‘Sorry …’ Alys interjects, ‘there’s interference on the line.’

‘I said I was glad he didn’t approach me,’ I repeat, louder, briefly desisting from my frenzied untangling.

‘Right. Okay. So that’s why you approached him this afternoon …’ she wryly observes.

‘I didn’t!’ I squeak. ‘He’s staying in the cottage, my cottage, and by all accounts he’s gradually dismantling it, piece by piece. His wife ran over Mame’s cat, for heaven’s sake! What other option did I have? He lied about his true identity on the lease. They signed in under Ashe …’

‘Yes, yes. And of course you just naturally presumed …?’ I can hear the infuriating smile in Alys’s voice, and behind it (like the alternating layers of blue-grey wash in the lowering sky of a fine watercolour painting) a parrot muttering, ‘Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo!’ culminating with a deafening, ‘WAH!’

‘Presumed what?’ I demand, wincing (although I know exactly what she’s about to say).

‘That he wanted to talk to you. That he’s obsessed by you – stalking you. That you would naturally be the “crucial witness”. The main focus. The hidden key to it all! You’ve been actively looking forward to rejecting his advances, but he hasn’t actually made any. He’s been the perfect gentleman! Face it, Carla, you’re more obsessed than he is!’

‘I didn’t presume anything …’ I grumble, wounded. Once again – as a distraction – I start untangling the line. ‘Although it was perfectly reasonable to assume that after he’d approached pretty much everyone even remotely connected to the Cleary visit … I mean he tracked down the milkman, Alys! Old Billy Peck who was always deaf as a post. He tracked him down. And the woman who ran the mobile library – I don’t even remember her name!’

‘Meredith Brown. So perhaps he got what he needed from other sources?’ Alys suggests brightly.

‘Yes. Yes. Maybe he did.’ I sullenly play along.

‘I mean it’s not anything too in-depth that he’s after, just a series of captions for this little book of photographs. By Kimberly Couzens. That Canadian woman. The photographer. You know – the one who was with Mr Cleary when …’

‘Well hopefully he’s satisfied with what he’s got,’ I concur, moving a couple of feet closer to the window (as a consequence of my untangling), ‘and now he’ll clear off and leave us all in peace.’

‘Hopefully,’ she echoes (perhaps not entirely convinced).

‘Is it raining in Hove?’ I wonder.

‘It was earlier. Fairlight?’

‘Tipping it down.’

I gaze out at the rain.

‘Are you thinking of heading back?’ Alys wonders, after a brief silence.

‘Sorry?’

‘To the cottage. To sort it all out.’

‘No!’ I snort, then, ‘Yes. I am, actually. But he’ll probably be home again by now.’

‘You should go anyway, and if he is there, apologize. Make it heartfelt. It was an awful thing to do, Carla. He’ll think you’re completely unbalanced!’

I grimace.

‘And after I told him – at such unbearable length – about what a dear little lamb you are!’ she murmurs, softening.