The following Monday, Adrien Duchamp was seen at St Rita’s School, waiting in the corridor outside Mr Crane’s office. His daughter’s insolence had spread to the classroom, it was said – backchat to the teachers, laziness with her homework (the detail of the crimes depended on to whom you spoke). Her punishment: Anna was banned by her father from spending time with Britta and Jade-Marie outside of school. Yet the very next day the three of them were seen together on the harbour cobbles, making their way towards the track past the East Bay, coats zipped to the chin, arms linked, wearing shoes unsuitable for the terrain that lay ahead.

The other version of events was that Adrien Duchamp was visiting Mr Crane merely to discuss an insurance claim, and not his daughter at all. Anna’s father, with the assistance of accountant Robert Signal, managed the finances of almost everyone on the island. Everyone, that is, who had finances beyond the stash in their biscuit tin.

‘Because didn’t you hear, the school roof fell in!’

This was the talking point at Hope Ainsley’s monthly pop-up hairdressing salon in the scullery of the Counting House.

‘It collapsed on the head of that handsome new teacher,’ continued Elizabeth Bishy, the doctor’s wife. Her audience was the line of women who waited their turn. ‘A whole classroom utterly destroyed!’ she proclaimed.

Hope Ainsley worked pin waves into Mrs Bishy’s peppery black hair and nodded her agreement, while Martha Signal, beneath the heat lamp, put in: ‘He was almost killed, you know, that new teacher, so says Huxley’s wife.’

And this was not the only well-travelled story involving the handsome Mr Hailey.

The Eldest Girls had been seen communing in the senior corridor one breaktime, voices too hushed to be overheard. Britta Sayers was doing most of the jawing, confidently flipping those ropes of black hair over her shoulders as she spoke. The other two made noises of encouragement, geeing her up for the task ahead, then they scattered as if choreographed – Jade-Marie outside to the playground, Anna towards the infant and juniors’ block, Britta into Mr Hailey’s classroom.

‘Ah, Miss Sayers!’ was the greeting that was reported, its warmth suggesting Mr Hailey knew Britta well. Which he shouldn’t have – since the Eldest Girls had no teaching contact with him yet. Mr Hailey was still involved in the business of setting-up his science lab, rigging up gas canisters (‘Stolen gas canisters,’ said some), decanting and storing chemicals. There was much to be done before he was ready to branch out from his day-to-day teaching of the younger seniors and share his specialism across the whole school – and with the Eldest Girls.

Perhaps he had sought them out. Perhaps the girls had been drawn to him, this Pied Piper from the mainland, with his shiny gadgets and fancy shirts and waxy way of styling his hair.