I showed Mrs Barrow the damage (almost with a small measure of pride – a secret hankering for approval: Mrs Barrow! Observe my suffering – my confusion – my persecution!).

‘The bin has been dumped on top of the Look Out.’ I pointed.

‘The bulb on the front porch is gone … Presumed stolen.

‘A tiny pebble has been thrown through the bathroom window …’ (Of course I didn’t take her in there, the rabbit being hidden, temporarily, under an upturned washing-up bowl.)

And finally … the Pièce de Résistance! I led her out on to the little back porch (the postage-stamp-sized – and badly fenced – scrap of garden to the fore; a lovely mess of blue and mauve: wild asters, bugloss, scabious and sea holly; cusping a sheer, thirty-foot drop to ground level, but still hemmed in from the beach proper by yet more dampness: some swampy common ground, the thin end of the not-so-Grand Military Canal, the road beyond and, of course, the sea wall) where the big fish is currently in situ on the old bench (which I broke the back slat of two days ago while removing a boot). She pinches her nose.

‘It was hidden in my suitcase under the bed,’ I explain.

She thinks for a short while. ‘You’re sure as you didn’t put it in there yourself, Mr Huff,’ she wonders, ‘and then forget?’

I am – quite frankly – incensed by this question.

‘What earthly reason d’you imagine I might have had for doing that?’ I demand.

She shrugs.

‘This is a shark, Mrs Barrow! How exactly do you expect I might go about acquiring a shark in these Godforsaken environs?’

‘Oh I think you’ll find as they’re very common in these parts, Mr Huff,’ Mrs Barrow insists. ‘When Mr Barrow worked out on the fishing boats we would eat sand shark very regular. Once or twice a week. I’d have thought a cosmopolitan gentleman such as yourself, Mr Huff, might be quite partial to the odd plate of good quality shark meat.’

I stare at her, astonished.

‘A nice bowl of shark fin soup,’ she persists. ‘Surely them Mexicanos are all wild for shark fin soup.’

‘Shark’s fin soup is a Chinese delicacy, Mrs Barrow,’ I stiffly inform her.

‘Shark is very edible, Mr Huff,’ Mrs Barrow doggedly continues, wafting her hand gently in front of her face, ‘although the mistake you made here, Mr Huff, was to leave the internal organs in place. Always be sure and gut a shark on the beach. Mr Barrow is oft wont to say that.’ She smirks. ‘Then the gulls’ll kindly do the rest of the work for you.’

‘I think you misunderstand me, Mrs Barrow …’ I start off.

‘Or they makes a fine bait,’ she continues, ‘if you can only bear the stink, mind.’

She winces.

‘I have never eaten shark, Mrs Barrow, nor have I ever considered eating shark,’ I maintain.

‘Well if the urge ever takes you again, Mr Huff, might I suggest as you soak the gutted fish flesh in milk or bicarbonate,’ she volunteers. ‘The worst of that honk is the ammonia, see …?’