His hand is warm and sticky inside mine, and it’s all I can do not to pick him up and run. There’s a loosening inside me and it scares me. I know I have to resist it. Fear is good, fear is what keeps us safe. But blind panic is a different beast. That’s what fucks everything up.

I open the trapdoor and turn on the cellar light, keep hold of Calum’s hand as he goes down the narrow stairs painfully slowly, his warm milk sloshing left and right inside the cup. At the bottom, I stop long enough to pull the three vándr-varði out of the plastic bag and spread them out on my worktop.

‘Crow.’

‘That’s right.’

Calum’s brow furrows as he screws up his nose. ‘Yeuchy.’

‘It’s just mud. Remember when we went up to the standing stones and it rained so hard your wellies got squelchy stuck?’ I turn back towards the stairs before he can answer. ‘I have to go and get Mummy now, okay? I’ll bring Mummy down, and we can all stay here until the storm has gone away, okay?’

He frowns again. And this time when another crack of lightning sounds overhead, he flinches too.

‘It’s just a storm, Calum,’ Mary says. ‘It’s just noise. Nothing to be scared of, remember?’ She’s standing halfway down the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other on her hip. The look she gives me is furious.

‘Mummy’s right, sport,’ I say, crouching down into a squat. I don’t want Calum to be afraid of storms. Not because of me. ‘It’s just fun to come down here and play, isn’t it?’

He gives me a dubious look worthy of Mary before his chubby cheeks widen into a delighted grin as he points at my jeans and jacket. ‘Ket’up!’

I remember the blood only in the instant Mary reaches the bottom of the steps and comes up alongside me.

‘Rob – my God.’ Her hand comes up to cover her mouth.

‘It was a ewe,’ I mutter, pulling her away from Calum by her elbow. ‘I just found her up on the pasture.’

‘Why the hell did you not change your clothes before …’ She gestures towards Calum, but she’s still staring at the blood in barely disguised horror. ‘Jesus, get changed, Robert!’

‘Okay, okay.’ I jog over to the workbench again, where I’ve left a T-shirt and some overalls hanging over a stool. I pull off my coat and shirt and jeans before Mary can take Calum upstairs again, my panic like a bird inside my chest. Hurry up. Hurry up. Did Jimmy see the blood too? Surely the gloom and rain weren’t camouflage enough, and yet he said nothing. Sour suspicion returns, and with it that fear I am going mad. How could it have been Jimmy? Why would Jimmy want to kill my sheep?

Calum giggles. ‘Daddy pants.’

I zip up the overalls, kick my bloody clothes under the worktop before I turn round again. Mary has gone quiet; she’s looking around the cellar with that pinched, worried look I haven’t seen in weeks. I know she’s been down here before. She just hasn’t talked to me about it. Yet.