‘No, wait,’ a man said, putting a hand out to delay Father Benito as he headed for the church. ‘Not so fast, Father. Answer the women. What they say is true. There were children who ran back into town ahead of the flood. How did they know to run? Some of them got clear away?’

‘Did they warn the others?’ another man asked. ‘Did they warn us? No! They didn’t!’

Another woman nodded. ‘They ran in silence,’ she said. ‘One went past me and never said one word of what was coming.’

Ree’s cold hand crept into Isolde’s palm. ‘We were just running for fear,’ she whispered.

Ishraq stepped up beside Isolde, putting the child between them as if to protect the little girl from the increasingly angry crowd who were now blocking the lane from the church, their voices echoing loudly in the narrow street. Father Benito went on through them, and climbed the steps to the church turning to see more people joining the crowd from the market square, people coming out of their houses, still dirty from their work of salvage and repair, their faces suspicious and fearful.

‘Did they not tempt our children into the harbour with their promises? Did they not bear false witness and lure us on? And then the wave came. What about their leader, Johann? Have we seen his body? Or did he go sailing back into the clouds having called up the wave to drown us all?’

‘That’s right!’ someone said from the back of the crowd. ‘We don’t know who they were, and they came just before the wave.’

‘They called up the wave!’ someone shouted. ‘You’re right, Mistress Ricci! They brought the wave down on us!’

‘I will have vengeance!’ Mrs Ricci raised her voice above the growing murmur of the crowd. ‘I swear I will have vengeance for my son and for my husband! I will see the bringers of storms burned as witches and their ashes scattered into their own storm winds.’

Isolde flinched at the words and tightened her grip on Ree, who crept as close as she could get, as if she would hide under Isolde’s rough cape. Luca and Brother Peter went up the steps of the church to Father Benito, readying themselves to face the crowd, to try to calm them. Luca glanced across to see Ishraq rise gently to her toes, as if preparing for a fight.

‘Now let’s all be calm,’ Luca said firmly, pitching his voice so that it could be heard over the crowd and the mad crying of the seagulls. ‘I am an inquirer, appointed by the Pope himself. I have been sent out into Christendom to make a map of fears, and if your good Father Benito agrees that we should hold an inquiry into this strange and frightening flood then I will do so here.’

The crowd rounded on their priest. ‘Call an inquiry!’ someone shouted. ‘Name the wicked ones!’