‘So a mynah bird has been …’ I murmur.

‘Yes! And poor, old Baldo … Well, I can only presume that he was in a complete frenzy about it all. He’s incredibly protective of me, Carla. He kept yelling and shouting out in alarm all the time, but I just thought he was being a pest …’

Alys inspects the inside of the mugs and then changes one of them, before peering, suspiciously, inside its replacement.

‘So you think Baldo was wise to King’s little prank and was trying to …?’

‘… warn me about it. Yes. Exactly. Does that sound a little too far-fetched?’ Alys wonders.

I shrug.

‘Well, when he was unmasked – King, I mean – a couple of hours ago, Baldo went absolutely mad. Completely loopy! I think it was probably just an overwhelming sense of … of relief …’

She places the mugs on to the table. ‘He started making this awful, perfectly hair-raising WAAA-WAAA-WAAA noise. And suddenly there was this …’

She gesticulates, limply.

‘What?!’

‘This … this awful expulsion … and he collapsed.’

‘An expulsion …?’

‘I gathered it all up into a little polythene bag and then took him – and it – to Rye. I showed it to the vet and he knew instantly what it was. He said it was an egg, Carla!’

‘An egg?’

‘Yes’ – she nods – ‘but it didn’t have a shell. It was only half-formed. The vet said there was a problem with his ovaries, some kind of infection or over-activity …’

‘But I thought Baldo …’ I start off.

‘… was a boy,’ she completes my sentence. ‘I was told he was a boy when I first got him, and I never had any particular reason to doubt …’

‘But he’s a girl!’ I exclaim.

‘Yes! Exactly. A girl! Poor Baldo!’

‘So you think he – she was in some kind of internal discomfort, and that’s why …?’

‘The vet seemed to think so. But he said he – she was very stressed. I mean to collapse like that … It was terrible. Almost like a little fit.’

She shakes her head, mournfully. We stand together in silence for a few seconds as the kettle starts to clatter on the stove.

‘So Mr Huff isn’t a smoking candle after all,’ I mutter, removing it from the gas.

‘Sorry?’

‘A smoking candle. Mr Huff.’

Alys clucks, forlornly.

‘Although simply because it wasn’t him making the phone calls doesn’t necessarily mean that he isn’t still … you know … evil.’

Alys raises a brow at my somewhat dramatic vocabulary, then walks over to the fridge and removes a pint of milk. ‘It doesn’t, no. But I still felt I should come over and apologize to the poor man. While I was in the area. I mean, for blackening his name to Father Tierney. It wasn’t terribly …’

She sniffs the milk, winces, then quickly replaces it back into the fridge again. ‘D’you have anything herbal?’

I trot over to the cupboard.