‘Our Brian,’ she said, rocking back on her haunches and huffing a strand of hair from her face. ‘He’ll be the death of me. Took a tanner from John’s wallet afore school. What for, eh? What hasn’t he got? Oh he says it weren’t him, looks so bloody innocent you find yourself wondering if your eyes are the ones telling lies.’ She looked down at the paperwork and I saw her head fall forward: a horse stooping to eat. ‘I were harder on him than he’s used to. Gave him a right telling off. He looked so upset. Stomped out the house like he were nivver coming back. And God forgive me but I went into the room where he ties his flies. I thought the money might be in there. Thought I could put it back and make it like it nivver happened. But by God I forgot the money as soon as I opened the door. He’s been collecting things. I knew he liked bones. Frogs and birds and stuff. But it were like a museum. Skulls. Big ones from rams and foxes. I swear, he had a half-dead cat hanging from a string. Where did he get that, eh? And in the corner …’

I waited for more. Saw her fight with the tears that filled her eyes.

‘He had this bucket with a lid on it. There were something in there, in among all this water and scum and rotten meat that stunk like chemicals. He had these big plastic gloves and wooden tongs, like you use for salad. It scared me. Scared me half to death. My own son.’

I stood where I was, wondering how best to comfort her. Truth be told her sudden bout of extra misery was inconvenient. I wanted to get on with what we were here to do. Wanted to make sense of a dead man’s ramblings. I needed her to be useful. I felt for her, of course I did, but sometimes children are just born wrong. The sisters taught me that. Some children are wicked. It doesn’t matter how you teach them and slap them and prophesy an eternity in the bowels of Hell – sometimes a child just needs to pull the meat from the bone and take a look inside.

‘It’ll be for a school project,’ I said, brightly. ‘They do a lot more advanced kind of science at school these days. It’ll be an experiment. We did similar things when I was at school, which was more recently than you. Honestly, you’re worrying for nothing.’

I saw hope flicker in her face. Saw her lower lip wobble and two spots of colour light her cheeks.

‘Would that be it, d’you think?’