We sat in complete silence for a few minutes. Kit’s fingers rested on the boards beside me, and my fingers itched to creep forward and touch them. At any second, I felt certain, he would turn his face, his dark eyes would meet mine in a soulful gaze and he would kiss me.

What he said was: ‘So, tell me about the Blackness.’

I wanted to forget about the whole wretched affair and just enjoy this perfect, idyllic moment with the boy I loved.

‘Molly?’

I pulled myself together, took a breath and began to tell him about Blackman’s visit and Pa asking us to drop the whole thing, although I didn’t explain why. The issue of the missing money was too terrifying – as though putting it into words might be implicitly accepting that Pa had some guilty part in it. ‘There’s no smoke without fire,’ I’d heard Mrs D say once about something else, which I understood to mean that however innocent someone is, people will associate them with the problem. Deep down, I was really beginning to wonder whether Pa would ever be able to clear his name.

‘So that’s it then. We simply give up on saving Eli’s hut?’ Kit said.

‘I don’t know. I feel awful about Pa, but I don’t want to let Eli down, either.’

Just then we heard Jimmy crashing through the undergrowth towards us, panting as though he’d run a mile, even though the whole island was less than a hundred yards long, and holding out empty hands.

‘No treasure?’ I asked.

‘You haven’t looked hard enough,’ Kit said.

‘Have so.’

‘Go and look some more, Jimmy,’ I said. ‘We’re having a talk, Kit and me.’

He put on a sulky face.

‘Then sit down and catch your breath for a few seconds, Jim-boy, and we’ll come and help,’ Kit said. ‘But I have to finish talking to your sister, first. Understand?’

Jimmy sat down on the landing stage to the other side of Kit and looked up at him like an adoring younger brother. He’d do anything Kit asked him, I thought, rebelliously. If only we could tell him to row away and leave us alone.

‘Okay, so what about this for an idea?’ Kit said. ‘You told me Eli talked about chaining himself to the hut?’

I nodded, wondering where this was going.

‘That’s what the suffragettes did – chaining themselves to the railings of Parliament when they were campaigning to get the vote for women. So why don’t we suggest that we join Eli, by chaining ourselves up too? If he doesn’t want to, we’ll do it without him.’

‘What would be the point of that? No one would see us.’

‘The newspapers printed photographs of the suffragettes. It was a brilliant way of promoting their cause, and it worked. They got the vote in the end, remember?’