“Dad,” Ian said. “Mum said you’re to come in for tea.”

The farmer turned quickly. He was holding a wide screwdriver that looked like a knife.

“No,” he said. “I’ll not come in. I’ll just finish this, then I’ll be out of her way.”

“Dad,” Ian said. “ What are you going to do? Things can’t go on like this.”

The farmer moved towards him, the screwdriver still in his hand.

“No,” he said slowly. “ Things can’t go on like this.”

He threw the screwdriver onto a grubby workbench and walked out across the yard towards the village.

Since Charlie Elliot’s death the post office had been closed, and one of the major talking points in the pub among the old men was their inability to collect their pensions.

“Of course old Fred has had a bad time,” they grumbled, “ but it’s about time he started thinking about other folk.”

Even the news that a relief postmistress would be sent out from Otterbridge the following week did nothing to console them. It wouldn’t be the same, they said. Nothing in the village would be the same.

Fred Elliot would not talk to anybody except his widowed sister who had come down from Berwick to look after him and to her he spoke only in monosyllables. He could not explain to her his sense of responsibility, but he went over it again and again in his mind. He knew it was all his fault. If he had told the policeman about Charlie leaving the house again on Saturday night, his son might still be alive.

“I only did what I thought best,” he repeated to his sister, who clucked about him not listening, not understanding.

“Of course you did, pet,” she said. “Of course you did.”

Sometimes when his sister was busy, he would escape to the shed in the backyard to count and tidy the piles of waste-paper, which he intended to sell to provide funds for the hospital where his wife had died. That gave him some comfort, but his sister always found him there and dragged him back to the fire as if he were a naughty child.

“It won’t do you any good,” she said, “brooding on your own out there.” She sat him in his favourite armchair and made him tea and pretended not to notice that he was crying.