So he fastens the (fully functioning) seat belt (I even leaned over and double-checked it! It was firmly locked!) and then we pull off. I start the conversation by referring to the weather.

‘Nice, warm day,’ I say.

Mr Huff looks completely paranoid. ‘I didn’t kiss her,’ he pants, ‘whatever she tells you – told you. I was just trying to make her stop.’

‘Sorry?’

It takes me a few seconds to catch up.

Kiss her?

Kiss her?

‘It was unbearably hot in the sauna,’ he continues. ‘Close. Dark. Airless. She practically forced me to join her in there. I was just returning the money – the rent money. I put it on the kitchen counter. I was calling her. I didn’t even know that it was a sauna. I thought it was simply a shed. Then she came out – stark naked – and insisted that I took off my vest and my pants, and I …’

He swallows, nervously. ‘I am not a natural habitué of the sauna, Mr Pemberton …’

Mr …? Oh ha ha ha.

‘I told her that, quite plainly. I find them a little … well, sordid. I told her that. But she insisted. She really was quite determined to … I mean I really am … to all intents and purposes … I really am the wronged party here.’

‘Hold on. Could we just …?’ I stutter. ‘You’re saying that you and Carla – my Carla … that you …?’

Stark naked?

Kiss?

Sauna?!

No! No! No! I can’t get a handle on this! It’s not … it just doesn’t … My Carla? The Carla? No! It must be a joke. A lie. I can’t … I just don’t understand how the Author could have … could have got her into … manipulated her into … I simply don’t understand how …

‘She practically forced me!’ Mr Huff squeaks. ‘I’m just … It’s been one of those days. First Mrs Meadows putting her hands down my … down my … down …’ He indicates, horrified. ‘But what could I do, Mr Pemberton? Without mortally offending her? After all that protein? And me a … a recently … just … just widowed … Vulnerable! Then a couple of hours later, Miss Hahn. With her … her … I really am quite …’

We are now travelling at approximately ten miles above the National Speed Limit. My foot feels very heavy, all of a sudden, as if my … my frustration, my … my rage, my … my despair (I don’t think that’s too dramatic a word under the circumstances) finds itself perfectly focused (all this black helpless fury) directly above the arch and deep, deep inside the pad …

Mr Huff double-checks his seat belt.

Ha!

It holds.

I am perfectly calm.

Perfectly. Calm.

Although why the heck didn’t I know anything about all this in advance? Why wasn’t I ‘forewarned’? That sixth sense I’ve recently developed? I knew about that other stuff (the parrot, remember? The Author’s other works published – in some cases – several decades after the current year of 1984?). So why didn’t I know about this? Why keep me in the dark till now? Huh? Just to … just to humiliate me, maybe? Or perhaps (twenty miles over the National Speed Limit! Weeeeeeee!) Mr Huff is lying. To upset me. To provoke some kind of … of un … un … unguarded reaction?