She had known this for sure, ever since she found herself singing Bosnian songs down the phone to her old schoolfriend, Omer. She would sign out of her internet account, pay for the hour she had used, and walk outside, into the sun, to sit on the harbour wall and sing. She sang Omer Bosnian sevdah, into his voicemail – the ones they’d both loved, which his grandfather Mevludin had loved before them, as made famous by the voices of Silvana and Himzo Polovina. The songs went into the air, and all the way to Sarajevo, where Omer was, accompanied by the sound of waves and seagulls.

LUCIJA: She wrote about the music, also. I copied that for you too.

SOLICITOR: Submission 21b.

JUDGE: Thank you, I will read it later. You knew of Eva Levi, of course, before meeting her?

LUCIJA: Yes, everybody mentioned her. The woman who wrote about your country. It didn’t take long to work it out. And she knew about me. She was supporting our convent. She knew there was a nun from the former Yugoslavia.

Before long, Lucija’s colleagues in the convent held a meeting amongst themselves and decided that it might do them all good if, in the short term, Sister Lucija managed the refuge set-up as well as convent-to-world communications, via trips by ferry into Ayrness. In the case of the convent, there were insuperable physical restraints, involving several fathoms of deep salty water, to the free-flow of internet connectivity.

‘You ought to go and meet Eva Levi,’ said Sister Geraldine. But Lucija didn’t want to meet her. Supposing she wasn’t as great as her book? Supposing she no longer cared about Bosnia?

She did want to travel off Papa Astrid, however. The moment she stepped from the convent’s motorboat on to the island of Astrid and waited, with her rucksack on her back, for the ferry to Ayrness, she felt relief rushing through her. She waited there alongside the farmer with his truckload of sheep, and the man who fixed the wind turbines, and the young family who’d been visiting their grandparents, and the slim, blonde, businesslike woman who tapped away on her phone throughout the ensuing half-hour journey, and she breathed cold air into her lungs. She looked out at the islands lying one beyond the other. Sometimes, at the convent, when she walked out with her pail to the chickens, these very islands looked too much like diminishing hopes; but today they were beautiful, tranquil, soothing. They promised adventure.

Lucija really liked the other sisters but it was hard work sometimes, living together, day in, day out. She wasn’t used to it yet. She wasn’t even used to God, let alone Jesus. The idea of talking to them in prayers for the rest of her life sometimes made her weep. Oh Mary, mother of God, pray for us. Saints Cwen, Brigid, Astrid, anciently of the islands, pray for us.