Miss Hahn? I repeated.

Oh, uh, sorry! the imaginary Miss Hahn juddered back into consciousness. Could you possibly … uh … repeat all that for me? I’m afraid I must’ve nodded off after ‘engaging emotionally’ …

The actual Miss Hahn, meanwhile was … she was … she looked …

‘Mr Huff? Please?! Won’t you just …?’

‘It’s hic! fine,’ I said, harshly, ‘don’t hic! give it hic! a second hic! thought. Hic! I already hic! knew.’

The actual Miss Hahn looked stunned.

‘You … you knew?’

Oh excellent! A double bluff! The imaginary Miss Hahn chuckled.

‘Yes. It was hic! obvious! I’d already hic! guessed myself, hic! but then your friend hic! Mr Pemberton hic! kindly confirmed my hic! suspicions for me. Hic!’

‘Clifford told you?’

Miss Hahn seemed taken aback. I was both delighted – and pained – by her patent shock at Pemberton’s betrayal.

‘Yes! Hic! Days ago, now! Hic!’

‘And you … you didn’t think to … to mention—’

Miss Hahn looked hurt and slightly tearful. (Miss Hahn? Hurt? Making me feel guilty? After what she’d done?!)

‘To mention it hic! to you?! Hic!’ I interrupted, roughly. ‘No. Hic! Why should I? Hic! Why should I hic! mention it? Hic! I’m the hic! wronged party here, hic! Miss Hahn! Hic! I thought it hic! was up to hic! you to hic! mention it. Hic! Not me. Hic!’

I do wish you could see what happens to your brain when you lie, Mr Huff! Miss Hahn chuckled, plainly highly entertained. There’s a huge amount of activity in your medial inferior and pre-central areas. And your hippocampus is pulsing quite extraordinarily!

Who made you such an expert on brain physiology, Miss Hahn? I demanded, slightly suspicious.

The old nursing qualification, Mr Huff, remember?

Oh. Yes. I grudgingly conceded, of course.

‘I really did feel terrible about it, Mr Huff,’ the actual Miss Hahn confessed, plainly traumatized, ‘and I fully intended to come around that afternoon and apologize, but then there was that first landslip – in Fairlight – and I just got caught up in all the … the administration, you know … and the moment just seemed to … to pass.’

As Miss Hahn speaks, I inspect the strange contours of her lips. I still have a tight hold of her wrist. I suppose I should really have released her wrist several minutes ago. In fact I’m surprised I didn’t let go of it as I recoiled in shock when she first confided her terrible secret. That would certainly have been a more … well … more appropriate response. Because now, after all this time, in conversation, it’s almost as if we are … I don’t know … involved in some kind of intimate …

Hmmn. I really don’t understand why she’s pinned her hair back with that ridiculous clip. It doesn’t suit her at all. Although she’s acting as if the fringe is still there! Her free hand has already been lifted four … five times to this now de-activated hair curtain during our brief, two-minute exchange. There it goes again! Dutifully miming its habitual, little tucks on those invisible, blonde swags …