“What are you—” starts Ben, but he gives up as I push past him, kicking my slippers off at the door. I grasp the bird round its neck and march barefoot to the bench that sits on one side of the garden, where I dump it. It’s unexpectedly heavy. And awkwardly stiff, and it’s beginning to smell. I’m breathing through my mouth rather than my nose, and my feet are cold and wet. But I get to work.

Ben has followed me out. “Jesus,” he says faintly, as I push the safety pin into the flesh on the breast of the bird, and I think that perhaps I can rule out Ben; he’s far too uncomfortable around the bird to have had anything to do with placing it here. The resistance is not what I expect, there’s more of it to begin with and then suddenly much less—the pin abruptly moves more freely. Even so, it’s unexpectedly difficult to angle it correctly so that it exits where it needs to in order to properly secure the note; the Marigolds are slightly big for me and make me clumsy, but after a couple of attempts, I finally manage it. I take a step back and survey my efforts. The bird is lying on the seat of the bench, one wing slightly outstretched, its ravaged abdomen with the sickly maggots on display but its breast mainly concealed by the note. The yellow paper is somewhat crumpled from the execution, but there’s no doubting what I have written in bold black capital letters:

FUCK OFF. I’M NOT SCARED AND I’M NOT LEAVING.

“Subtle,” comments Ben.

I look up at the sky. “It better not be about to rain; the ink will run.” The sky is almost entirely covered by gray cloud, but it doesn’t have the leaden heaviness of an imminent downpour.

“Not today or tomorrow, according to the forecast. I think your message will reach the target.”

I head back into the kitchen and strip off the Marigolds, washing both them and my hands in the kitchen sink. Ben follows me in and locks the back door behind us.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment.

“For what?” I’m drying my hand on a none-too-clean tea towel, still too white-hot with rage to step outside of myself and look at him.

“For earlier. For thinking that we had all overreacted.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. You trusted us, Ali and me, by telling us that. And I get the sense that you don’t trust easily.” My eyes leap unwillingly to his face, which is watchfully, openly earnest. “I didn’t mean to throw it back at you.”