The little bottle of oil was in a drawstring cloth bag, but when I took a closer look at the bag’s contents (pumice stone, broken sunglasses, shoe horn etc.) I saw – oh dear – that the rubber seal on the little bottle had corroded and so the oil had been slowly drip, drip, dripping, first on to the shelf itself, then down on to a few of my clothes below, and finally on to the wardrobe’s solid base. How long this had been going on for was anybody’s guess.

I stayed standing on the chair for a while ruminating on the various ramifications of this curious discovery …

Hmmn. If the oil had been dripping down on to my clothes, then wasn’t it entirely conceivable that I’d been smelling it, just randomly, over the past couple of days (a sudden blast of heat, a gust of wind, a moment of heightened emotion/stress) and then cheerfully attributing it to Orla and some kind of mystical/spiritual event?

I was struggling to come to terms with this idea (trying to work out whether what I was feeling was a sense of welcome relief or of crushing disappointment), when Alys Jane Drury (no less) barges into the room (doesn’t anybody knock in Fairlight these days?) almost tipping me from my chair (the wardrobe is behind the door).

After wobbling precariously for a few seconds I grab her shoulder (from behind. For support). She duly screams and then freezes to the spot like a small doomed rodent.

‘Alys? Good heavens! What on earth are you doing here?’ I exclaim, releasing my grip on her shoulder, just as soon as I’ve regained my balance.

‘You’d left the front door wide open!’ she squeaks, turning around, traumatized. ‘Why are you hiding behind there? Half-naked? On a chair?’

‘I’m not hiding. I only just got in myself, soaking wet from the downpour’ – I jump off the chair, grab a shirt and pull it on, struggling to explain all the while – ‘so I threw my bike on to the front lawn, rushed straight inside, peeled off my wet clothes and then ran in here to find something to … but then … well, there was this little, pool of … of eucalyptus oil.’ I point. ‘So I started to hunt around to see if I could find …’

‘Orla’s scent!’ Alys automatically crosses herself, sniffing the air.

‘… find the source of it and so I stood on the chair and hunted amongst Tilda’s old stuff stored up there and found this little bottle of oil in a wash-bag with its seal corroded …’

‘But aren’t you allergic to eucalyptus?’ Alys demands. ‘In fact aren’t you allergic to all disinfectants?’

‘Yes I am.’ I nod.

‘There’s been a disaster with Teobaldo.’ Alys promptly changes the subject. ‘I drove him to the vet’s in Rye. They have a bird specialist there – Martin Dugdale – who Baldo knows well and, more importantly, trusts. Martin’s very worried about him. Extremely worried. He’s keeping him in overnight for observation.’