There is movement in the crowd. At first I think it is because they see me, but then I realize it is coming from the back. Like a trickle that becomes a flood, the murmurs from the back of the crowd become screams as someone – one small messenger, an ordinary citizen of Saintstone – pushes their way through the throng. I think I recognize her as the woman who runs a small farm on the outskirts of town – she has wild, curling grey hair and a weather-beaten face. With Minnow focused on the mayor and the guards taken by surprise, in mere seconds the woman pushes past me and is on the stage standing at the microphone.

“They’ve taken them!” she screams, tears streaming down her face faster than the rain. “They’ve taken them. My books!”

In the shocked silence that follows, it is Mel who goes to her.

She holds her by her shoulders – firmly but kindly. The woman turns, her face a blank page of grief, and she tumbles into Mel’s open arms. The crowd are silent now. There is just the sound of the rain and the woman’s shuddering sobs. I see her mouth move as she speaks. At last, Mel’s arms drop and like a mechanical doll she walks to the microphone. She swallows before she speaks.

“There has been a break-in.” Mel is so used to addressing a crowd, often she has no need of amplification for her training has given her voice reach and resonance. But today she is flat, and her voice sounds as though it’s being squeezed through a small space. “A break-in at Shona Collier’s farm. They left everything untouched except for…” Mel holds out her hand to the weeping woman, who takes it gratefully. “Except for … the skin books.”

“They’ve taken my family!” The woman howls, and her words stab every chest.

When I was a child there was a fire at the Coopers’ house on our street. The shouts went up and the fire brigade was called, but it felt like an age before they arrived. I stood next to Mum, with bare feet and my nightie, feeling the heat that came off the blazing house.

My dad held Mr Cooper back, kept having to fight to keep hold of him because he was frantic and repeating the same thing over and over:

“They’re still in there – I have to save them,” he said, while his wife stood screaming, “My children!”

Dad had shaken him then, stared into his eyes and shouted over the roar.

“They’re not there, Jonathan,” he yelled. “They are not there – they’re already gone.”

His words were heresy. But now I see that he was saving a life, not squandering two. Because Mr Cooper’s children had both died when they were babies. It was their skin books he wanted to save.

Without a skin book there is no soul. When I allowed Dad’s book to be burned – believing at the time that it really was his – I was destroying his very soul. This is why we keep the books close to us. They are how we live on after death. They are our guarantee of eternity. I never came across the crime of stealing a skin book from another person’s home. Even the most depraved heart would draw back. It is beyond taboo.