In the Approaches. Nicola Barker

cost. From that moment onward, everything was calibrated – rage, hurt, resignation, paranoia, claustrophobia, frustration, resentment – through a shiny curtain of dollars and cents. I opened my import/export business in Monterrey, Mexico. We struggled along, me here, her there. How else to manage it?

      Did I forgive her? No. Did I stop loving her? No. Could I let go? No. And Bran Cleary? My dear friend Bran (whose injuries had totalled a slightly sprained wrist, some bruising and a broken nose because – ever the gentleman – he had opened the car door for her – for my wife!). Did I forgive him? No. Did I stop loving him? No. Could I let go? Yes. Yes. Yes.

      I let go. I moved on. I never wanted to feel that way again. People have often asked me my professional opinion (although what profession I belong to now I struggle to decipher – laughing stock? Entrepreneur? Crook? Social worker?). Did Bran deserve what happened to him? Was it all just bad luck? A conspiracy? Was it revenge? Murder? Something beyond that – the (God forbid!) ‘supernatural’?

      No more questions! I just didn’t want to speculate. I didn’t want to engage. I didn’t want to let it all in again. And yet here I was, immersed in the whole mess right up to my chin, resenting every moment, hating every moment. Wishing I was dead. Why did she ask me? Why did I agree to it? And now Kim. Poor Kim. Brave Kim. Un-Kim.

      Call that … call that fair?!

5

       Miss Carla Hahn

      The eternally fragrant, sweet-natured and well-meaning Alys Jane Drury is absolutely appalled by what I have done (how might I have imagined it could be otherwise?).

      ‘Whatever possessed you, Carla?’ she demands. ‘He’s such a nice man! So very interesting. Debonair. Handsome. All those lovely curls! And so incredibly polite. I just don’t understand how …’

      She is silent for a moment. I hold my breath and press the receiver even tighter into my ear.

      ‘It’s so out of character!’ she finally declares. ‘Did Shimmy put you up to it?’

      ‘No,’ I insist (perhaps a split-second too quickly), ‘it was all my idea. I mean Shimmy wasn’t happy – after the incident with Rolfie, obviously …’

      ‘But you said Mr Huff had already apologized for that.’

      ‘Yes. He had. Well, in a manner of speaking. The letter was very arrogant. And a complete tissue of lies about the exact circumstances of—’

      ‘To protect everyone’s feelings, perhaps?’ she interrupts.

      I ignore this. ‘He actually went so far – in the letter – as to admit to not even liking cats.’

      ‘I don’t like cats,’ Alys snorts. ‘Well, not especially,’ she qualifies.

      ‘But that’s because you love birds, Alys!’ I insist.

      ‘Franklin – Mr Huff – likes birds,’ she counters. ‘He made a huge fuss of the parrot when he visited. Teobaldo even allowed him to stroke his chest. And Teobaldo hates people. He won’t even let me do that. We spent ages talking about the birds of Me-hico. He collects feathers – exotic feathers. For the shrunken heads. But he never kills anything. He’s very strong on conservation. Very respectful of the environment which I thought was just lovely.’

      ‘Shrunken …?’ I echo weakly, half-remembering something along the same lines that Mrs Barrow had said.

      ‘Didn’t he tell you? He has a business which manufactures shrunken heads. The kind you get in Peru. He makes them in Me-hico and exports them. They’re incredibly beautiful. He showed me a sales pamphlet. I mean disgusting but beautiful. Hand-stitched. Extraordinary. Some sell for thousands of dollars. People collect them. He makes them with carved animal bones and skins. He has a small team of ex-gangsters and addicts in Monterrey working for him. The whole enterprise is run like a kind of social programme …’

      I think it would be fair to say that Mrs Alys Jane Drury (widow) has been thoroughly won over by Mr Frankin D. Huff (con-artist). The woman is besotted.

      ‘Rather odd, don’t you think,’ I muse, ‘that Mr Huff should come here with the express intention of finding out things about you, and then should end up talking endlessly all about himself?’ I pause, meaningfully. ‘Did it ever dawn on you that maybe …?’

      ‘It might all be just a ruse?’ Alys promptly fills in for me, sharp as a tack. ‘A “technique”? To beguile me? Uh, yes. It did occur to me, as a matter of fact.’

      ‘Oh,’ I say, deflated, ‘well, good.’

      ‘It may interest you to know that several times in the course of our labyrinthine discussions he actually encouraged me to hold things back. He’d say, “Let’s not trespass any further into that, Alys. I can see how you’re struggling. Save it. Preserve it. Some things need to remain truly inviolate …”’

      ‘Are you serious?!’

      After even only the briefest of acquaintances with Mr Huff, I find it difficult to imagine him readily employing the phrase ‘truly inviolate’.

      ‘Absolutely,’ Alys insists.

      ‘And then what?’ I ask.

      ‘How d’you mean?’

      ‘Well did you change the subject?’

      ‘Uh …’ Alys ponders this for a moment. ‘Sometimes. Yes.’

      I roll my eyes and start to walk over towards the window, but am prevented from doing so by the tangled phone cord. I grimace and start the laborious task of unwinding it.

      ‘Well, for what it’s worth, he was still incredibly rude about Rogue’s weight,’ I mutter (smarting at the mere memory), ‘unforgivably rude.’

      ‘Rogue is horrendously overweight, Carla,’ Alys sighs, ‘Rolfie too, for that matter. Your father systematically overfeeds them. It’s awful – strange – cruel. You’re always moaning on about it yourself …’

      She has me there, admittedly.

      ‘In Shimmy’s defence,’ she blithely continues, ‘it’s probably the expression of some profound, deep-seated emotional conflict or trauma, possibly relating to the persecution of the Jews.’

      ‘He is fat,’ I murmur, slightly shame-faced now, ‘but to be so … so forthright about it, and so mean, so horribly judgemental—’

      ‘Mr Huff has been resident in Pett Level for almost six weeks now,’ Alys interrupts, ‘and in that entire time has hardly breathed so much as a word to you, Carla. Perhaps you might be feeling a little … I don’t know … sidelined? Ignored? Piqued?’

      ‘That’s ridiculous!’ I exclaim, horrified. ‘I never had any intention of speaking to the man! I’ve been actively avoiding him. Why else did I hire Mrs Barrow to clean the cottage? To act as a go-between? I was actually glad he didn’t approach me – relieved.’

      ‘Sorry …’ Alys interjects, ‘there’s interference on the line.’

      ‘I said I was glad he didn’t approach me,’ I repeat, louder, briefly desisting from my frenzied untangling.

      ‘Right. Okay. So that’s why you approached him this afternoon …’ she wryly observes.

      ‘I didn’t!’ I squeak. ‘He’s staying in the cottage, my cottage, and by all accounts he’s gradually dismantling it, piece by piece. His wife ran over Mame’s cat, for heaven’s sake! What other option did I have? He lied about his true identity on the lease. They signed in under Ashe …’

      ‘Yes, yes. And of course