Pike finally gave her his attention. He wasn’t a big man. Maybe that were his problem. He was always making up for the fact he wasn’t as big as the other blokes. But he had something. Some viciousness. He’d always been the same. Even at school he was uncontrollable. He’d say nowt at all for weeks on end then one day just go and bite the headmaster or start carving words in his bare legs with his pocket knife. Scared the life out of all of us. Parents too. His dad had run off when he were just a baby. Left him and his mam in a house that was already falling down a century before they moved in. They had animals but didn’t seem to know what to do with them. Sheep and cows and a family of ducks lived in the house with him, I swear to God. Great holes in the roof that the rain came through. Three different vicars tried to help them but they didn’t want none. Didn’t need charity and saw nowt wrong with how they lived. Pike poached. Took salmon, trout and deer. Made friends with the lads who built the air base and always seemed to know how to get his hands on cheap cigarettes or cases of bargain booze. Grew up to be a man to be feared and word had it that he knew people in Newcastle and Belfast who would be only too glad to hurt people if he asked them to. Not that Pike would ever ask. He preferred to do the hurting himself. We’d never had cross words and he’d never put a hand on me but I still remember what I saw him doing to himself the first time I went to put flowers on Mam’s grave. Curtains open, shirt off, watching me walk past his door to the church, big leer on his face as I held my carnations and skipped through the puddles. I’ve never told anybody that. Don’t know why I’m telling you.

‘I were sorry for Fairfax,’ said Pike, to me. ‘Sorry about his car as well.’

I suddenly remembered Fairfax telling me about that. He’d found Pike admiring the new vehicle. Had spent twenty minutes talking to him at the kerbside – a pleasant enough chat about tyre pressure and engine sizes and whether it were wrong to buy a German car.

‘There’ll be a funeral,’ I said. ‘Maybe at Denton.’

‘Don’t like funerals,’ said Pike.

‘Well, that’s up to you,’ I said, and suddenly didn’t care whether the bus came or not.

‘I liked Fairfax,’ said Pike, jerking his head. ‘Talked to me like a person.’

‘And how does the rest of us talk to you?’ asked Pat, and her body language suggested she was ready for a dust-up.

‘Who’s getting his machine?’ asked Pike, ignoring the question.

‘Machine?’