The Potter’s Field College Chapel was packed with what felt like the entire school. Black-robed masters in the first few rows, a great mass of boys in green and purple behind them and, under the stained-glass window, six rows of the choir facing another six rows. More boys and masters lined the perimeter of the chapel, and spilled through the open doorways.

The place was much smaller than I had expected. I had read online that building work had been interrupted during the War of the Roses and had yet to resume, and I had the feeling I always got at Potter’s Field – that you could blink your eye and a hundred years would go by.

Captain King walked to the lectern.

‘Our revels now are ended,’ he read. ‘These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air. And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself – yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.’

Salman Khan hung his head and wept. Ben King kept his eyes on the shattered face of his brother as Captain King’s words filled the ancient chapel.

‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’

Captain King’s delivery was matter of fact, yet the words carried real meaning. He was composed and yet replete with emotion. He was good at that. But then he had had a lot of practice.

Captain King returned to the front row, touching Khan once on the shoulder before taking his place next to his brother. Their wives sat behind them – pretty women, sleek and sexy even in their mourning clothes – shepherding well-behaved children with braces on their teeth. The ladies’ fat jewels glistened. There was plenty of money and time for their children’s bodies, minds and orthodontics.

The King brothers and Khan all had families. And I guessed that they loved those families.

But the real bonds, the unbreakable bonds, the bonds of a lifetime, they were different.

Because they were with each other.

After the memorial service I walked across the playing fields, skirting the rugby pitch where a games lesson was taking place. The boys all wore black armbands for their murdered sports master.

The sounds of flesh crashing into flesh, stud on to bone, cries and laughter faded behind me as I headed towards the stone cottage where Len Zukov lived. I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I walked round the back of the cottage, turning up my collar against the bitter wind. I stopped when I saw the fox.

It lay on top of the compost heap, a ragged sack of fur and bone, waiting for the fire.

Its neck had been neatly broken.