The Parker farmhouse had a reddish sheen to the brick in daytime but the sun had long since settled behind the hills when Flick and I cleared the treeline at the edge of my property and looked upon the large, L-shaped building. The moon was full in a cold, clear sky and in the darkness around the house was the colour of deep, silent water.

‘You need anything from home?’ asked Flick. Her voice broke on the first word. She hadn’t spoken at all on the walk and I could tell her throat was dry.

‘I’m fine.’

‘I just thought …’

‘What?’

She shook her head. She was wearing a headscarf and the knot at the back wagged like a tail.

I stopped where I stood and she must have noticed I was no longer beside her as she turned around, looking guilty.

‘Your husband,’ she said, all trembly and pathetic. ‘He might have left you something to protect you, in erm, emergencies.’

‘No,’ I said, flatly. ‘I haven’t got a gun. If you wanted a gun you knew where they were. You could help yourself.’

‘They’re Pike’s …’ she said, vaguely.

‘And that’s what’s stopping you, is it? The fact they’re Pike’s?’

‘I’m sorry I spoke,’ she said, and her face was flushed.

I was angry at her. Angry at everybody. I could see fragments of a picture coming together, finding one another like droplets of spilled mercury, but there was so much I didn’t understand. Who did I think I was? We were two people with no business poking about in another person’s grief and perhaps we were causing a greater injustice by doing so. I was horribly aware of the absurd picture I was about to present; a stranger in this place, knocking on my neighbour’s door and demanding answers about their knowledge of a dead man.

‘Should we go?’ asked Felicity. ‘Really? Should we just go?’