The houses on Church Street tended to be larger properties, more widely spaced out. One had burned down; nearly all the rest were empty. Ellie found one family of three who’d been lucky and quick, and a woman near-catatonic with shock, worse than Kate Beck had been when Ellie and Bert Annable found her. Ellie tried not to think of Bert.

She put the traumatised woman in the family’s care, directed them to the Assemblies church and carried on. Two more empty houses, then there was St Alkmund’s and the Vicarage.

Opening the lychgate, Ellie went through the churchyard, trying not to notice how many gravestones had been broken or overturned, or the condition of the church; she wanted to enjoy a few moments’ peace and stillness.

She’d married Stan in a church very like St Alkmund’s, and on a very similar day, all flawless sky and brilliant sun. A winter wedding: she’d have been happy with a quiet registry office do, but Stan’s mother had wanted the full works, and his family had been paying. It had been a good day, anyway, and she’d been happy, even if she’d looked like a bloody meringue in the wedding dress – all frills and lace, what in Hell’s name had she been thinking? Richard had already been growing in her, although she hadn’t known it then. She always wondered if the flaw in his brain, the ticking time-bomb, had already taken shape as well. It had been a good day, but Richard’s death had tainted the memory in retrospect. Like film footage of a laughing child you knew would, seconds later, be blown apart by a landmine.

Ellie sat down on a bench by the path, surprised how tired she suddenly felt. She dry-washed her face, craving another cigarette. Hell of a time to fall off that particular wagon. Should have kept her eyes open in one of the empty houses; might have found a spare packet. Grave-robber thinking, she knew, and she was supposed to be a police officer, but with others rooting through houses in search of medical supplies and gathering anything flammable they could find for the bonfires a packet of B&H was hardly obscene.

Ellie’s eyelids drooped; she was in danger of falling asleep here on the bench. Couldn’t do that. Mustn’t. So much to be done – but the desire to take a moment to herself and just rest, however briefly, was near-irresistible. Resist she must, though: everyone in Barsall was in the same boat, and she had a job to do.

Ellie stood up and started towards the church. The windows, of course, had all been shattered, and the heavy main doors torn off: one lay in the grass by the steps. The now familiar gīml marking had been etched above the doorway, along with the symbol she’d found beside Tony Harper: hē, or jubilation.