Despite its slowness, the group seemed sure of itself in a way that was new to Harold. They told themselves they were no longer an assortment of torsos and feet and heads and hearts but one single energy, bound by Queenie Hennessy. The walk had been an idea inside himself for so long that when other people pledged their belief in it he was touched. More. He knew it could work. If he had known before, he knew it now in a deeper way. They put up tents, unrolled sleeping bags and slept beneath the sky. They promised Queenie would live. To their left curved the dark peaks of Keighley Moor.

Within only a few days, however, tensions began to develop. Kate had no time for Rich. He was an egomaniac, she said. In return he called her a bitter cow. Then, during the course of one evening, both the gorilla man and a visiting student slept with the same primary-school teacher, and Rich’s attempts to resolve the animosity threatened to end in a punch-up. Wilf could not stop trying to convert fellow walkers to God, or asking for prayers to be said for Queenie, and this led to further aggravation. When an amateur walking group pitched up for the night there were more disagreements: some argued that tents were not in the true spirit of Harold’s journey, some wanted to avoid roads altogether and head towards the more challenging Pennine Way. And what about roadkill? asked Rich, sparking off another round. Harold listened with growing unease. He didn’t mind where people slept, or how they walked. He didn’t mind what they ate. He simply wanted to get to Berwick.

He was in it now with these other people. After all, they had suffered too in different ways. Wilf still got the shakes at night, and Kate often sat by the fire with tears shining on her cheeks. Even Rich, when he spoke of his boys, had to flap open a handkerchief and pretend he had hay fever. No matter how much he regretted their decisions to join him, it was not in Harold’s nature to let his companions down. Sometimes he broke free, and washed himself with water, or took lungfuls of air. He reminded himself there were no rules to his walk. He had been guilty once or twice of believing he understood, only to discover he did not. Maybe it was the same with the pilgrims? Maybe they were the next part of the journey? There were times, he saw, when not knowing was the biggest truth, and you had to stay with that.