She is at the window of the Counting House, beating at the glass, screaming, ‘You bastards! You bastards!’

The Eldest Girls are in there.

Viola sprints for the grand blue door, which does not yield, her hands smacking painfully against the wood. She joins in with the thumping; kicking at the panels, demanding to be let in, getting no answer. She skitters left, to the window where Britta’s mother wails, desperate for a view inside, but the velvet drapes are pulled tight. She skitters right, and sees Council women and their hangers-on huddling in the kitchen. At the sight of Viola, they promptly, viciously, drop the blind.

‘What’s going on?’ Viola hollers, scattering her question into the crowd that builds behind her. ‘What’s going on?’ she begs.

They shake their heads; they cannot say, or will not.

‘Crane and Bishy dragged them down the hill by their hair!’ Britta’s mother is on her knees now beneath the window, her sobs as violent as coughs. ‘Find Mary! Get Ingrid!’ she demands, though the mustering of people only stare. ‘Somebody! Please!’ she yells.

A clunk comes – a lock being turned. The crowd murmurs anxiously as the Counting House door swings open to reveal… Diana Crane, chin high, lady of the manor. She thrusts forward the hairdresser, who trips on the sill, a vanity case in one hand; in the other – a head.

A head!

The harbourside cries out in dismay, but Diana Crane can only tut and sigh. She reaches for the hairdresser’s wrist, thrusting it into the air, shaking it roughly. Not a head – just a handful of brown curls, long ropes of black and amongst them the shorter blonde strands of Anna Duchamp’s under-ear bob.

‘What are you doing to them?’ screams Britta’s mother. ‘What have you done!’ The sobs submerge her; they drag her down.

Diana Crane is visibly appalled by the woman, as if her hysterics are more repulsive than what is going on inside.

‘Stripping them of their ornaments,’ Diana says, her voice heavy with entitlement, spooning out blame, ‘taking away their filth. Something we should have done a long time ago.’

The hairdresser scurries away across the cobbles, sheepish, and as she flees, she lets her bounty drop, the hair tumbling with the wind, making people skip and yelp as it snags against their feet.

‘Shave me too!’ cries Viola, propelling herself forward, snatching at clumps of her own red tangles, trying to yank them ceremonially free.

‘Step back!’ orders Diana Crane.

Viola does not; she puffs up her chest.

‘Viola!’ calls Hannah, the crowd slowly parting to allow the wheelchair through. Hannah works one-handed, her other arm wrapped around a tearful girl in St Rita’s uniform – her daughter, the resemblance clear. ‘Tell them that the Earl is here to sit on the Council. Tell them!’

Viola turns back to see Saul Cooper emerge from the Counting House, moving Diana Crane aside with more urgency than respect.