When our little boy was four, my aunt’s husband died and she was struggling to cope, both with her grief and the running of the farm. She asked if our son could come and live with us – for a while, at least. I had mixed feelings about it, as I had managed to put it all behind me. I didn’t want him to come only to lose him all over again when he had to return to Auntie Ivy. But Frank persuaded me to let him stay. Where’s the harm? he had said. If anyone asks, he’s just a little cousin come to visit for a while.

If only I’d known. Joseph – for that’s what they’d named him – was a strange child. He was my own flesh and blood, but I couldn’t take to him at all. I don’t suppose being separated from him for all those years had helped. He was secretive and sullen, and didn’t want to talk to us. On more than one occasion, I woke up in my bed to find him staring down at me, a peculiar, almost hateful expression on his face. One day I discovered him in the garden, crouching over a tiny bird that had fallen from its nest, just a fledgling, a featherless, helpless little thing. He was prodding at it with a twig. Before I could pull him away, I watched in horror as he stood up suddenly and stamped on it with all his might. He looked up at me, and the glee and malice in his eyes turned me cold. It is a terrible thing to say about my own child, I know, but he looked evil. After that, I could barely bring myself to look at him.

Frank was out at work a lot and didn’t see as much of Joseph as I did. He tried to persuade me that he was only a little boy, that we should make allowances for the recent disruption in his life. But in my heart, I knew that our son wasn’t right. I tried to treat him well, really I did, but I’m sure he must have sensed that I didn’t like him. The sly looks he gave me, the secretive behaviour. He may have only been a child, but there was something deeply disturbing about the way he acted.