmortem to be carried out at Worthing mortuary, instead of Brighton, and it had taken place the previous afternoon. With the agreement of the Coroner and Christopher Goodman’s solicitor, the defence proffered their own pathologist, Ashley Brown, who was also present alongside the local pathologist to avoid the need for a second postmortem. After close and careful liaison with the transplant team surgeons, the cause of death was confirmed as injuries sustained as a result of the accident. Brown informed the Coroner that he was happy for the body to be released for burial.

On Thursday, Cleo had accompanied Roy for the grim task of arranging his death certificate, and then they had made an appointment to see the funeral director today. Neither of them had gone into work, both wanting to be there to support each other.

They’d taken some comfort from the huge number of emails and social media messages of condolences that had poured through from family, friends and colleagues, including the Chief Constable, the Police and Crime Commissioner, the Headmaster of St Christopher’s School and several other teachers, and one, less welcome and more mealy-mouthed, from Cassian Pewe. Grace had also been surprised to receive a couple expressing their sympathy from criminals he was known to from over the years.

A Facebook memorial page set up by the Lippert family, who had taken care of Bruno after his mother’s accident, already had messages of sympathy from a number of people Grace was not even familiar with and was headed up by a heartfelt message from Erik Lippert, who was Bruno’s best friend in Germany. Grace was surprised to see a post from Cassian Pewe written in German. He wondered what that was about.