I gaze at him, amazed. Why is he doing this? Why would …? What’s the …? Is there something I don’t …? Is there …? Something Kimberly said, maybe? Does he … did she … does he …?

‘What size are your feet?’ he asks.

‘What?’

‘Your feet,’ he repeats, ‘what size?’

‘Six.’

He nods.

‘Why?’ I demand.

‘Because I’m knitting you some socks.’

I continue to gaze at him. I don’t mind confessing that I feel some terrible urges towards him. I just want to … to strike him, to scream at him, to scratch his eyes out, to burst into tears.

I turn to leave.

A smoking candle! Just like Alys said. A smoking candle! A weirdo. A sadist. A smoking candle. A truly bad man.

Why is he here? This awful man? Why is he here, ruining everything, complicating everything? What can he possibly want with us?

‘Enjoy your ride home!’ Mr Huff chirrups (he almost sings!).

It’s all uphill back to Fairlight. With rain imminent. All uphill. And he … he … he knows it, he knows it, damn him!

25

Mr Franklin D. Huff

You know what? I had looked at the photos. Several times. I had looked at them, but I’d never truly … I’d never truly looked at them – digested them, engaged with them, felt them, understood them – until I took them out after that little spat with Miss Hahn and sat down at the dining-room table and properly scrutinized …

I am a journalist by trade. I once credited myself with a measure of objectivity. Of dispassion. Of analytical skill. But when I looked at those photos this time around, with these new eyes, with this fresh perspective brought about by … by what? By my sudden need to torture Miss Hahn because Miss Hahn has this … this quite maddening way of … of detaching herself … this unreachable quality, this strange composure, this aloofness, this untouchability?

Glacial!

She talked about those glaciers (didn’t she?). In the sauna? Those huge pieces of ice sliding into each other and then producing those ghastly noises, almost ‘intelligent’-sounding. Communicating. Is it really any wonder that she felt so drawn to those arctic soundscapes, when she’s all but glacial herself?!

Glacial.

And when you communicate with her – or attempt to – you also feel yourself suddenly reduced to the level of inanimate matter. And for some reason this makes me long to … to undermine, to prick, to shatter …

Do I really want to hurt Miss Hahn?

Miss Hahn, of all people?

The Barbed Wire?

Isn’t the barbed wire the thing that keeps in, the thing that keeps out, the thing that snags and tears if you draw too close?

Why would I …?

More to the point, how could I …?

Eh?

Well, there’s the rub.

I suppose this can’t be unrelated to the fact that after I got home – I mean back, to Mulberry – I suddenly felt this overpowering impulse, this urge to … to launch a secondary attack. To try and bolster myself. Because I’d felt so vulnerable, so emasculated, so discomposed out there by the bus-stop. Then the drama with Mr Pemberton. My magnificent tumble.