In the Approaches

As he speaks, I notice a patch of dried blood on his forearm.

‘What happened to your arm?’ I ask.

‘Uh … I was bitten by a dog.’ He scowls. ‘Up at Mulberry. A setter. It belonged to some woman who was tending the girl’s shrine.’

‘What were you doing up at the cottage?’ I ask, scowling.

‘Uh …’

Again the uncertainty. ‘Uh … Mrs Barrow called me.’

He starts to dig, chin burrowing into his breastbone, almost ashamedly.

‘Why?’ I wonder.

‘Because …’

As he begins to respond (still digging) a hedge-cutter roars into life in a neighbouring garden.

‘Sorry?’ I place a hand to my ear.

‘Mr Huff’s wife died,’ he roars, just as the hedge-cutter is turned off again.

‘What?’ I take a small step back, blasted (in two senses) by this news.

He continues digging but offers no further information.

‘When did she die?’ I ask, shocked. Oh Please God Let It Be Today! Let It Be Yesterday!

‘About three or four days ago.’

I do the sums. My heart plummets. He continues to dig.

‘But then why would Mrs Barrow …?’ I persist, struggling to piece the thing together to my complete satisfaction.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, still digging. ‘I don’t think she wanted to bother you. After the landslip and everything. The underlying tensions with Mr Huff …’

‘But then why … why would she call you of all people?’ I finish off. I mean why wouldn’t she just call Mr Barrow? Is Clifford Bickerton now part of some new, UN-sponsored Pett Level Peace Initiative I know nothing about?

‘To help,’ he says (as if this is the most obvious thing in all the world).

‘With what?’ I ask.

‘A missing bulb.’ He shrugs. ‘A broken window. The rabbit hutch.’

‘Rabbit?’ I echo.

He nods. He digs. I watch, rotating my sore thumb, thinking about Mr Huff. Thinking about his dead wife. At the same time, I try and imagine Clifford Bickerton unfastening my trousers and letting me drop like that. Making those weird noises. Running off. No. No! I just can’t. I can’t imagine it.

Clifford pauses for a moment to catch his breath. ‘He was married to that photographer,’ he explains, ‘the one who … the one who got burned.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The photographer. His wife. Kimberly someone. He’s her husband. Although I don’t think …’