JEN: I don’t know if she did anything.

JUDGE: Did she buy it?

JEN: I don’t think so.

JUDGE: Do we have any clarity on the management structure at the paper?

SOLICITOR: [Whisper] Archipelago Now is owned by a company called Bean Offshore Holdings, registered to the British Virgin Islands.

JUDGE: Is there any link to Eva?

SOLICITOR: Her sons submit that it was around this time that she sold her mother-in-law’s diamond . . . choker for ...[rustle of paper] £250,000, and in this way bought a controlling share.

JUDGE: Is that it? Did you know about this . . . necklace?

JEN: I’m afraid she never discussed family jewellery with me.

JUDGE: Were you involved in the appointment of the new editor at Archipelago Now?

JEN: Not directly, no.

JUDGE: Not directly?

JEN: Eva may have shown me her CV, discussed one or two points. I met the editor, of course, after the appointment. But I had no direct involvement.

JUDGE: And why was Eva involved?

JEN: The new ownership structure was in the form of a trust, and Eva was the chair.

The new editor of Archipelago Now, Ursula King (whose evidence to the inquiry, like that of the curator, Felicity Davidson, has been curt not to say uncooperative), claimed recently that it was her own idea to launch a weekly column with a covert feminist slant, written anonymously by one of Eva’s ex-students. Nor has the question of whether or not Eva held a controlling share in Archipelago Now been conclusively proved or disproved at the inquiry. But most women concur that Eva was deeply committed to supporting Ursula King’s work at the paper (despite, as she liked to joke, her unfortunate surname).

Archipelago Now, which is published weekly (on a Monday), had for some decades been edited and printed in a modern, purpose-built, squat concrete structure which sits like a grumpy toad on the waterfront across the bay from college.

Ursula King grew up on Tarn. Her parents moved up from Manchester when she was a little girl, and all her childhood memories are of the islands. She did well at school (clever children almost always do well in the islands; there is never, island people like to say to each other, the tragic waste of talent you find elsewhere) and she eventually went across the water to university. A little time and training outside can be an excellent thing in the making of an island stalwart; it isn’t always a brain drain. So it proved with Ms King.