Okay. I didn’t. Okay. I did. But I said it with a smile in my voice. Honestly.

Eventually Miss Drury calmed herself down and after blowing her nose on some clean rags kept in the storage pocket of her door, she half turned.

‘I’ve been trying to keep a lid on it, Mr Huff. I knew that if I … if I referred to what’s been going on back in Pett Level, I probably wouldn’t be able to … to negotiate the road.’

‘A lid?’ I echoed.

‘Carla … Miss Hahn is currently missing, presumed dead. Half of her bungalow fell into the sea. Late last night. I received a call from Rusty – Clifford – at about half past one this morning. Then another call at five. In between times I hardly slept a wink. He said Air, Land and Sea Rescue had been at the site for hours but there was still no sign of her …’

‘And he was absolutely certain that Miss Hahn was at home when this occurred?’ I snapped.

‘The TV had been left on. He rang Shimmy – Carla’s dad – and Shimmy said she’d definitely headed home a couple of hours earlier. But he also said – Rusty, I mean – that her bike wasn’t on the lawn where she usually leaves it. But the garage was gone. And sometimes, if it’s raining, she puts her bike into the garage.’

‘Was it raining?’ I asked.

Silence.

‘WAS IT RAINING, MISS DRURY?!!’ I bellowed.

‘It was pouring down in Hythe,’ she sniffed.

I rested my cheek on the blue sheet in the Woolworth’s bag for a second to try and process this sudden, overwhelming glut of information.

I had no sense, in myself, in my … in my soul that Miss Hahn was dead. Gone. None. In fact I had been conducting a curiously convivial little conversation with Miss Hahn over the past several days. My mind would tentatively reach out … Miss Hahn? And then I would receive a tart response. She would say things like, ‘You look utterly ridiculous, Mr Huff!’ or ‘Perhaps you should be slightly more grateful for that!’ or ‘I would be frightened too, if I were you. But not quite as much.’

And then I would feel better. Or worse. Depending on what she had said.

In fact she had called Brother Prosper, ‘A big lumbering old moose!’ And then she had tucked her hair behind her ear and had commented ruminatively on the full moon. She knows a lot about the stars. More than most girls generally do.

‘You think she’s dead?’ I lifted my head again.

OF COURSE SHE ISN’T DEAD, FRANKLIN!

‘I don’t know.’ Miss Drury’s voice broke.

‘Just answer me – quickly, instinctively,’ I persisted. ‘Do you think she’s dead?’

OF COURSE SHE ISN’T DEAD, FRANKLIN!

‘They called a priest,’ she sniffed. ‘He said the last rites over the—’

‘That’s not what I’m asking, Miss Drury!’ I hissed.

Miss Drury was silent for a second, and then, ‘Yes. I think I do.’