‘No,’ she whimpers, sinking to the floor. ‘No, no, no, no!’ She clutches the end of the bannister to stay afloat.

‘Get up,’ says Viola sharply, playing the adult. ‘You need to get up.’

The woman does not. She mutters her denials.

‘It looks really bad,’ says Viola, raising her voice. ‘For you, I mean, this all looks really bad – with the ship arriving today…’ She gambles on the next part. ‘Your name in the ledger…’

The woman does not object. She quietens, still clinging to the bannister.

‘You need to go up to the stones.’ Viola’s breath is her own once more. ‘Get a story straight. But you need to go now, before it’s too late.’

The woman stands, her face wholly changed. A switch has been flicked. Here is what Viola always knew was behind that mask: someone selfish. The woman gives a nod of resolve and pulls on a coat, thrusts her stockinged feet into sturdy boots. Then she is off, pushing past the intruder in her kitchen.

The baton has been passed.

Viola depresses the button on the two-way radio and she speaks. ‘You need to stay where you are,’ she tells Saul, buying herself some much-needed time. ‘Leah Cedars is coming to find you. Over and Out.’

The Book of Leah

THE BOOK OF LEAH

Tuesday night, I knocked on her door.

‘I’ve brought a bottle,’ I said, holding out the small, stout vessel – empty now.

‘Did it work?’ she asked. She knew the answer. The skin on my knees was as perfect as it had ever been; old netball injuries from the schoolyard left more lasting marks. Margaritte had allowed me to emerge unblemished from what I’d done. I might even pretend it had never happened.

‘So,’ she said, taking the bottle from me, ‘are you coming in?’

We drew the curtains, lit incense and settled down opposite one another across the green baize. Margaritte leaned heavily on the table as she lowered herself into her seat, wincing at the movement, cursing the cold of December. I looked up unthinkingly for a clock, as if the face of one might tell me where the year had gone.

We worked through our experiences of the recent storms, giving an inventory of the plants in our window boxes that had survived the onslaught, and then, these topics exhausted, she asked, ‘What brings you to me, then?’

‘Tuesday nights are our night,’ I replied.

I smiled, thinking this was enough, that we would not speak of it anymore, that line we crossed when we were last together in my front room, how she had reached within me – seen me. This was the Larkian way. We avoided difficult subjects, lifted the carpet, swept them beneath, carried on.

Margaritte took up the cards from their wooden box, freeing them from their scrap of coloured silk. She shook her head.