‘D’you think it’s a good idea to be closing all the windows, Mrs Barrow?’ I call through. ‘Isn’t it better to give the flies every opportunity to disperse?’

Mrs Barrow stomps back into the kitchen-diner, shaking her duster around. She marches into the sitting room, still wafting, and slams the window shut in there, too.

‘Mrs Barrow?’ I follow her into the room.

‘Mrs Barrow? D’you not think it might be better if we …?’

As I irritably address her I am slightly bemused to observe a series of skittish, disparate bluebottles suddenly unify and cohere (like a swarm of wild bees, or pre-roost starlings) on to an expanse of the whitewashed chimney breast behind Mrs Barrow’s shoulder, then doubly bemused – nay, astonished – to see them forming into a coherent shape. A large … a large … what? Uh … An … an X? Yes … an … uh … Then they busily adjust, and the X … well, it tips … it tips on to its side and what were formerly the two ‘horizontal’ lines are fractionally reduced to produce … How fleeting is this moment? I blink. Nope. Nope. Still there … still there …

A kind of cross shape! An actual cross! Large as life! On the chimney breast! A big, black, buzzing cross!

The hairs on the back of my neck promptly stand on end.

Mrs Barrow is speaking.

‘There was none of ’em in the little room,’ she ruminates, ‘did you happen to see that, Mr Huff?’

She turns and double-checks that the window is properly shut. I merely gape. I am inarticulate. Does she even notice the deafening cross of flies – right there – immediately to her left? I lift my arm and start to point vaguely as the cross shifts again; a diagonal line forms between the top of the vertical line and the further reaches of the horizontal line to the left and a … yes … it’s now a four. A perfect four. A four!

Mrs Barrow finally satisfies herself that the window is properly closed, spins back around swishing her duster (like a hoity-toity priest on Palm Sunday condescending to scatter holy water on to the unwashed masses), disperses the flies, quite unthinkingly, then pushes past me and disappears once again into the back section of the cottage. Three seconds of silence, before:

‘Euceelyptus!’ she bellows, victorious.

‘Sorry?’

I start to follow her. She is standing on the threshold to the small, box room.

‘In the little girl’s room!’ She points with her duster. ‘Euceelyptus! That’s her smell. Well I never!’

Mrs Barrow seems delighted. I push past her and step inside the room, sniffing.

Eucalyptus! She’s right. I have no idea why I didn’t notice it before! It’s stringent. Clean. And very powerful.

‘Well Carla’s as told me on many an occasion how she can’t abide the smell. She’s allergic! Disinfectant, see? She always says as the whole place is full of the scent of it. The little girl’s smell! Orla’s smell. Although they was as thick as thieves when that poor child was still alive – if you could call it a life, as such,’ she cavils, ‘and it was no different then, neither. Not as I’d know, mind. I was off in Dymchurch that entire summer nursing my sister-in-law – God bless her soul – who was down with the dropsy. Terrible it was – for a while. We all thought as she’d miss the birth of her first grandchild. She was quite frantic about it as I recall. Then she suddenly got herself better. Died one year later of a heart attack. But it was very quick. Blessedly so, Mr Huff.’