The men of the Council move towards Leah; Saul inserts himself between them and his beloved, the stand-off lasting but a moment as more spectators surge in, bumping everyone from their positions. Three women are pulled through the massing crowd and take their places at the front – Mary Ahearn, Rhoda Sayers, Ingrid Duchamp.

They cry out at the sight of their daughters, their butchered scalps. The Eldest Girls cannot keep their terrified silence any longer; they keen plaintively in response. The distance between them and their mothers is a devastation.

‘Stay back!’ warns Jacob Crane. ‘You leave those girls to their shame. Don’t make matters worse.’

His words work instantly. The women go rigid; they swallow their whimpers. Viola feels it too, rushing through her veins like a drug – the compulsion to obey. With Jacob Crane present, can anyone else ever take charge?

Leah Cedars is willing to try.

‘I counselled those girls to turn away from the dark arts,’ she says, a mollifying tone to quench the flames of the dragon.

‘Judas!’ Viola puts in.

‘Hush, Viola,’ Britta manages, from the stage above her.

‘I have counselled them to confess,’ continues Leah, turning to the women of the gallery, the mothers. ‘I told them they must talk of the … darker arts that have acted upon them, the real things that have warped their minds.’

She is met by blank gazes; she is speaking in riddles.

Viola seethes with irritation; her fists clench. Leah Cedars is doing no good.

‘Leah Cedars is the one with the warped mind!’ Viola taunts, reclaiming the attention of the room – but it is short-lived. The packed lobby groans once more, it heaves, delivering another body into the space.

Benjamin Hailey.

Horrified cries of ‘Mary, Mother of God!’ break out at the sight of the teacher: windswept, breathless, very much alive.

A laptop cradled to his chest, he takes up position beside Leah and something passes between them, tenderness perhaps, an overwhelming feeling. Leah Cedars snaps her head away, unable to bear it.

‘See!’ Leah says, using his appearance to her advantage. ‘The coycrock girl lies.’

‘I never said it was him,’ Viola spits back. ‘You assumed! You assumed!’

Benjamin Hailey looks from Leah to Viola, lost.

‘You’re a liar, Viola Kendrick!’ Leah Cedars’ voice cracks with emotion.

‘And you … you …’ Viola gropes for a comeback, her eyes landing on Saul, the way he is looking so pitifully at the object of his affection. Of course, thinks Viola, of course, why shouldn’t it be true? ‘And you,’ she accuses Leah, ‘are pregnant with Saul Cooper’s baby!’

A fresh exclamation from the spectators. Saul lurches for Viola, intent on silencing her, but she darts away from him, runs to the furthest corner of the room, pulling the radio from her pocket, holding it aloft as bait.