We stared at each other.

‘I think it’s been a while since you killed anyone,’ I said quietly. ‘I think it’s been a lifetime.’

He pointed the .410 at my face.

‘You hate the Germans,’ I said. ‘But Anya Bauer was German, wasn’t she? And you didn’t hate Anya, did you? You loved her.’

‘Anya’s father was German,’ he said. ‘But her mother was Russian. My daughter.’

‘And Anya came to stay with you when she was fifteen years old. Your granddaughter came to stay with you at Potter’s Field. What was that? A summer holiday? Trouble at home? A bit of both? I bet there was some kind of trouble at home, wasn’t there?’

‘Stop talking about her,’ he said.

His voice flat and hard, levelling the .410 at my chest, giving himself a bigger target.

‘And then one day Anya was gone,’ I said. ‘Somewhere between a missing person and a lost contact. And you didn’t know what happened – or maybe you suspected, but you were never sure until you saw what was in Henry’s grave. When it was collapsing. When it was falling to bits. You saw her bones, didn’t you? Human bones in there with the bones of Henry’s dogs. Or maybe you saw them later, when the grave was being renovated. But at some point you saw inside the grave and you knew it had to be Anya.’

‘Shut up now,’ he said, the shotgun moving between my face and my chest.

‘And you put it all together,’ I continued. ‘Anya coming to stay. The boys who were sniffing around. Hugo Buck and his little gang. And then Anya gone – for a night, and then a year, and then for ever. Were there rumours, Len? Did you hear anything about what Peregrine Waugh’s followers had done to some girl? Were they afraid of the truth coming out? There must have been talk after James Sutcliffe killed himself – or pretended to. Somehow you suddenly knew what had happened to her – what they had done. And you drew up a list of the boys who must have been in that room when Waugh broke her neck and they treated your beautiful girl like something to be thrown away. And you wanted revenge. Is that what happened?’

The .410 seemed to seek out my heart, and stay there, steady at last in his paralysed hands.

‘What matters,’ he said, ‘what matters is that I avenged her. Do you believe me at last?’

‘I believe all of it, Len,’ I said. ‘I truly do. Except the last part. I don’t believe that you’ve killed anyone since you were a boy.’

The door opened and Tom Monk came in, an old army jacket slung over jeans, carrying a twelve-bore shotgun and a lifeless brace of rabbits. Behind the terrible burns on his ruined face I saw his eyes widen and grow cold.