As the rest of the congregation queued down the aisle, waiting their turn, as the girls stepped humbly away, Martha Signal dipped close to Elizabeth Bishy and said, ‘Well, their bodies show no sign of rejecting the host.’ Her voice contained none of her customary deference to the doctor’s wife; perhaps it even exhibited a note of triumph.

This display of godliness, however, did not prevent the Eldest Girls from attending their Council-prescribed ‘examinations’. They were escorted, in turn, from St Rita’s to the clinic abutting the Bishy house on the southern elevation, a simple brick-built extension with a two-bed medical ward and a compact, carpeted consultation room that overlooked Elizabeth Bishy’s magnificent garden.

Andy Cater, as representative of the Council, was sent to the Reunyon Farmstead to demand that the Kendrick girl also be brought forward for examination, but he returned shamefaced and empty-handed. The girl hadn’t been there, he said; the mother had threatened him with a pitchfork was another version of the story that did the rounds.

Sister Agnes was asked, last minute, to chaperone the Eldest Girls to the Bishy surgery – an error in communication meant the mothers had not been aware of the appointment times, falling as they did during morning lessons. Sister Agnes elected not to accompany the girls into the consultation room itself – their privacy was to be respected – instead she watched them make their way to the far side of the clinic, then retired to Elizabeth Bishy’s immaculate front room for a hand, or four, of gin rummy until each girl returned from her time spent under the doctor’s care.

These examinations were to be of a psychological nature, with the girls’ best interests at heart, but would certainly be rigorous. The learned doctor needed to ensure, through careful probing, that their fascination with sorcery was just that – a passing fascination – and not an outlying symptom of something more serious. Their reactions on leaving his clinic – Anna, mute and dead in the eye; Britta, biting her lip till it bled; and Jade-Marie, weeping and shaking – demonstrated the deep shame they felt for meddling with that goat’s heart, an emotion the doctor should be applauded for successfully extracting.

Elizabeth Bishy relayed this outcome to the women of Lark as she sat, damp-haired, beneath the scissoring fingers of Hope Ainsley. The collected nodded their approval and went back to their reading of the Lark Chronicle and the various ageing editions of mainland magazines.

Except for Martha Signal.

‘Are you sure he didn’t check them in other ways?’ she asked. She got up and idly scooped a few fingersful of grey hair from the floor. These were cuttings from Mr Crane’s time in the chair, swept to one side now the man had gone. The men’s session at the salon was completed first, Mr Crane the last customer that day. Of the women’s session, Elizabeth Bishy always took the first slot.