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to put a name to it. But then he began to slide sideways, like a badly propped-up doll, and she realised they were not going to get any answers from him.
    ‘Sam!’ she cried. ‘Catch him!’ Carefully they laid him on the floor, and then scrambled around and over each other, putting a pillow under his head, covering him with a grimy blanket.
    ‘He’s still breathing,’ Lilah whispered, after a few moments. ‘What about his pulse?’
    Sam shrugged. ‘No good at first aid. Never mind all that, so long as he’s breathing. Let’s just hope your Mum makes that phone call.’
    ‘Poor old chap. Doesn’t he look pathetic.’ She stared curiously at the man she’d been afraid of for years. A ragged beard covered his lower face;his hair, which had been brushed for the funeral, was reverting to its normal scarecrow style. His skin was like the bark of a tree, so weathered and ravaged and unwashed was it. At least his wound seemed to have stopped bleeding. ‘Just a poor old man, who’s minded his own business all his life.’
    ‘Not sure about that,’ grunted Sam. ‘Blessed tinkers, these Grimms are. Not so old, either. What a way to live. Look at it!’ He glanced around the room, one of two bedrooms; at the filthy window, the unsavoury pile of old clothes in one corner, the heavily cobwebbed ceiling.
    Lilah looked, and couldn’t restrain a little laugh. ‘Makes Redstone look like Buckingham Palace,’ she commented. ‘Funny – I’ve never been in here before, and I’ve lived next door for most of my life.’
    Sam grunted again, and turned to look at the inert Isaac. ‘Two dead bodies in two weeks is going it a bit,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t like to think what the police’ll say.’
    Lilah’s mind slowly absorbed what Sam had said. She stared at him. ‘But this is nothing to do with Daddy,’ she told him, earnestly. ‘How could it be? Daddy fell in the slurry.’
    Sam nodded at her. ‘He did, lovey. He did indeed.’ And then came the slamming of a car door and the familiar tones of the young policeman. Despite the awfulness of the situation, Lilah felta stab of pleasure as she recognised the voice. Meeting Den again so soon was at least a crumb of consolation.
    A moment later, an ambulance siren was audible, and all was bustle amidst uniformed men and gentle questions. Amos was rushed away in the ambulance, which did little to reduce the sense of a very crowded little farmhouse. Sam and Lilah were banished from the bedroom while Isaac was examined in the greatest detail, as well as photographed. Then another carload of police arrived. All was suddenly serious. Den took Sam and Lilah out into the yard, and they explained what had happened.
    ‘Two sudden deaths, only ten days apart,’ Den said to himself. ‘That’s likely to change our view about how Mr Beardon died.’
    ‘Told you it would,’ said Sam to Lilah. ‘No such thing as coincidence – I’ve always said that.’
    ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she snapped back at him. ‘ Of course there’s such a thing. It makes no sense at all to try to connect the Grimms with Daddy.’
    Sam raised his eyebrows and clamped his lips together, a picture of stubborn patience. But then his eyes narrowed and he decided to speak. ‘It’s time you woke up to a few things about your precious father,’ he said. ‘You’re old enough now to give up some of your rosy ideas about him.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ She tried to keep thelittle-girl vulnerability out of her voice, knowing she often exploited her position when with Sam, just as she had with her father. Adopting adult behaviour when acting as a very junior farmhand had been impossible, and there had been a collective game – almost a conspiracy – to prevent her from growing up. To have Sam tell her now to act her age was an unkind shock, particularly in the present circumstances.
    Den picked up Sam’s remark in a different way. ‘Are you saying there are things about Mr Beardon that the police should