I turned him to face me and for the first time in my life I put my finger under his chin and made him look straight into my eyes. I’d seen it done in a film and always thought I would be too embarrassed to do it myself. But it felt like it was the right thing to do and I didn’t even think about it until later.

‘He steals, you mean?’

‘He takes what he wants. He’s taken a fishing reel and a pocket magnifying glass off me. Tom from school – he took this buffalo-skin wallet that his uncle had sent him from America. That coin that James said he’d lost playing football? The one we found at Birdoswald and was hundreds of years old? Pike took that off him.’

I stayed quiet. I were as guilty as Brian. Everybody knew you had to keep your hand on your purse or your pocket near Pike. He’d been no different at school. Took your lunch or the laces from your shoes and swore blind he’d stick his thumb in your eye if you told a soul.

‘Where did you get it, Brian?’ I asked, quietly. ‘It’s not a nice thing to have …’

His face creased up and I could see he was fighting with himself.

‘I won’t take it,’ I said, when I realized that was what was scaring him most.

That seemed to clinch it. He gave a little nod and I stopped drying him. His pyjamas were on the rail in front of the fire and I wasn’t sure if I should go get them before he started telling me so I just stood there, a bit daft, waiting for him to talk, with one foot in the bathroom and the other on the landing. That’s where I see myself when I think of that night. Half-in, half-out, like I’d been cut in two.

‘It were in the collection box,’ said Brian, and there wasn’t any emotion in his voice. ‘In the front of the church. The wooden box on the wall. I looked in the slot at the top and it was glinting up at me and I took it.’

I didn’t know what to say. We’d never been religious but stealing from the collection plate was something that bad people did. I gave him a hard look before a dozen questions rippled my features into an expression of pure bafflement.

‘The church hasn’t had a collection in years,’ I said. ‘It’s not held a service while we’ve been here. And what were you doing in the church anyway? Did Fairfax let you in?’

He raised his hands as if I were hitting him.

‘I’d seen Pike going in. I never meant any harm. He had a key. Why would Pike have a key, Mam?’

‘Brian, I don’t understand.’