Then, in solemn parody of the action which her brother performed on this spot each Sunday, Miss Thorby took the wafer and the silver Communion cup. The wafer she laid upon Ethel’s body, just below the breasts; the cup she set in the arch of her lifted knee.

If it stops at this, Miss Mayfield thought, there is still no great harm done. It’s blasphemous and wrong and silly, but she doesn’t know it’s happening, and if it stops here . . . Miss Thorby lifted the wafer.

‘This is the flesh of the Usurper. Let it be food for dogs!’

From somewhere, Mr Frisby’s good cattle dog Lassie came forward, moving as a dog does when moving against its will, head low and tail tucked down. It sniffed at the offering, hesitated and backed away.

‘Even the dog spurns it,’ Miss Thorby cried triumphantly. She dropped it and ground it under her heel.

Then she lifted the cup and, saying, ‘Here is his blood,’ offered it to Granny Rigby, who did with it something so degrading that Miss Mayfield shut her eyes and released her finger’s pressure on the camera, hoping that she had been in time. Not even for purposes of evidence did she want a picture of that!

And now Miss Thorby was praying – if you could call it that. She said that all was ready; that all those present had given proof of their faith and devotion. She mentioned the bride again, going into details about Ethel’s tender virginity as the madam of a brothel might speak enticingly to a reluctant customer about the newest recruit to her trade. She ended, ‘Great Master, we await you.’ Everyone repeated the words.

Then they rose. Miss Thorby reached over Ethel’s supine body and produced a bowl. She held it in her right hand and dipped into it with her left, and each member of the congregation, forming into line, approached her and was touched, by her left hand, in the palm of each of their hands, on the forehead, each cheek, chin and throat. Seven little dabs made with the swiftness of a snake bite. When they had been anointed and had passed on, they rubbed their hands together, rubbed their necks and faces, turned and pressed their palms to their neighbours’, rubbed one another’s faces and necks. Now and then, when the light caught it, Miss Mayfield could see the greasy gleam of the unguent. She remembered what she had read about preparations of deadly nightshade which could lead to frenzy and hallucination.

They were now in a circle, moving round and chanting, at first quietly, and then more and more excitedly. They began to leap and to scream. Miss Thorby took Ethel by the hand, jerked her upright and into the ring, which was moving anticlockwise. Miss Mayfield remembered another of the words which had not meant very much. ‘Widdershins’.