The first person to give evidence at the inquiry will be Alice. As she walks out, into the library, to take her place beneath the portrait, she will notice the ghost of some breast milk on the lapel of her black jacket, deposited there that morning. Shit. She is frowning as she is asked to confirm her witness statement, which runs to forty-two pages.

JUDGE: Is this your evidence?

ALICE: It is.

The judge will ask her to summarise, for the inquiry, how she first met Eva, and then, having met her, what her role was in Eva’s mission, and what Eva’s was in hers. Alice will hesitate before speaking, searching for the right words. Trying not to be intimidated by the sea of tense faces before her. Choppy. Her face will prickle with fear. This is it; judgement. What she says here, what her mind utters, matters.

She will catch Zoe’s eye, at the back of the courtroom.

Zoe smiles.

Alice clears her throat. She starts to speak.

ALICE: I didn’t meet her the first time I came here. I arrived in such a rush.

JUDGE: When was this?

ALICE: Just over a year ago. Or rather [blushes] exactly thirteen Celtic moons? I was researching my book on British—

JUDGE: Can we please move to paragraph 3 of your witness statement.

Only when the women question her that evening, on Cwen, will Alice feel free to explain, without any interruption: You see, I had been on a research trip in Shetland. But because it was early days, and my daughter was young, I didn’t feel I could be away for long. I fitted in a trip to the islands as an afterthought only, on the way home to London.

And they will sigh, and hold hands, and listen. (Eva taught them to try and do that; even if it’s sometimes really fucking annoying.)

As Alice said, the first ferry had deposited her in Aberdeen at five o’clock that morning, and so, as she took the coast road south, through Edinburgh, it was with the tremor of the night’s journey still in her bones. She crossed into England and waited in her car next to the small ferry terminal for the east coast archipelago – the office was barely more than a hut – scanning the water for the boat, feeling nothing but impatience for her journey’s end. After ten days on the road, she wanted to be back in London with her child. She wanted to be home for bath, and story, and the brushing of that always-sticky, tangled hair. Just this one last journey. And then, back home. By the next day’s nightfall.