‘Like I say, I dunno. Anyway, this guy, he waits in the passageway and then he steps out as if it’s a complete coincidence that he’s bumped into her – really weird it is, sort of funny – but she never stops. She does this big loop away from him, even if he calls after her.’

‘If it is Miss Cedars, she’s a teacher, you know!’ Michael was a little breathless at this news, this possible scandal. ‘She’s my teacher!’

‘Lisa, I want to say…’ Viola replayed the moment, the Customs Officer shouting her name. ‘No… Leah.’

Michael sounded it out, reverentially almost – ‘Leah’ – turning over the knowledge of his teacher’s first name like a shiny new coin.

‘We thought she was dead,’ he said, ‘and we thought they daredn’t break it to us, because she disappeared after All Hallows’ Eve, was gone for nearly a fortnight. Then she came back, different.’

Viola nodded, as if this was interesting, as if it meant something to her.

They continued on their way, lost in their own meditations – Viola thinking about the Eldest Girls and what she might do, Michael repeating, like an incantation, the names of his new quarry.

‘Leah Cedars and Saul Cooper. Leah Cedars and Saul Cooper…’

The Book of Leah

THE BOOK OF LEAH

The cottage had no phoneline; I couldn’t let them know. So, they came to me.

Miriam Calder was the first ministering spirit. How could she resist? The story of too-many glasses of rum drunk on All Hallows’ Eve, combined with my absence from the All Saints’ Day service the next morning at school, would have had her salivating.

‘You don’t look very well,’ Miriam said, appraising me on the doorstep. I pulled my long dressing gown tight around me, so the wind wouldn’t lift it and reveal my bloodied knees. Miriam narrated the reshuffling of teachers that had been necessary to compensate for my not being there, the immense effort it had required, claiming credit for this orchestration. I denied her my thank-yous and well-dones.

‘Anyway, I can’t stand here talking all day,’ she said, her monologue done. ‘I expect you’ll be better tomorrow though, eh?’ She gave me a knowing smile and an almost wink.

Rage swelled up inside of me at this priggishness, at her undeserved pride. It was an emotion so pure, so full, it thrilled and terrified me in equal measure. I could have lifted the woman by her prim, flowery collar and thrown her over the harbour wall.

‘I’ll see how I go,’ I said.

I didn’t return to school the next day.

The skirts I owned would cover the mess of my knees when I was standing, but not when I was sitting, and Jacob Crane had made clear his views on female teachers wearing trousers.

Also, I was truly sick.