‘It was kind of you,’ I said, more high-pitched than I wanted. ‘That you stopped, I mean. Some men I know would have waited until they saw me passing a big puddle then driven through it at ninety.’

‘This thing doesn’t do ninety,’ he said, and the shadows in his face lifted as he smiled. ‘I likes the company. I likes a yarn almost as much as Fairfax did and it does ye good to hear a stranger’s thoughts. Stops you becoming an inbred simpleton.’

I bit down on my lips, wondering if he was quoting something I had written. He turned away from me, squinting at the darkness. Sheep were moving in the grey and purple air like storm clouds.

‘I sent him a few decent tales,’ said Loz, putting the vehicle in reverse and looking over his shoulder as he began tearing backwards across the field. I got a whiff of him. Sweat and baking, peat and gunpowder. I found myself wanting to curl up in the pocket of his shirt.

‘Tales?’ I asked, settling back into the seat.

‘Aye, stuff ye hear in the pub, blokes with a story to spin. Some on the road, some at the sales.’

‘Sales?’

‘Cattle market. Always told them to have a chat with Fairfax.’

He span the car in a wide arc and started making for the castle. I found myself enjoying a fantasy. Had flashes of running up the stone steps through the rain; laughing and shivering in the echoing hallways; standing goose-pimpled and pink in a darkness lit only by the golden flames of a great open fire; wrapping ourselves in blankets and one another and watching the branches and coals burn to ash. I felt silly at the girlishness of it but could not bring myself to will the vision away.

‘… charver out Glendue Burn, couple of miles away.’

I realized I hadn’t been listening. Cleared my throat and made a theatrical pretence of cocking my head to better hear what he was saying.

‘I missed that,’ I said, and felt the reassuring whirr of a real road beneath the tyres.

‘Bloke I sent Fairfax’s way,’ he said, not minding repeating himself. ‘Thought he were one of the old POWs to be honest but he were French, not German. Not that yer’d know it, like. Just a flicker of an accent. Got himself turned around and was heading for nowhere at all when I stopped to pick him up. Grateful for the lift but quiet as a mouse til I got him talking. Birdwatcher, he said, and I suppose the binoculars and the bag were a give-away, even if the suit made him look like a bank manager who’d got lost. Had this contraption with him too. Recording birdsong, so he said, which aint my idea of a party but must be nice to listen to. Said he were recording it for friends back home. Real sounds of the English countryside.’