In the Approaches

There follows a period of what I can only describe as ‘white noise’, ‘static’, and the most I can decipher is ‘Sword of Truth’ and ‘Web of Artifice’. He gives me a ten pound note and then passes me the rabbit.

‘The cow will probably kill me now,’ he says.

The cow? Sorry? The cow? Is he referring to Miss Hahn? Someone else? Mrs Barrow? His sister? His mother? Is this simply all about his being late for milking? For milking the cows? I wish I could … but the sweep of noise … like a giant … a giant wave crashing. A Lear jet flying at low altitude. A malfunctioning washing machine perpetually stuck on its spin cycle rocking its way across the kitchen tiles.

Uh …

What a strange man he is! Look at him! Look at his lips working! Like the mouthparts of a giant wasp – a bee – in astonishing close-up! So hairy – huge – confused …

Bumbling! Yes. Intense! Certainly. Deluded? Hmmn. But he seems decent enough (journalist’s first instinct. Gotta try and trust my initial gut …), uh …

Okay – okay, yes, the way he immediately knew where that missing bulb could be located. Highly suspicious. And the custom-made planks in the hedge by the Look Out? Strange. His desperate need to get shot of me for a while (Miss Hahn’s mother and the giant, German rabbits? I know for a fact – a fact! – that rabbit isn’t even kosher). Yup. He’s got an agenda a mile wide, I’d have thought.

Did Miss Hahn ever actually date him? It seems an improbable union. And what about the signal lack of any documentary evidence (photographic, earlier testimonial etc.) to this effect? And the parrot? Which parrot? Whose parrot?

What is he? Who is Clifford né Rusty Pemberton? What does he amount to, narratively? Is he a mere nothing? A nobody? Is he a missing link or a red herring? A loose cannon? A pointless distraction? A blind alley? A freak? A fanatic? A fantasist?

Because why would he be so determined to push Miss Hahn into the fray if he wasn’t (all of the above – none of them)? By outright accusing her? Why would a friend – a protector – feel the urge to behave in that way? So disloyal – so ungentlemanly. I mean I won’t pretend that I hadn’t suspected her myself – before. But now? No. Now, she’s the only person I don’t suspect! Our dear Mr Pemberton on the other hand … Oh-ho! With friends like these, Miss Hahn, who needs …?

Perhaps I’ve been slightly rash in confiding in him? Should’ve kept up my guard. Stiff upper etc. Although if he’s as strange and as skittish as he appears, then why would local people believe anything he says?

He prepares to leave.

Oh dear. Did I really make Miss Hahn cry the other day? On the beach?

We attempt to shake hands but this is rendered impossible by the ten pounds and the rabbit. So instead he kind of … he sort of curtseys.

Once he’s gone I sit down for a minute to try and gather my thoughts together. After about ten or so seconds the white noise diminishes. Well thank God for that! But then another sound neatly replaces it. Barking. Yes – barking! – followed by a series of profuse apologies. A woman’s voice. Then Mr Pemberton – Rusty – saying, ‘It’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. It isn’t deep. I actually … I … I sort of expected it, to be perfectly honest.’

13

Miss Carla Hahn

Poor old Rogue is no more. Which is terribly sad. But worse still is the knowledge that I – yes, me! – am going to be chiefly responsible for burying the body. Tatteh is too busy focusing on the onerous task of preparing a brief funeral oration and gathering together Rogue’s favourite toys to be buried alongside him (I note that several of these are items I have given to Tatteh myself – among them a Clarks’ sandal, a Johnson’s cashmere scarf and a little, plastic flamingo which I bought to commemorate the arrival of a lone bird of that species on Pett Pools in 1978, 1979 or some time thereabouts).

I have a fork and a spade, but the ground is pretty hard. And space is limited because numerous other dog corpses have been deposited here in years past. Upwards of thirty and counting, I’d have thought.

And Rogue was so huge! The sheer depth required to cover his bulk, and the terrible likelihood that if he isn’t buried deep enough the foxes will dig him up again haunt me as I work. I have bound up the thumb which aches horribly. In fact I am unwinding my makeshift bandage (consisting of a mesh washing-up cloth) and attempting to reapply it when Clifford Bickerton comes charging into the garden.

‘I saw your bike out front as I was driving past,’ he puffs. ‘Your dad says you dislocated your thumb.’

‘Rogue had a heart attack,’ I explain. ‘I was climbing over the side gate and my pesky belt got snagged on a piece of wood …’

Rusty takes off his work coat, folds it over his arm in order to put it down and grab the spade and commence digging, but as he does so a clementine (satsuma? Tangerine?) falls out of the pocket and rolls into my partly dug hole.

I stiffen.

‘Then after I’d been hanging there a while,’ I continue (more halting, now), ‘some big goose … some … some Smart Alec happens along and … and without warning … they untied my trousers. I fell head first on to the gravel below. Dislocated my thumb. Then they buggered off.’

‘Bloody hell!’

Rusty looks shocked, then ruminative (not quite the reaction I’d have expected). His eyes briefly de-focus.

I reach down and retrieve the satsuma, once again remembering – quite clearly – that very strong smell of tangerine. Or clementine. Or satsuma. From earlier. I proffer him the fruit.

‘Keep it,’ he suggests, ‘I’ve been eating the bloody things all morning. Mum bought a giant sack of them for the B&B-ers. I’ve actually got a little ulcer on my tongue.’

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 …’

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