That Viola had a dog – as a companion, as a familiar – was very strange to the residents of Lark, she quickly realised. The cats were feral, not pets, kept fat on the island’s plentiful supply of mice – creatures Viola and her mother did daily battle with, forced to place a rock on top of the bread bin at night to stop them breaching the lid. The stares Viola endured on the cobbles were never greater than when she crouched to scoop up Dot’s poo. They were the same looks you received on the mainland when you did the opposite – walked away and left it, indifferent.

So, Viola took the left-hand path at the bottom of the farmstead track for a while, heading away from the harbour, to walk Dot in the anonymity of the woods.

As they progressed uphill, the scrubland was taken over by great swathes of ferns, the distance between the pines growing smaller. The world turned denser, browner, the trees enclosing them, making the clatter of a bird’s wing come blanketed and soft. Viola’s boots crunched against the needled path, a satisfying soundtrack, convincing her it wasn’t voices she craved so much, just a different kind of quiet.

The peace, though, was short-lived.

He came jogging up behind her one afternoon, arrived seemingly from nowhere, his breathing laboured when he reached her side. Viola recognised the St Rita’s uniform from her excursions to the harbour – knitted navy jumper, red-and-black striped tie – and the boy wore his with a grey wool duffel coat, toggles bobbing.

‘You’re the redhead!’ he gasped, matching her pace. ‘I’ve been dying to meet you!’

His hair was liquorice black above a high forehead, above a large jaw – a face best suited to gloom. When he smiled therefore – this being so unexpected – it was difficult to resist smiling back. But Viola did resist.

‘Is it like birdwatching?’ she enquired tartly. ‘Do you need to tick “redhead” off your list?’

He looked confused. ‘Birdwatching?’

‘My name,’ she said, ‘is not “the redhead”. It’s Viola.’

‘Oh!’ he said, catching on – perhaps – and they did not speak for a while. Viola waited for him to get bored, to trail away, but he stayed beside her, leather satchel banging against his hip. They paused in unison when a small herd of deer tripped anxiously across their path, and once they had resumed their walk, the boy said: ‘Do you know, I hate Violas!’

Now Viola was confused. She had never met anyone who shared her name. There had been a Violet in the year below at her mainland school, and a precocious Violetta at a drama club she tried once and immediately hated. How had this boy encountered enough Violas on an island of 253 souls to form such a strong opinion?

‘I mean the flowers,’ he said.

‘Oh!’

‘They look like they have faces.’

‘Yes.’

‘Weird eyes that creep you out.’