It was the mother who saved her daughter, or at least bought her a temporary reprieve. Deborah Kendrick had been drawn to the harbourside, perhaps by the sound of chaos carried on the wind, or by the hymns sung to soothe. Perhaps she had been brought there by that unspoken something that allows a parent to know when their child is in danger. She wrapped her arms around Martha Signal, an aggressive embrace that pulled the woman off balance, backwards, away from the water, forcing her to release the girl.

The coycrock mother rocked Martha when she began to howl at the failure of her vengeance, at the futility of it, joining her in a lament for which there can never be any solace: ‘It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair…’

As this drama played out, the April ship growing more defined on its journey from the horizon towards us, I kept my distance. I did not try to intervene or have my say. It was as if there was a great body of water between me and that painful scene, not a stretch of cobbled ground. I cared about what was happening, the people involved, of course I did – I wept as I watched, thinking of all that we had lost and the inevitable suffering still to come – but I understood very clearly that it was no longer my place to find an answer.

I did not live there anymore. I was done.

As the girls were hurried away for their own safety, as Martha was consoled and as Luke’s guilt continued to pour forth, the crowds remained, the hymns began again with renewed fervour. I returned to the harbour cottage to put the last of my things in the suitcase. I looked about each room, saw the mess that Viola had made of the carpet, the bed, sensing her fingertips on everything, but I refused to let it touch me. I considered instead what I would miss most. Nothing physical: the chime of boat rigging in the evening breeze, the familiar ashy scent of the smokehouse, the sun setting on the west coast, the lustre that the moon paints across our sometimes unforgiving waves. I unhooked the carved heart from the window latch and dropped it into the pocket of my coat.

The incoming stevedores unloaded their cargo as I walked across the cobbles for the last time, found my mother in the crowd and hugged her goodbye. The supplies we had longed for all winter piled up on the quayside, the Lark boatmen neglecting their side of the task, continuing instead in their songs of consolation and regret, and in the discussions about the proper apportioning of justice.