I used to have this argument endlessly with my ex missus. I insisted the ending was deliberately ambiguous, to leave you guessing. She wasn’t having it at all. He was faking the cowardice, she said. It was obvious, she said. The priest asked him and he did it, there’s no ****ing mystery, you’re imagining it, she said. I think she may have been “on the spectrum”. I had my suspicions when she told me, with a completely straight face, that she collected jugs. Milk jugs. Fantastic pair of thruppenies, stood there in her kitchen showing me her (ceramic) jugs, asking wtf I was laughing at.