‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter – not remotely.’ Miss Hahn shrugged (and I’m not sure if it actually did, either). ‘I offered it all up.’ She sighed.

‘You …’ I frowned (Wasn’t that the phrase the child had used? ‘Can I offer it up for you, Mr Huff?’ Followed by her tinkling laugh?). Eventually I settled on (the somewhat enigmatic), ‘It’s much more complicated than you think, Miss Hahn.’

‘No.’ Miss Hahn smiled (a sad smile). ‘It’s much more complicated than you think, Mr Huff.’

I grimaced, irritated (Why? Why was everything always such a struggle with this infernal female?).

‘The truth is that Kimberly – Kimberly herself – had changed around the original order of the photos at some stage,’ I explained, ‘then carefully re-numbered them, to alter the narrative feel – the … the flow …’ I illustrated these words with an inadvertent hand gesture, then winced, ‘possibly in order to … to disguise the fact that you were conducting a secret affair with Bran Cleary, Miss Hahn. And it was these two photos – 04, 40, that were …’

‘Sorry?’ Miss Hahn looked confused.

‘It’s quite difficult to get to the bottom of her motivation,’ I continued. ‘Perhaps she needed to establish that her union with Bran – later on, in Ireland – was romantic, not political. If the photos seemed to tell a different story …’

‘But I wasn’t having an affair with Bran Cleary, Mr Huff!’ Miss Hahn exclaimed, looking perfectly mortified.

‘Steady, Miss Hahn!’ I reached out my other hand. The golden people had plainly been traumatized by her slightly raised voice (in fact some were quite incensed by it). They started muttering, belligerently.

‘And anyway the photos were gone, Mr Huff, not simply swapped around,’ Miss Hahn persisted, ‘one where Orla’s crowning Father Hugh with …’

‘… Another on the beach.’ I nodded. ‘You were walking down by the tideline and he was sketching you. Bran Cleary. Sketching you. Obsessing over you. Objectifying you. Dozens of drawings, Miss Hahn. Literally dozens of them!’

(That feeling of rage which had formerly assailed me at the thought of Bran Cleary’s charming and acquisitive eye, casually affixed upon our dear Miss Hahn, had possessed me once again. And even more powerfully this time.)

‘But I wasn’t …’ Miss Hahn murmured, perplexed, and then, ‘But why would Kimberly …?’

‘I destroyed them, Miss Hahn,’ I confessed, ‘to preserve your reputation.’

‘My …?’ Miss Hahn echoed, astonished. ‘But I already told you, Mr Huff …’

‘And because …’ I drew a deep breath. ‘Because – like a damn fool, a damn fool – I am in love with you, Miss Hahn,’ I hissed (still quite furious), ‘and they simply … they infuriated me.’

Silence.

‘We don’t have time for this,’ Miss Hahn eventually muttered, plainly disturbed (even hostile). ‘Your car is waiting. Mrs Meadows is waiting.’

‘I don’t care, Miss Hahn,’ I said.

‘In fact, I think I just heard a horn sounding,’ Mr Tyler added.

What?! What?! That utter buffoon, Mr Tyler, still standing there?! Behind me? Still standing there, shamelessly earwigging?