‘Yes, Mr Charlie. Off like bleeding rabbits, him still holding his trousers up, her leaving certain garments behind in a wasteful fashion which I happen to have in my pocket this moment if you wish to check.’

I shuddered delicately, told him I would take his word for it.

Urged by a now surly George and Sam, we made our way over to the great mound itself, that horrid pile of the guts of ages long-gone and never to be one-half comprehended. Jock busied himself briefly with the padlock and chain which guarded the entrance to the underground passage leading to the grave-chamber and disappeared with Eric, my tape-recorder and a plastic bag full of the best toads available. When they emerged we all made our way up the winding path which leads to the chapels crowning the mound. Jock was as good as his word: the lock of the Jerusalem Chapel fell to his bow and spear with no more protest than a subdued clunk.

Eric bustled into the chapel in a business-like way, as one to the manner born. George, Sam and I followed him with different degrees of reticence. The rooster had been fed with raisins soaked in rum by Jock: I wish to make it clear that it was not I who carried it. Eric wasted no time; he dabbed little bits of this and that on the remains of the ancient altar and then spread over it his splendid corporal. The rest of us huddled, a little sheepishly perhaps, at the back of the tiny chancel – no larger than a bathroom in the better kind of country house. When I say ‘the rest of us’ I exclude Jock, of course, who was lurking somewhere in the shadows of the porch – his favourite place in times of turpitude and quite right too.

Strong though we were of purpose, I suspect that a show of hands, had it been taken at that moment, would have indicated a pretty nem. con. desire to return home and forget the whole thing. Except for Eric. He was growing almost visibly, taking on the stature of the craftsman who knows that what he is doing is not a thing that anyone else could do better; the dignity, if you like, of a scientist devising a hydrogen bomb, torn by the knowledge of evil but driven by the compulsion of research and the jackboot of human history.