‘Yes.’ Aunt Hatt sat up, wiping her face with her hands. She looked dazed. ‘There was no doubt. Oh, it was so horrible, Eb . . .’ Her face creased again. ‘That terrible gloomy room in the police station – and the poor man laid out stiff . . . That poor little wife of his – howled like a dog, she did. I thought she was going to go and throw herself in as well after she’d seen him.’

‘You don’t think she will, do you, Aunt?’ Annie said.

‘No – I don’t suppose so. She’s still got all those children. But . . .’ She shook her head. ‘He was . . . Well, he was dead, of course. No one knows how it happened for sure. But apart from that, he was such a poor, thin sort of specimen. You’d wonder how he’d managed in the world at all, by the look of him.’

‘He didn’t,’ Annie said, wiping her tears away. She sounded utterly exhausted. ‘Not really – not after the accident.’

Aunt Hatt nodded. She looked up at Eb and reached a hand out. He took it, raising it to his lips in a way which made Margaret feel even more tearful. She found herself longing for a pair of arms about her. If only Philip Tallis were here! She was startled by the strength of her longing for him.

‘Oh, Eb,’ Aunt Hatt said. ‘That poor family . . . And the way they live . . . I had no idea . . . We’re so fortunate.’

Eb, more sober than they had ever seen him, nodded, his eyes wide with sorrow. ‘We are, that’s for sure.’ There was no hesitation. ‘We must pay for that poor feller’s funeral.’

Mary kept saying it was all an accident, though no one would ever know for sure exactly how Wilfred Poole died, whether by his own hand or another’s. Mrs Blount came and sat with Mary and listened, as Annie and Margaret did, to her shock and her fears for the future. They helped support Mary through the funeral, once more at Key Hill cemetery. Neighbours helped deck the house in black crêpe.