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that Sol chose the names. Tina had nothing to do with it. Poor little Wilfred. Poor brave Agnes.
    Suddenly, she is crying, gulping, struggling for breath. Why couldn’t they be called Francesca and Hugo, or Megan andJosh, or Eleanor and Zachary? It would make killing them so much easier. Sol Barber has ruined everything all over again.
    She needs to see their faces close up. It is possible that they will be vivid, boisterous creatures, capable of peeling away from the names Wilfred and Agnes all connotations of shabby pensioners dying alone in cold houses.
    She wonders about Sol’s real name. Is is bad? Is that why he calls himself after his favourite beer? It occurs to her that she, by chance, shares her first name with that of the lager she usually drinks. She shudders, wanting to have nothing in common with Sol. She will never drink that beer again.
    After what feels like an age, she hears the blare of a tinny bell coming from inside the squat school building, and a few seconds later there is a colourful spurt of children into the playground. Carefully, after having checked that she has not had any kind of embarrassing accident (she checks often, these days) she climbs out of the car and walks over to the railings.
    She sees Wilfred Barber first and is surprised to recognise him. He looks like Sol but in miniature. She wonders if Wilfred is calmer and kinder than his father, if the Barbers are improving with each generation. Wilfred is with four friends and a football. He speaks and smiles occasionally, but he is not one of the main ones; she can see that straight away. She thinks she can also tell that he wishes the others would pay more attention to him, give him more of a chance to shine. She is sure he could and would shine, if a suitable opportunity presented itself.
    Agnes’s coat appears, with Agnes in it. She pulls her collar – which, on second viewing, looks like the torn-off scalp of a witch – around her ears. Agnes is alone, standing with her arms folded by the wall of the school building, looking as if she does not expect anybody to join her any time soon. Her skin has a yellow tinge; she is a little tawny scrap, like a doodle Dr Seuss might have rejected as being not quite up to scratch.
    Oh, my God, those poor children , she thinks, and begins to fantasise about befriending Agnes and Wilfred Barber. She could be their secret confidante and benefactor. They might grow to love her more than they love Sol. She has seen his temper in action. How many times have the children seen it? How many more times will they see it? She pictures Tina hiding behind an armchair while Sol beats Wilfred with a curtain rail, while he drags Agnes round the house by her hair. Oh, yes, the children are bound to prefer her, almost as soon as they meet her, to their brute of a father.
    She closes her eyes, knowing that at some point she will need to draw a line under this sort of behaviour, this sort of thinking. The bell rings again and, when Agnes turns to go back inside, she notices a hearing aid above one of her ears. So , she thinks. So Agnes is partially deaf . That must have made Sol angry, when he first found out. And Tina.
    Agnes is deaf. It is a new detail. It is too much; she doesn’t want to know any more about Sol’s family. Already, she is too close, close enough to feel involved, confused. She must get away. She cannot, after all, kill Sol’s children. She runs across the road, fumbles with her car door, slams it shut once she is inside and speeds off, feeling chilly, sad and empty.
    It takes her two minutes to drive out of his village. It is a nothing sort of place, with an A road running through it, robbing it of any charm it might otherwise have had. The green, a triangle with one curved side, is scruffy and patchy, littered with empty crisp and cigarette packets. Behind it, a sign saying ‘Mary’s Tea Rooms’ is fixed above the door of a detached stone house that, over the