A profound need to deny myself, perhaps?

To deny myself what, though?

Happiness?

Disappointment?

I watch Miss Hahn blazing – her temper darting and licking like the fluttering yellow flame of a lighted candle. Then away she storms. Poof!

One, little puff and she is blown out – back into the world again.

After I’ve waited to watch her cycle away – there she goes, steam coming out of her lovely unadulterated ears! – I run and fetch the photographs. I spread them out on the dining-room table. I start to re-collate the narrative. Throwing them around, sliding them about … Because there actually is a narrative …

Mr Pemberton was right! How could I have …? Was it merely hidden away inside the …? Or do I simply lack even the most basic ability – the insight, the sensitivity to …? But then why would Kim feel the need …? Who was she protecting, exactly? Herself? Bran? Kalinda? Orla? Not Miss Hahn, surely?

Was it just a mistake? An accident?

And – still more importantly – if this story was hidden, right here, in plain view, then what else might have escaped my attention? Am I just overwrought, overwhelmed, over-thinking, or is it really possible to tell a different story in pictures just by sleight of … just by switching … just by carefully …?

I suddenly start removing some of the pictures from the pile. First this one, then that one. There are eight of them, in total, at the heart of this particular little narrative. But eventually … after much soul-searching and analysis, I reduce them down to just two. The two most infuriating. The two most incriminating. Yes.

Without these two, the Bran Cleary/Carla Hahn story almost loses its meaning. The tunnel photo I opt to leave. That can stay. But the picture of the four of them …? Look! Look! Bran is staring over towards Miss Hahn, his eyes shining, making no palpable attempt to disguise his emotions, wearing the kind of half-dazed expression one might habitually relate to a minor head injury, perhaps, or severe and persistent alcohol/narcotic abuse (and who’s to say either might not be at the root of it?). Miss Hahn is frowning, biting her lip, gazing anxiously towards an all but oblivious Orla. The second photo? Orla is praying her rosary on the beach, kneeling, her back to the camera, wrapped up in a blanket. Miss Hahn is in the surf, some distance off. Although the casual viewer might not readily identify her … Only the focused eye, the interested eye, the eye that spontaneously dilates at even the most casual of contact with her irresistible (and I don’t use that word as a compliment, more in the sense of ‘compulsive’) outline.

Bran is to the fore, back also to the camera, sketching. Bold strokes, in charcoal. On his pad, on his small easel, on the floor scattered around him, a dozen brutal studies of … of Miss Hahn, no less! Head, body, ear, shoulder, arm, foot. This photo is also out of sync with a series of others. Because if you measure Miss Hahn’s progress along the beach … Unless of course she retraced her steps, then turned …?