‘Remove the beam from your eye, Miriam!’ Leah Cedars hollered in her wake, as everyone on the southern elevation opened their windows and doors to observe the evening’s entertainment.

What people spoke of later was the eerie parallel between Leah Cedars’ removal from the Calder doorstep and Jade-Marie Ahearn’s ejection from chapel that first worship in September. No one spoke of the fishy miracle that had allowed Frank Calder, all of a sudden, to walk some distance unaided, grappling with a person much younger and fitter than he.

The next day, Lark woke to discover that someone had expressed their disapproval of Leah Cedars’ behaviour by throwing a can of red paint against the front of her harbour cottage. No one was condoning such an act; it was a terrible shame that the white-rendered face of that lovely little cottage had been spoilt, especially as it was likely to be given to someone new, now that Peter Cedars was dead and his daughter had acted in a way that made her, with all due respect, unmarriageable. (Had anyone seen the handsome coycrock teacher at her side amid all this drama? No, they had not.) But if a can of paint was what it took to stop Miss Cedars from shrieking nonsense on people’s doorsteps, perhaps it had been a necessary evil.

She was seen sounding off just one last time on the cobbles, in her pyjamas, as the sun rose and the red paint dried. Saul Cooper was at the sharp end of her tongue this time. He held her by the wrists as she came at him, demanding, ‘You must have seen who did it! Don’t give me that, you know!’

Then she disappeared. To the gamekeeper’s lodge it was presumed, where her mother lived. For now.

As for the Eldest Girls, their curfew still stood, their futures uncertain. Further enquiries were needed – further ‘examinations’ – according to the published minutes of the Council meeting that had been called to discuss Peter Cedars’ death and the issue of the mutilated heart (those decisions being reached after a hysterical Leah Cedars had been expelled from the Counting House).

Though the sword hung from a thread above their heads, it was widely reported that the girls had broken their curfew and returned to the stones, sneaking out at the dead of night.

Mary Ahearn, who some tentatively referred to as the gamekeeper proper, though no announcement of her promotion had been made, was heard in the Anchor at the weekend, stating loudly that she locked her doors and windows when she went to bed and kept the keys beneath her pillow. Rhoda Sayers and Ingrid Duchamp had taken to doing the same, Mary confirmed, ‘to ensure the girls’ safety’.