Joe checked on Betsy as he walked over to the milking shed. She was lying down, chewing her cud. He’d get her up in due course, put her in the head gate. The poleaxe was ready and he’d never missed yet. Swing it behind him, aim between the eyes, pierce the skull, kill the brain. She wouldn’t know a thing. The knife was nearby, and the bucket. Slit the throat, catch the blood. Cut the Achilles tendon, then hang her by the hind legs with the block and tackle slung over the beam. Split her down the middle from throat to groin so the guts spread thick as a delta, peel back the skin, sever the head and slice the animal down the backbone with his chopper. The skin pulled back easy when the animal was still warm. He’d never used anything other than a boning knife, like his daidí before him. Quartered and hung. The room where Joe kept the freezer was spick and span, and they’d carry the quarters there and hang them from the hooks.

They worked well as a team, but Joe wasn’t sure how long Geoffrey could carry on. He’d been born at the turn of the century, as the century turned. A minute past midnight on the first of January, 1900.

‘Nowadays,’ Joe said, ‘you’d most likely be in the papers.’

Joe did the slaughtering, and the other two did the hoisting and lifting. Geoffrey still had his marbles at eighty-five, but he wasn’t as strong as he used to be, and his hands meant he sometimes let slip the pulley. This might be the last Betsy they’d be able to slaughter. He’d have to send her daughter with the rest of the old milkers to be minced up for pet food.

He cleaned and disinfected the machines, readied the churns for the morning pickup, poured a jug of fresh milk, went back into the kitchen. Geoffrey had put the bowls in the sink and spread out the copy of the Evening Post on the table. He was standing over it, staring at the photograph.

‘I didn’t know her that well,’ Pierre was saying. ‘She lodged with my sister. They all seemed a bit strict in that house.’

Geoffrey was nodding, not hearing a word.

‘So who was the woman who had her photo?’ Pierre said.

‘Her name,’ Joe said, putting the milk on the table, ‘is Barbara Hummel.’

Geoffrey looked up. He was straining to follow the conversation, looked at Pierre, then at Joe.

‘Margaret,’ Geoffrey said. ‘What was Margaret doing here?’

‘Margaret?’ Joe looked at Geoffrey, then Pierre.

‘Margaret. The young woman.’ Geoffrey went on. ‘Earlier.’

He must be losing his marbles, Joe thought. Dementia. Joe’d need to keep an eye on him. Still, you had to be straight.