The lad kept the smile in place. I looked at Brian and saw, for the first time in years, a look of fear on his face. I swear I wanted to hold his hand but the tooth were all I could think of. I don’t know why I didn’t just give it to him, now I think on it. Maybe it was fear of what would happen if Brian was caught out in a lie. Or maybe it was because there were some things that were better off in anybody’s hands but Pike’s.

‘Mrs Goose, you look soaked through,’ said Harper’s lad. ‘Will I walk you both back up the road?’

That set Pike off. ‘You got potatoes ’tween yer ears, Paddy? I said there were nowt for ye.’

‘Da’s just parking the wagon,’ he said, ignoring Pike. ‘Bit better parked than an hour ago, eh? Shall we be ganning along?’

The lad was only a few paces away from me. He was bigger than Pike but it didn’t matter. If Pike went for him it would be like watching a terrier with a rat.

I felt Brian’s hand touch mine. For a second I felt a kind of warmth in me – a feeling of connection. It meant a lot to me – him wanting to hold his mam’s hand. Then his little dirty fingers prised open my own and he seized the gold tooth as if his hand was a beak. I looked down, and my lungs betrayed me. I gave a gasp, loud enough for Pike to hear. And then Brian was off. He could move fast when he needed to and next thing he was just a streak of white, dodging through the gravestones and over the fallen tree then disappearing over the iron railings into the field beyond.

‘Little bastard,’ says Pike, proper livid. He turned his back on Harper’s lad. He stomped past me, fury on his face and it wasn’t in me to stand in his way. He reached into his coat pocket and he started moving fast as he approached the church door. Then he pulled a big silver key from his pocket and stuck it in the lock.

I looked at the young lad and he were as dumbstruck as me. Then Pike was coming out of the church with a shotgun over his arm.

‘No, Pike, don’t …’