For all the delight that Sunday had brought, for all the pink embroidered robes and beautiful harmonies and hopes of a new baby, something else was brewing on the island, something less joyous. The moon was waxing towards a full flowering. There was a pervasive tension, felt as a tightness in the breastbone, one that could only be ignored for so long.

Mary Ahearn, Rhoda Sayers and Ingrid Duchamp did not remain at chapel to chatter, and were not usually inclined to do so. Mary and Rhoda understood themselves well enough to know that they would not be warmly welcomed. They each held authority, at the Provisions Store and on estate land, but did not have the status of those women who supped tea with Father Daniel. Ingrid, being married to the island’s financial adviser, might easily have participated, though she preferred to keep herself to herself – an aloofness that the other islanders excused on account of her foreignness.

The three women left together and made the journey side-by-side towards the Duchamp residence, one of the larger constructions on the south elevation, designed with plentiful windows to drink up the meagre sunlight. These women were not friends, nor enemies, merely an unlikely gang – one woman was soft and practical, one angled and neat, the last fierce and hardy. They were connected only by the accident of their daughters’ similar ages.

And by the pressing question of what on earth they were going to do.

There was a meeting scheduled the following day at the school; the women had insisted upon it, or Mr Crane had demanded it, depending on who you spoke to. Either way the three mothers were seen waiting in the corridor outside his office on Monday, having agreed, it seemed, during their Sunday morning assignation to make a distinct effort with their appearance. Even Mary Ahearn, who never wore anything but her worker’s greens, or a simple blouse and trousers for chapel, had taken greater pains.

‘Mary Ahearn is wearing a dress!’ Miriam Calder was heard exclaiming in the staff room, prompting everyone to take their turn at the glass panel of the door to behold this spectacle. The situation had to be serious, it was decided, though the three women did not seem intimidated by what lay ahead, rather determined, warlike, in their prettiest outfits. The only thing out of place in this display was the small, rough bag Mary Ahearn carried with her, of the kind usually employed for the carrying of fresh-shot game.

Inside, was something crucial to their testimony.

A heart.

It was not completely hardened, though its outer layer had dried and cracked. It was a heart about the size of your fist. A heart deliberately punctured through with nails.

The morning after his meeting with the mothers, Mr Crane entered the staff room to address his team.