‘Because men find it such a turn-off.’ She shrugs. ‘Intimidating. My speciality is Undecidable Problems, specifically the “word problem” in algebra and computer science. These aren’t the kinds of things your average person can have a casual conversation about.’

‘Well maybe you need to stop having so many casual conversations,’ I suggest, ‘or, better still, start worrying about problems that are decipherable.’

‘Decidable,’ she corrected.

‘Exactly.’ I nodded. ‘Decide on your problem and then solve it.’

‘Easy for you to say.’ She smirked (amused, for some reason). ‘I bet you weren’t educated beyond your O-levels.’

‘I trained as a nurse.’

‘Exactly.’ She shrugged. ‘Men love nurses. But they aren’t remotely attracted to mathematicians. Life is just so much more complicated in the intellectual realm; so full of rivalry and viciousness and confusion and disappointment.’

‘Life can be fairly complicated in all its realms,’ I aver. ‘Even the most basic ones.’

‘I suppose so,’ Mrs Meadows sighed, pushing herself to her feet. I pulled open the little drawer at the other end and hunted inside it for some paper, finally locating an old handbill for a table-sale in the Village Hall at Winchelsea Beach – circa 1968 – with a nice, plain back. Mrs Meadows, meanwhile, has gone for a small, slightly aimless mooch around the living room and then on into the hallway and beyond. I shut the drawer and followed her. I found her in the little box room, sitting on the unmade bed, pressing Mr Huff’s grey-striped flannel pyjama bottoms to her chest.

‘This is where he sleeps,’ she murmured, dreamily. ‘It smells of … what is that smell exactly?’

‘Eucalyptus.’

‘Yes. Eucalyptus … Oh!’ She gazed around her, suddenly anxious. ‘This wasn’t that poor little girl’s room, was it?’

I nodded.

She grimaced.

‘Were you very close?’ she wondered. ‘With her, I mean?’

I shrugged. Then I nodded again.

‘Is this where she …? In this bed …?’

I nodded.

‘This … this mattress?’ She bounced, gently, on the mattress.

I nodded.

‘What a repellent thought!’ she murmured. Followed by another small bounce.

‘So, Mr Huff’s wife was having an affair with Bran Cleary,’ she mused.

I tried to nod, but for some reason I couldn’t quite.

‘And now Mr Huff is writing a book about it all.’

This time it was my turn to grimace.

‘His wife was horribly burned in that car explosion …’

I nodded.

‘And Mr Cleary? How did he die again?’

‘He was involved in a …’ my voice started to shake, so I drew a deep breath, ‘a tiff. An argument. While he was on remand. Over a Kit Kat. It escalated. Someone hit him on the side of the head with a snooker cue. He seemed fine. No blood was drawn. He didn’t even ask to see the doctor. Then twelve hours later, he was dead.’

‘Of course it wasn’t really about the chocolate bar, was it?’ she muttered.

I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I just wished she’d put Mr Huff’s pyjamas down. And get off his damn bed.