He couldn’t look. Pulling open the rucksack, he rooted through its contents, although it was dark inside the bag and his fingers were trembling, and he was so aware of Queenie watching him he kept forgetting what he was looking for. “I have some small souvenirs. I picked them up as I walked. There’s a hanging quartz that will look nice at your window. I just have to find it. And some honey somewhere.” It dawned on him that with a growth that size she probably couldn’t eat. “You may not like honey, of course. But the pot is nice. For putting pens in, maybe. It’s from Buckfast Abbey.”

He pulled out the paper bag containing the rose pendant, and offered it to her. She didn’t move. He laid it a little way from her clawed hand. He patted it twice. When he looked up, his skin froze. Queenie Hennessy was slipping down the pillow, as if the weight of her terrible face was dragging her earthwards.

He didn’t know what to do. He knew he should help, but he didn’t know how. He was afraid that underneath her bandaged neck there would be more. More butchery. More brutal evidence of her human frailty. He couldn’t bear that. Harold called for help. He tried to do it quietly at first, so as not to alarm her. But then he called again, getting louder and louder.

“Hello, Queenie,” called the nun entering the room; only it seemed this was not the same one as before. Her voice was younger, her body fuller and her manner more bold. “Let’s get some light. It’s like a morgue in here.” She walked to the curtains and tugged them back with a yank so that the rings screamed on the metal pole. “How nice to have a visitor.” Everything about her struck Harold as too alive for the room, and for Queenie’s fragile condition. It made him angry they had let her look after someone so delicate as Queenie, although he was relieved she was able to take over.

“She’s – ” He couldn’t finish the sentence. He pointed.

“Not again,” said the nun, all bright, as if Queenie was a child and had spilt food down her blouse.

From the other side of the bed, she adjusted Queenie’s pillows and pulled her upright, hooking under the armpits and lifting. Queenie submitted like a rag doll, and that was how Harold thought he would always remember her; enduring and enduring, while someone hoicked her against a pillow and made funny comments that he hated.

“Apparently Henry has walked. All the way from – Where are you from, Henry?”

Harold opened his mouth to explain that he wasn’t Henry, and that he lived in Kingsbridge, but the will to say either disappeared. It didn’t seem worth the effort of correcting her. At that moment it didn’t even seem worth being himself.