Each time she would ask them if they were okay, her voice high-pitched, her feet tapping the ground, desperate to get back to her search. She knew she looked frantic but the children were luckily absorbed in themselves. How she had wanted to scoop them into her arms, hold them together. Get off the island themselves. Run.

She’d lost count of the number of times she’d scoured it for signs of Iona, but each time she’d returned home she would linger again, watching one of them, her pulse ticking like a bomb. What would she have to do to keep them safe?

Anything, she’d told herself, as she set out again. Anything.

She didn’t see how else the girl could have got off the island, but by evening, when there was still no sign of Iona, she began to think she must have. Yet Maria went out once more.

As she left the house she noticed Bonnie watching from her bedroom window, her hands splayed against the glass. Maria turned her back on her eldest and carried on towards the woods. Stella was fast asleep in bed. Danny had gone out an hour ago. Usually she would ask where her son was going, but that night she hadn’t.

The woods were dark but she carried a torch, arcing it wide as she scurried between the trees. When she came out on the path she scanned the lakes and then took the route that circled the island, leading past the clifftop and Pirate’s Cove, all the time flashing her light on empty beaches. She briefly hesitated outside the pub but didn’t linger, and wasn’t far from home when a scream filled the air. It wasn’t a piercing one, but it was enough for her to stop and turn to the right.

When she heard another, she flashed the torch in its direction and stepped off the path. As soon as she saw the two figures in the small clearing by the edge of the cliff, she knew who they were.

Danny had heard his mum’s voice, crying out, demanding what was going on, but he couldn’t let go of Iona’s arm. In her other she had his drawing book, stretched out of his reach, and as much as he’d yelled at Iona to give it back, she wouldn’t. She just laughed at him instead.

‘Danny, what are you doing?’ his mum cried. She was right behind him now and he knew she’d make him let go of Iona, but if he did he might never get his drawing book back.

But then his mum seemed more interested in her instead. ‘Iona, you were supposed to have left,’ she said.