She took a breath.

Her fingers were so clammy on the scissors, jittering.

She remembered those fourteen days, how happy she’d once been.

She sliced the tape.

The box’s lid was stiff. As she was lifting it, a few small pieces tumbled out and skittered on the floorboards. Pearls, she thought. But she was on her hands and knees before she noticed what they were. Loose teeth. She picked up six of them. Brown blood around their roots, still gluey. There were three more in the box. And where the padding had been stripped out of the base, a thatch of straw had been pushed in to fit – a short piece, plaited in a handsome pattern, fraying where the blade had sliced it. On the underside, there was a cotton strip attached, embroidered: For my darling Geoffrey love Maureen. She would’ve cried again, but there was nothing left. Her mind was dead. She couldn’t even feel the shudders any more.

A square pit in the ground. It’s eight feet deep and he is standing in it with his sister. There are scratchmarks in the earth behind them, clawed out by the backhoe. A wooden ladder leans against one side for entry and escape. They’re laying blocks, cementing them. Trowels in hand and spirit levels. Two walls built so far, waist high. His sister’s back is to the camera – she’s furthest from the front – but he looks above the parapet and knocks the ash off what he’s smoking. Jabs the handle of his trowel upon a block until it’s sitting right. Wipes the sweat from his slick brow with his shirtsleeve. Gestures to the sky, as though a spell of rain might yet be coming. The camera pans. A smear of trees and hedges. Acres, stippled with emerging crops. A ditch. The north-west corner of the house. A brook of smoke ascending from the kitchen flue. Hens skipping in the yard. Slow pan round. Full circle. Joyce is coming down the ladder with a bucket of cement. Her face is moony, pale. A raindrop spots the lens. Another. Cut this.

November 1952

Charlie had determined months ago that it would do no good confiding in his supervising officer. There was something passive and officious about Mr Kimball that he couldn’t trust, despite the man’s attempts to cosy up to him. ‘Anything you want me to report to the association, you just let me know, son,’ he’d announced at their first meeting. ‘If you’re unhappy with the set-up here, I’ll see what I can do to change it. That’s my job. You shouldn’t feel afraid of raising any problems, big or small. There might be some who think that Aftercare’s about us keeping tabs on you, as if I’m sat here waiting for the first good opportunity to send you back to borstal. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m here to make sure you succeed in life from this point on. So if you break your licence, well, it wouldn’t just be you who’d failed now, would it? No, I take these matters very much to heart, believe you me.’ The speech had rolled so easily off Mr Kimball’s tongue it hadn’t carried much conviction. Any man who had to advertise his motives so routinely wasn’t selling you the truth, as far as Charlie was concerned. Since then, he hadn’t felt inclined to talk much in their meetings, giving bare-bones answers to the questions, just enough to satisfy the basic needs of his report.