‘… if I casually reintroduced such a painful subject at an inappropriate moment …’

As she spoke, Miss Hahn started glancing down, frowning, because that damn dog …

Joyce

Exactly. That stupid spaniel was muttering to itself – a kind of … an excited yiffling-whiffling growl – and dragging …

‘But I need you to understand that I really did feel terrible, Mr Huff.’

Pause.

Hic!

‘What on earth are you doing, there, Joyce?’ Miss Hahn scowled. ‘Why all this silly fuss and commotion, eh …?’

Hic!

‘Joyce? Joyce! What in heaven’s name have you …?’

Then the penny dropped.

Ka-ching!

42

Miss Carla Hahn

At first I thought it was … I don’t know … It took several seconds to process the whole thing. What did I think it was? Something … something still alive or recently dead or … or slightly subterranean – or even … even occult. I thought it was …

What did I think it was? All of the above, I suppose. But then it wasn’t … Or … or at least, well, it was …

It was the coat! Orla’s special coat! And the damn dog (or the blessed dog – the jury’s still out) had this most precious of artefacts, this most … how can I explain it? This most rich and sacred and intimate and … and rare and talismanic of jewels caught between its jaws and it was dragging it through the dust … A dog … the dog had …

No! No! No! No! It took literally a split second for me to realize – for me to put two and two together and realize – that Mr Huff had … He must have … He must have been throwing Orla’s beautiful, hand-made, exquisitely decorated coat out with the rubbish! With the rubbish! And in that same instant it dawned on me that he had been subtly trying to lead me towards the house. He’d been holding me by the wrist and gently moving us both backwards, but I’d been so engrossed in my apology that I hadn’t …

I snatched my arm away from him with a gasp, as though burned by his touch, and then swooped down, with a cry, and grabbed that astonishing little coat, that astonishing little fur coat which I hadn’t laid eyes on since …

I scooped it up and I held it in my arms and as I held it … I just … I was suddenly racked with a series of terrific sobs … I was so … so hurt, so deeply offended that anyone could be so … so ignorant, so heartless … such an … an unthinking vandal as to …

Mr Huff (for his part) looked somewhat taken aback. Then he lifted his hand to his chest. ‘My hiccups …’ he muttered.

His hiccups had stopped.

‘How could you, Mr Huff?!’ I groaned. ‘Orla’s little coat. Her coat. How could you, Mr Huff?’

‘I didn’t …’ Mr Huff started off, then, ‘Mrs Barrow must have … when I came back from the monastery. It was shoved inside an old Woolworth’s bag. Mrs Barrow must have inadvertently …’