Bridget took my case and helped Mary into the boat and then together we pushed it into the waves and waded in until it was afloat. I gasped as the water found my skin and my skirts billowed up like an umbrella.

‘Quickly,’ Bridget said. The vessel tipped a little but Bridget steadied us with the paddles.

I looked to Mary, clutched her hand and gazed up at the stars, scattered like white dust across the heavens. My feet and hands were numb but excitement took away the feeling of cold. Bridget began to row and I turned to watch the beach retreating.

We did not speak. I was aware of the steady cut and splash of the oars as they cleaved the waves. The air grew wetter. The boat swung, leaving a white rip upon the ocean. My feelings were so bright and highly charged that I could not separate apprehension from hope, excitement from fear. We were heading towards the open ocean now where a sea fret began to creep in low over the water.

‘The mist,’ I said. ‘Will we be all right to get to the other island?’

She gave a low chuckle. ‘You’re still a city girl, Elspeth. That’s nothing.’

‘How will we get on the other boat?’

‘He’s anchored off the water yonder. He’ll throw me a line and you and Mary will have to ladder it up the side.’

I thought incongruously of the civilized afternoon teas at Swan House: I could never have imagined such adventures would be ahead. But suddenly, something in the air changed, an alteration in energy. Bridget’s scrutiny was fixed seawards but Mary had gone still. She took my gaze and dragged it to a little panel on the boat’s inside and my heart fluttered.

The Dolphin. The boat was named ‘The Dolphin’. I looked at Mary again. It meant nothing, a coincidence, but Mary’s eyes held a knowledge that I was not party to. Mary, with her gift. Don’t go near the dolphin, she had written. All this time I had been fixed on the brooch, but what if that was not what she had been talking of? Mary’s eyes slid to Bridget. Was I to believe that Bridget, my friend, my one companion on Skelthsea, was the person pitched against us? Not her. I sought out Mary’s look and she answered it. And with the dawning of horror, I knew that Bridget had always been the one of whom I should be afraid.

I turned slowly to her, the comprehension chilling, but it was too late. She had observed what I had been too late to hide. She stilled her oars, leaving just a splash at the bow.

Silence, not even the wind, only a yawning quiet.

‘You,’ my voice was ragged.

‘I killed Hettie, yes.’