A member of the local running club and a rugby player. Ross was a pacer and a shouter, a pumper of iron. Matthew could feel it fizzing through the ether and into his ear. It was Ross May, his colleague, his constable. He leaned against the perimeter wall of the cemetery, his face to the light. And the tattered remnant of belief that made him think that his father, the spirit or soul of his father, might be somewhere watching him, still disappointed in his son. He pushed away the guilt that still lurked somewhere in his body, physical, like toothache. Matthew stood for a moment, thinking that lack of faith had little to do with choice. It had been his choice to leave the Brethren.

These people would understand that a bereaved woman would be missing her only son at a time like this, though, despite their sympathy, there would be no question that he should have been invited. The small group of mostly elderly women would gather in the sunshine to talk, then they might move on to his mother’s house for tea and home-baked cakes. His father’s coffin would slide behind the curtain and be turned to ash. The hymn ground to a dreary close and he turned away. This was his father’s funeral but he wasn’t welcome. His parents’ joy and hope for the future. Then he’d been a member of the Barum Brethren by birth and by commitment. He pictured Alice Wozencroft bent double over the keys, dressed entirely in black, hands like claws, a nose like a beak. Then came the heavy breathing of an electric organ and the slow and deliberate notes of a hymn that Matthew recognized but couldn’t name.

The rich and passionate tone of a voice he’d have known anywhere: Dennis Salter, rousing his troops, persuading them that Andrew Venn was in heaven and they might be sad for themselves, but they should not be for their brother. The door to the chapel of rest had been left open – it was a warm day for so early in the year – and he could hear the service underway inside. He checked his feet to make sure that no flowers had been crushed, then walked between the headstones towards the path. In reality, Matthew was angry, but he’d learned long ago how to hide his emotions. A stranger seeing him for the first time would expect sympathy and comfortable words. Or a diffident mourner, sheepish and apologetic, with his soft skin and sad eyes. Matthew thought he could have been the celebrant, arriving a little late for the service. He looked like a respectable man, a wearer of suits and sober ties, prematurely grey-haired and staid. When the small group of mourners went inside, he moved closer. He stood outside the North Devon Crematorium on the outskirts of Barnstaple, a bed of purple crocus spread like a pool at his feet, and he watched from a distance as the hearse carried his father to the chapel of rest. THE DAY THEY FOUND THE BODY on the shore, Matthew Venn was already haunted by thoughts of death and dying.

The long call book