‘Everybody’s scared without her,’ Zoe said, ‘aren’t they?’

Before Ravi could answer, Zoe found herself encircled by women. They were spiralling back and forth, reaching out and touching her cheeks, streaking her with something wet and soft, singing and crying, Aei-ou-aeeeii-ou, as if she was being preened and rubbed by a colony of seabirds. The circle broke up, and the masked figures began gyrating and dancing. The fire grew higher, the fiddle music started, and some women began to pull off their dark outer garments. Zoe glimpsed sequinned sheaths, bespangled bodysuits, bluish breasts, torsos clad in streaks of colour and iridescent feathers. She recognised the tune Stella had written, wreathing through the bodies with the firesmoke. Another fiddle picked it up, and another; somebody began singing; and the music was all around them.

Tara and Stella appeared beside her. They reached their arms around her, and swayed her body in rhythm with theirs. Above their heads, the clouds cleared, revealing the stars.

‘When you eventually see Mariam, tell her we love what she’s done for us,’ said Tara.

‘Make her promise, Tara!’ Stella said.

‘I promise I’ll tell her,’ said Zoe.

‘Not that,’ Stella said. ‘Look up at the stars.’

‘You must swear on Cassiopeia you won’t leave her up there in the sky, unavenged,’ said Tara. ‘Promise you’ll find the strength. Even though Eva has gone you mustn’t give up. Now is the time. This is just the beginning.’

JUDGE: Was there anything illegal about these meetings on Cwen?

RUTH: No. I was angry with Tara and Stella for getting Zoe to go too, but then again, she came back so happy ...Even her mother has started going to the daily meetings that have been held during this inquiry.

JUDGE: Have you ever been?

RUTH: I have, yes.

JUDGE: Is it an ongoing process? When are you going next?

RUTH: [Pause] Tonight.

JUDGE: Why are you doing that?

RUTH: Eva thought it was important to connect women to the world around them. In the islands, most women know a fair bit about nature. But Eva stressed the things beyond our planet; the stars, for example, like Cassiopeia. Like most constellations, Cassiopeia itself means nothing out there in the solar system. How we see it, spread out against the sky, is not how it is in three dimensions.

JUDGE: And your point is?

RUTH: [Pause] You have to understand that, with men in charge, naturally the messages that the women here are spreading can seem a bit challenging. I understand that, of course. I’m a practical woman. But then, as a policewoman, I have begun to ask myself, isn’t this what the law is for?