She said, ‘When we first met, you thought I was going to take charge of your investigation. But that was never my intention. I’d been sent because one of my people was involved, and I wanted to help you deal with any difficulties that might cause. That’s why I came to the mainland in the first place. Why I joined the bureau. That’s why I’m here. Because I want to help.’

‘You should try harder,’ Goodwill said, and stomped off.

The next day, one of Juniper’s aides brought Ysbel’s ration of food and water. She asked him to tell Goodwill that she was not angry with him and knew he had every right to be angry with her, but three days passed before Goodwill returned, and they apologised to each other.

‘I have pups,’ Goodwill said.

‘I remember. A daughter and two sons.’

‘You try to do your best for them. Make decisions on their behalf. Teach them to live in the right way. But at some point you have to let them go. Let them find their own way in life.’

‘Point taken,’ Ysbel said, but their relationship was never the same again.

Every day was as incandescently hot as the last. Heat and light flooded the sky, dazzled off the water, burned away shade in the motionless scrub forest. There was no respite. Although cloud banks sometimes massed out to sea, casting huge slate-coloured shadows on the restless water, they never drifted close to shore.

Ysbel swam every day, ran early in the morning before it got too hot, wearing a circular track through her portion of the forest, and spent the hottest hours of the day sweating inside her little shelter, dozing or listlessly swatting at flies with a leafy branch. Her skin was darker than it had ever been. She collected fallen coconuts and smashed them open on the sharp edges of coral blocks. She mostly failed at her attempts at spear fishing, but Goodwill showed her how to twist rope from coconut husks and fashion a net to scoop up fish trapped in pools at low tide. She dug pits to trap crabs, baiting them with scraps of rotting fish. The crabs were small, but two or three bites of tasty meat could be extracted from their claws, and Ysbel shared her catch with Goodwill. No doubt some of the shellfish on the reef’s pavement were edible too, but she didn’t know which were and which weren’t, and didn’t want to risk her health by trying to find out.

The spectacular bruise across her hip passed through every shade of purple before developing patches of bilious yellow and beginning to fade.