Pa’s smile dissolved in an instant. ‘Listen, Molly. The war changed everyone, and not always for the good. We all lost someone, or lived for weeks and months expecting to die ourselves at any moment, or were horribly injured. And most of us saw things no human being should ever be expected to witness.’

‘But why should that make someone evil?’

He shook his head. ‘Only God knows these things, darling. All I know is that the legacy of war is all around us, and we should give people the benefit of the doubt.’

‘The other day I heard you calling him the devil incarnate.’

His face was severe now. ‘Listen, you must never, ever repeat that, my darling. In my position, I have to be neutral in all things, as you know. If I lose the support of my congregation, I may as well pack up and go home now.’

‘Home? Where?’

He’d laughed again, then. ‘It’s a manner of speaking, sweetheart. I mean, give up the parish and go somewhere else.’

‘Don’t you sometimes wish you could go somewhere else, to get away from Blackman?’

He sighed. ‘Yes, I do. But there are many good souls here in this parish, and God tells me I must do my best to mediate, to make their lives easier. To restore harmony. And that, my love, is exactly what I am trying to do.’

He did his best, the poor man. But it broke him, in the end.

She’s tried to prepare herself for it, but it still comes as a shock, all the same. At the head of the north aisle there is a kaleidoscope of bright colours in the window that was once filled with plain glazing.

‘Can you wheel me over there, love?’

As they approach, Bella starts to laugh. ‘Heavens, Mum, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in a church window. A crocodile, eating a pair of legs? What on earth . . .?’

The top half of the stained-glass design is traditional enough, a classic Arts and Crafts interpretation of a medieval knight and his lady. But at their feet is another knight, surely St George, slaying what is plainly not a dragon, but an enormous, green crocodile in the process of devouring a pair of legs that hang, comically, like strands of spaghetti from its fearful-looking teeth.

‘A crocodile? Whatever’s a crocodile to do with Wormley?’

It has everything to do with Wormley, Molly thinks to herself. Old Eli said the creature would bring evil and he was right enough, in a way, even though everyone mocked him for his prophecies. Poor Eli. So kind, so gentle, so lonely. So damaged by war and bereavement, like most people around that time. Except for Blackman, of course, who’d profited while others suffered.