‘Either we grant her access or you’ll wake up one morning with a flaming mattress on your roof,’ I warn him. ‘Worse still, she’ll take it out on all your neighbours. Her kids will decapitate their prize dahlias or leave steaming piles of horse manure on their doormats.’

‘Hmmn. Just a standard Mulberry Cottage-style welcome, then.’ Mr Huff smirks.

I find it difficult to respond directly to this snide (but perfectly justified) comment without the threat of an involuntary blush.

‘I saw you embracing,’ Mr Huff adds, still smirking, ‘on the sea wall.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

‘It was very touching,’ he continues. ‘Did they manage to get it all on camera?’

‘Sorcha asked me what kind of a “role” I wanted to play,’ I respond, turning towards the beach, irritated (why does he always feel the need to make everything so … so difficult?). In the distance I can see a small group of TV people discussing the possible imminence of rain.

‘“Facilitator”,’ Mr Huff volunteers, then ‘“Pushover”,’ then, ‘“Pimp!”’

‘I’m no happier about all this than you are,’ I grumble, still facing away from him (pimp? Pimp?), ‘but I know Sorcha, and there’s simply no point in resisting her.’

Mr Huff merely clucks.

‘She really … really worships Orla.’ I turn, trying to explain. ‘She honestly believes that Orla cured her family of a long-running hereditary birth disorder. To Sorcha, Orla is the Pavee’s equivalent of the Virgin of Guadalupe.’

I pause for a moment, thoughtfully. ‘In fact I’m struggling to understand why you wouldn’t want to interview her for the book. Plenty of other people have. She was quite close to Orla in Ireland. Father Hugh brought them together at the cathedral in Monaghan.’

‘So you’re going to give her permission to access the shrine, then?’ Mr Huff blatantly changes the subject. ‘Against my professed desire as your legal tenant?’

‘I made it perfectly clear in the rental conditions that the garden might occasionally be visited by pilgrims,’ I snap.

‘I’ve seen the gypsy children tunnelling through blackthorn bushes.’ Mr Huff shudders. ‘Tunnelling through them. Like a little pack of rodents.’

‘There’s always been a strong tradition of blackthorn tunnelling in the area,’ I tell him. ‘When Jacob Epstein – the sculptor – rented a house here in the early part of the century, the main access to his place was through a thick tunnel of the stuff. Epstein had a very productive few years in Pett Level. That’s partly what drew Bran and Kalinda to Mulberry.’

‘Now you come to mention it, I think there might be a photo …’ Mr Huff suddenly recollects, ‘some lunatic emerging victoriously from a clump of blackthorn.’

‘Kalinda, probably,’ I hazard a guess.

‘Was it Kalinda?’ he muses, half to himself.

‘Well it wouldn’t have been Orla. She couldn’t crawl. Her arms were too short.’

‘I think it might’ve been you,’ Mr Huff avers.

‘Me? I don’t think so!’ I scoff.

‘In fact I’m sure that it was you.’

Mr Huff places down his knitting and stands up as if to go and check. Then – just as suddenly – he changes his mind and sits down again. I – by complete contrast – am initially horrified at the idea of seeing the photograph (I just couldn’t possibly bear to …), but then, when he sits down again, I feel strangely disappointed. Almost … almost hurt.