‘I don’t know,’ Joe says listlessly. He sees Cathy’s eyes flash in the light from his phone.

‘He was British, you know? You remember, at the market – he had an English accent,’ she says, looking down at the body. ‘On holiday or an ex-pat, I don’t know.’

Joe lays down the body’s feet. ‘Right,’ he says.

She moves away some leaves with her foot, still in flip-flops. Her toes come away dirty. Joe turns off the torch, and leaves them in the blackness.

‘Do you think we’re doing the right thing?’ he whispers. As his eyes adjust, she comes into view, like a slowly developing Polaroid. First the whites of her eyes, then her bare limbs.

She bites her lip and looks away. He’s surprised to see Cathy’s vulnerability. She is one of those women who is always in the same mood. ‘I just … yeah. I don’t know.’

It’s still the exact middle of the night. Hours until the sun comes up. Joe hopes they can do it.

‘I feel like I’m in a nightmare,’ he says.

‘Me too.’

‘So, do you?’ He runs a hand through his hair, leaving grainy particles of soil behind which make him itch. ‘Think we’re doing the right thing?’

‘Do you?’ she replies and Joe almost laughs. Typical enigmatic Cathy.

‘Can you just answer a fucking question?’ he snaps.

Cathy says nothing, leaning on her spade.

‘We don’t have to do it,’ he adds after a few seconds. He knows he’s needling her to discuss Frannie with him, but he can’t help it. This instinct he has, sometimes, to divide and conquer. It’s something to do with needing to be secure, needing to be … what, sibling number one? God, he’s an arse.

Cathy stares at him. For a second, she looks exactly like Frannie in that eerie way that sisters sometimes do. ‘I know,’ she says.

‘We could stop now,’ he adds uselessly. ‘Call the police. End it.’ They look at the body at their feet. ‘Before it begins.’ His throat seems to close up after he’s said it. It’s just bravado. Suggestions. He could never do it. To Frannie or to Paul.

‘You don’t mean that?’ she says softly.

Joe shrugs. ‘No.’

They stare at each other for a few seconds more. ‘It’s forever.’ Cathy stares down at the body, now blackened by dried blood. ‘You know?’

‘I know.’

‘What would she get? Really?’

‘She might get life, if they infer intent,’ Joe says. Lydia is a secretary at a criminal law firm, and he’s picked up bits over the years from the cases she tells him of that she should keep quiet. That, and television. ‘If they don’t believe it was an accident.’

‘Right,’ Cathy says faintly.

She meets his gaze again. ‘We should check who he is,’ she says softly.

‘What?’

‘His wallet. It’s better to know this stuff, isn’t it?’

‘I guess.’ Joe looks down at the body – at this person whose name they’ll soon know, who was living and breathing until just a few hours ago – and thinks he might be sick again. Cathy begins poking at the ground with the spade, so he kneels down and reaches into the man’s back pockets.