I buried my face in the coat and continued to sob. It was simply …

To have lost so much! In one day! To have lost so much! And I hadn’t really even felt anything until now. I’d been so … so preoccupied, so muffled by the overriding need to … and the terrible fury of Clifford … and the strange newspaper article … and the thudding realization that I was in love – in love! How utterly ridiculous! – with the kind of person who would be capable of …

A worm! A backsliding, conniving worm! I growled my rage into the coat. I roared into the coat. I gripped on to the coat until both sets of knuckles turned white. I almost bit into the coat – gnashed away at it – the way I longed to gnash away at Mr Huff himself. Although I didn’t (of course I didn’t!) because this was Orla’s coat. Because this was Orla. This was my darling, little Orla. Here, in my arms. So I hugged her and I kissed her and I told her how much I loved her and after a minute or two the fury just melted clean away – it was offered up – because that was Orla’s special gift, wasn’t it: to give by taking? That was her power.

Mr Huff was speaking, meanwhile. He had been speaking for some time but I couldn’t pretend to have heard a thing he’d been saying.

‘… extremely painful and testing,’ he grumbled, ‘and I hadn’t really bargained on becoming the unwitting repository of the entire Cleary legacy, because I’m just … I’m too close, Miss Hahn. I’m too close. And they might trust me, even though their “every natural instinct fights against it”’ – he snorted, derisively – ‘they might trust me, Miss Hahn, but more fool them! Because I’m not to be trusted! No! Not remotely to be trusted! And I resent being trusted when I’m not … I’m deeply frustrated by this, Miss Hahn, deeply, profoundly frustrated by this …’

I lifted my face from the fur. ‘Where did you get it from?’ I demanded.

‘Sorry?’ He was halted mid-flow.

‘The coat. Where did you get it from?’

‘I was given it.’

‘Who? Who gave it to you?’ I croaked.

‘A demented old monk at Douai called Brother Prosper.’

‘And how did he come across it?’

‘Father Hugh had given it to him for safekeeping, apparently. Years ago. And he, I was told, had been given it by Kalinda.’

‘But what on earth possessed him to give it to you?’ I exclaimed, astonished.

‘Because …’ – he rolled his eyes, irritated – ‘because the damn child wanted me to have it I suppose.’

‘You suppose?’ I echoed.

He turned and started to make faltering progress back towards the cottage.

‘You suppose?!’ I repeated, somewhat incensed at his sudden withdrawal.

‘Not you, too, Miss Hahn!’ he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, despairing. ‘I can’t bear it!’

‘Mr Huff?’ I was indignant.