I stared at her as she pressed the keys. She fiddled with it the way she would have fiddled with any object she had discovered. None of it mattered to her. She was here to poke about, and so far, nothing she had found satisfied her curiosity. I didn’t like the way she played with it. Didn’t like the tension between us. So I let myself down good and proper. Blurted it out like a kiddie with a secret.

‘Did you hear what we saw?’ I asked. I tried to make it sound juicy – to get her back on side.

Janet took a moment, as if deciding whether the gossip was worth changing her face for. In a moment she decided it was.

‘Aye, Sally in post office said when the tree came down there were bones and all sorts came out. You must have had a fit with your nerves.’

I nodded, quick and urgent. ‘There were more than that,’ I said, and suddenly I felt excited, like I was about to run a race or go to a dance. ‘One of the bodies that flew out – seemed like it hadn’t been there long. And there hasn’t been anybody buried in the Kinmont grave for nigh-on forty years. This bloke had on a suit and new shoes and he was carrying a bag. There was still meat on his bones. And his face! I swear, had I known him I could have recognized him – that’s how far from a skeleton he was.’

Janet moved closer. There was a flush of colour in her cheeks and she dropped her own voice; delighted.

‘And you told Fairfax?’ she asked, and her mouth went into an ‘O’, like the end of a trumpet. ‘That’s what he shot off for, I’ll bet. Went to find Sergeant Chivers. He might have been up at the air base. Spends a good bit of time up there, according to my Maurice. And if Fairfax was wanting to play hero …’

I nodded, twisting the map in my hands. I felt hot under my vest. It was sticky in the room, despite the storm. It was that muggy, unpleasant heat that makes your hair stand on end and everything tastes funny. Had I done right? Was there any wrong to be done?

‘I feel so guilty,’ I said, hoping she’d have some nice words for me in return. ‘He was only out driving in that silly car because of what I told him.’

Janet weighed it up and seemed to decide there was no sport in being a cow. ‘He wouldn’t have shot off to tell the Kinmont lot without seeing the damage for himself,’ she said. ‘So there must have been something to see. So why haven’t I heard about a body being found in the graveyard?’