What kind of a funeral was this that no one else came to, not even the parish priest? Joe was not going to judge either Geoffrey or his daughter, though plenty did. He’d heard rumours about them both. Perhaps he should be railing about sin and purgatory. But who was he to cast the first stone? The man was suffering now and was alone in the world. Joe knew how that felt.

He put his notes back into the copy of the New Testament, stepped out of the pulpit and up to Geoffrey, in the front pew. Arm round his shoulders, man to man. He needed a friend now, not priestly platitudes, sympathy not insincerity.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

Geoffrey swallowed, tears on his cheek, nodded. Joe put his hand on Geoffrey’s, squeezed it. Better than any words.

Joe stood up, returned to the altar, heard the click of the door as the nurse let herself out. A protestant, for sure.

‘Come back to the house,’ Geoffrey said. ‘When you’re done.’

Joe couldn’t say no. He disrobed, folded away the vestments, pulled on his jacket and coat and picked up his binoculars.

It was a while before Joe found the farm. La Ferme de l’Anse. Strange for such a small island that there were still hidden nooks and crannies. He leaned his bike against the gate and looked around. A distinctive call. Ptar-crrrp. Like little Bridey when she had the croup. Listen. He pulled out his binoculars and trained them overhead. Look. A textbook case, he thought, flying loose and disorderly. They needed a sergeant major to drill them, Mark time, forward! Silence in the ranks, about turn! Brent geese. He hadn’t seen them since he’d left Cloghane, and even there they were few and far between. He pulled out his notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, disentangled the pencil that he had threaded down its spine and secured with a string and wrote in careful script, branta bernicla. La Ferme de l’Anse. 8th February 1942.

He put his binoculars back into their case, snug against the cushioned velvet innards. ‘Dolland & Co’ was etched on the lid. The leather still smelled the same as when Colonel Waring had stood in the passageway of their house in Cloghane fifteen years ago, with his puckered eye and an empty sleeve pinned to the chest of his jacket.

‘I don’t have use for these,’ he’d said, handing the case to Joe. ‘Not now.’

‘You should be careful, Father.’

Joe jumped. He hadn’t heard Geoffrey approach.

‘Jerry wouldn’t take it kindly if they thought you were spying on them.’

‘It’s the birds I follow,’ Joe said.