‘Miss Hahn? Hello? Hello? Miss Hahn?’

She was clutching a slice of cake (deposited – by Mr Huff, no doubt – inside the torn-off lid of an old egg box). I gritted my teeth for a second (staring out to sea with hooded eyes), then turned and returned her jolly wave (transforming that benighted clench into a beaming smile) before carefully slipping and sliding my way back down on to firm land again.

Mrs Meadows proffered me the cake. I took it from her. ‘That looks delicious,’ I said, sniffing it, slightly suspicious.

‘It’s a swede cake,’ she said.

‘Oh. How lovely!’ I said. ‘And is that a touch of … of cinnamon?’

‘The original recipe calls for cinnamon,’ Mrs Meadows confided, ‘but I used nutmeg. And the plain, butter icing has been enlivened by a dollop of molasses.’

‘That sounds terribly wholesome,’ I murmured. ‘And also quite … quite regulating.’

She nodded.

‘It was very kind of you to bring me a slice,’ I added (wryly imagining an infinitely unfurling future in which a traumatized Mr Huff was compelled – for his manifold sins – to feast on a multitude of earthy yet exotic combinations from the warped culinary hand of Mrs Meadows).

‘Did I …’ Mrs Meadows frowned. ‘I hope I didn’t barge in on anything important when I turned up at the cottage earlier?’

My hand shot up to my head. ‘I really must return your hair-clip,’ I exclaimed, removing it.

‘But it was a gift!’ Mrs Meadows insisted.

‘And that was very kind of you’ – I nodded – ‘but I think its work is now done.’

‘Its work?’ Mrs Meadows echoed.

‘I’m just not sure if it’s entirely my … uh … my style,’ I confessed, passing it over. Mrs Meadows shrugged, took the clip, then slipped it, neatly, back into her own hair again.

‘And you didn’t interrupt a thing!’ I added, tucking my fringe behind my ear. ‘Not a thing!’

‘I thought you might have been arguing …’ Mrs Meadows still persisted.

‘A frank discussion,’ I maintained, ‘over nothing of any significance …’ I shrugged. ‘The bill for the utilities … you know … the faulty cistern … the … the badgers.’

‘Oh I wish I were a little more like you, Miss Hahn!’ Mrs Meadows sighed. ‘Aloof and tough and … and boyish and independent. I do have a very practical – I suppose one might best call it a “rational/scientific” – side, but then on the other hand there’s always been this powerful need to …’ – she frowned – ‘to nestle myself into a man, for support and … and comfort. To snuggle in. The way a … a little duckling feels driven to retreat from the world under its mother’s wing.’

My heart sank. I stared at Mrs Meadows, forlornly, wondering how on earth it had finally come about that this patently quite intelligent yet (at root, let’s face it) deeply idiotic woman was about to be entrusted to carry Orla’s precious legacy forward.