‘Go!’ he instructs Viola, pointing in the direction of the farmstead. ‘Go home. Don’t get yourself involved.’

This is a kindness, but it is too meagre, too late.

‘How could you!’ Viola launches herself at him, kicking, scratching, biting. Gasps go up from the now not insubstantial crowd as the drama escalates. ‘You were supposed to call the mainland!’ She spits; she claws. ‘Not them!’

‘Someone has died, Viola!’ he shouts in his own defence, peeling her grip from his clothes and his skin. ‘How was I supposed to say nothing? They killed someone!’

A deep oh reverberates across the harbourside – confirmation: the rumours are true – and Britta’s mother sinks lower, her face pressed against the stone. Someone dares to crouch down and soothe her – Anna’s mother, Ingrid, newly arrived.

‘Fetch Abe Powell to sit in Council,’ Saul urges Viola. ‘Father Daniel too. That’s how you can best help those girls.’

‘Abe Powell won’t speak for them,’ she cries, ‘and nor will you! You think they’re devil-worshippers!’ She tries for another swipe, but Saul holds her fists fast.

‘Fetch Abe Powell! Fetch Father Daniel!’ he calls over her head, instructing the crowd. ‘They’re needed at Council!’

A jostling of bodies follows, the elected ones dispersing on their hunt for the men. Viola is forced backwards then as the Earl is pushed through, Hannah lifting the wheels of the chair over the threshold, Saul Cooper taking command of the handles as she is told to step away. The Earl twists his head, keeping his bright eyes fixed on Hannah – a reluctant child on his first day of school.

He is not enough. It is not enough. Viola can see how the day will slide inexorably towards disaster. This death will not bring the authorities to Lark. Jacob Crane will show no mercy.

So, she leaps.

Viola is not strong but she is small; Diana Crane is not so quick and wide as Hannah on the stairs. The girl slips through, feeling Diana fruitlessly grasp at the sleeve of her coat. She pushes past Saul, past the Earl, and bursts into the men’s meeting room.

She is in.

There is no Council set-up, no white tablecloth. The space is curtained, dim. Three men, jackets off, sleeves rolled up, huddle as if readying themselves for combat: Jed Springer, Dr Tobiah Bishy, Jacob Crane. Up on the stage, between the red drapes, below the carving of the Union Jack – the Eldest Girls.

Their dead eyes come alive at the sight of Viola but they do not move. They sit on chairs, hands clutched in laps. They are shivering, barefoot, in white smocks not dissimilar to the nightdresses they wear at the stones.

The sight of their scalps – brutalised, visible, raw – the remnants of their hair swirling at their feet, is too much. What next? screams Viola’s mind. What comes next? And she knows she must answer this question herself, or else the Council will.