My police interrogators used the hackneyed ‘good cop, bad cop’ technique at my three interviews. “Didn’t you realise how dangerous it was to go bathing in the lake after dark?” “Why was Mrs Reinhart-Hernandez not wearing any clothes?” “Had you both been drinking?” “Why didn’t you report the accident; there are numerous Help Point telephones located in Green Park?”

I certainly got off extremely lightly at the Inquest. Although the Coroner made no specific reference to my involvement, I couldn’t avoid her icy glare as she delivered the misadventure verdict. A helpful court official directed me to a rear exit and I was able to avoid the waiting Press photographers. Within hours I was on a train out of London, headed back to Wales.

I was morosely reflective throughout the journey westwards and determined to find a quiet ‘bolt hole’ in which to hide and lick my wounds for a couple of weeks. Some years before I had gone on a religious retreat to an old Benedictine monastery, set on Bardsey Island off the Lynn Peninsular. Would Yr Haven still be there? A quick internet search on my iPhone revealed that it was and, fortuitously, a silent retreat was scheduled to start on the following Monday. I immediately reserved a place.

The boat trip across from Aberdaron was decidedly choppy and even sheltering behind the wheelhouse I was soaked through by the time the little ferry docked. A monk was waiting on the landing stage to greet the visitors and lead us up a tree-lined track to the Victorian-era monastery. With a back-drop of menacing black storm clouds, it looked even more intimidating than on my previous visit.

The old monk showed me to my compact guest room (retreatants weren’t obliged to reside in cells like the monks) and left me to unpack the few items I’d brought with me in my back-pack. My reading matter was to be Peter Ackroyd’s 1000-page biography of Charles Dickens, the historical figure ‘responsible’ for that fateful meeting with the late Carlotta Reinhart-Hernandez.

At the door to the Refectory, an hour later, the Abbot greeted us all courteously and directed us to a long oak refectory table, where we were to take our cold supper. From a low pulpit a monk read from the psalms.

As the great bell in the monastery tower struck 7 o’clock, we eight retreatants rose and filed out towards the chapel for Vespers. The short service was taken by the Abbot and I lingered behind after it ended. One or two monks remained, prostrated in prayer, but I was the sole visitor to stay in my seat in this cold and gloomy chapel. After the last monk eventually shuffled out, I rose from my pew and approached the altar which was flanked by single rows of tall choir stalls. Incense still hung in the air, though I detected a subtle ‘undercurrent’ of a fragrance by Elie Saab. I took a seat and studied the huge tapestry altar cloth. Its vertical gilded threads seemed to become iridescent as the flame in the chancel lamp flared up brightly.

Seated in a choir stall directly opposite me was a smiling Carlotta. Her long flame red hair was draped in the same way across her freckled face, she wore her signature verdigris eye shadow, but an incongruous mode of clothing tonight was her tangerine-coloured diaphanous gown. On her left upper arm was a purple armband.

“Hello stranger, fancy seeing you!”

“Going to a fancy dress ball?” I countered, in a half-hearted attempt to conceal my amazement at this apparition.

“Obligatory for all First Year Interns, I’m afraid. And I have YOU to thank for it, you bastard! I simply detest orange!” Pointing menacingly at me with her crimson talons, she spat the words out. The monastery bell tower above boomed eight echoing strokes.

She leaned back in the choir stall, stretched her long legs and kicked off her gold pumps. “What on EARTH possessed you to choose this God-forsaken dump, Nicholas?”

There was really no answer to such blasphemy. I shrugged. “I needed time and space to reflect. To see where my life might be going.”

She blew a raspberry. “Hippy clap-trap! You’ll be telling me next you talk to the fucking trees.”

I ignored the slur. “What’s with the armband?”

“In the new realm which I now inhabit I’m still a probationer,” she replied sulkily.

“Meaning?”

“No naughtiness.”

“Nothing at all in that department?”

“Nichts, rien, nada.”

“Well knowing your insatiable appetite, that’s a toughie.”

“Tell me about it,” then Carlotta added with a smirk: “But I’m allowed to butter my muffin.”

“So how big is this ‘new realm’?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” was the opaque reply.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll have an early night. I’m bushed from the journey.”

“Don’t worry, didums – you’ll certainly be seeing me again!” The chancel lamp flickered and now the choir stall was empty, though her shoes remained on the altar step.

I had a wretched night, troubled by watery images of bottomless pools, above which wraith-like figures in orange cloaks hovered above a floating corpse. Millais’ painting of Ophelia came vividly to mind. From my east-facing window, I glimpsed a bright dawn and decided to take a walk along the beach before I breakfasted in the refectory.

Except for some noisy gulls, the seashore was deserted, with the calm sea lapping gently against white pebbles. An extra strong wave drew back the water, making the stones click in unison. It was almost like a cackle. Scratched in the exposed shingle were the words: ‘ONLY TWO MORE DAYS TO LIVE.’

I was still badly shaken when I reached the Refectory, merely nodding to my fellow guests. I gave a startled jump (and spilled my bowl of coffee) as I felt a hand placed lightly on my shoulder. I turned to be greeted by a smiling Abbot. “May we speak in the vestibule when you have breakfasted, my son?”

“But of course, Father.”

He stood gazing pensively out at the Cloisters through one of the arched windows. “You seem remarkably troubled, if I may say so, Nicholas. Is there anything you can share with me?”

I had come to this holy place, in good faith, as a repenting retreatant, hoping for absolution. Now, more urgently, I needed to seek sanctuary from the encroaching evil. But would a confession merely double the resolve of my adversary? Knowing, of old, her extreme perversity she was quite likely to shorten those two days to one!

“Not for the moment, Father. But thank you for the kind thought. I think I will go and pray in my room before Terce.”

“As you wish.”

I climbed the narrow spiral staircase to seek the sanctuary of my tiny room. But Carlotta had got there first and was seated on the edge of my bed. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve done since you arrived on this island,” she observed smugly.

The tower bell rang for Terce. I certainly had no intention of renewing our friendship, but figured that a civil manner would probably be less likely to antagonise this irascible creature. It might even get my ‘death sentence’ commuted. “So why are you on Bardsey?” I asked.

She pulled a long face. “I had no option. I’d applied for Monaco or Buenos Aires, but the authorities told me that all Interns had to start at the bottom and work their way up. And, believe me, when it comes to ‘bottom’ Bardsey is scraping the fucking barrel!”

“Where do you live on the island?”

“In the woodshed behind a senile old anchoress’s cottage. Its stinks of her piss!” She flopped back on the bed, allowing her orange ball gown to fall open, revealing her slender legs. She began languidly masturbating herself through her panties in front of me. “Hadn’t you better run off to play with your monks?” she inquired, without opening her eyes.

After the half-hour service, I nervously climbed the stone stairs. Mercifully there was no sign of Carlotta and I buried myself in the Ackroyd biography, to await the bell for Vespers.

My second night in the monastery was less fitful – partly achieved through the soporific effects of a hip flask of brandy which I’d brought with me. Neither did I discover any more ‘death threats’ scratched in the sand on the beach the next morning. If Carlotta’s boast was to be believed, today was to be my last day on earth.

After the condemned man had eaten a hearty breakfast, the Abbot approached. “Nicholas: I wonder if you would very much mind assisting Brother Wallace with a task in the bell tower?”

“By all means, Father – though I know very little about campanology.”

The Abbot smiled.” It is more physical than bell ringing. But Brother Wallace will explain.”

I met the old monk who I’d first seen on the jetty when we arrived and he led me behind the altar in the chapel, to ascend a rickety wooden staircase which eventually terminated in the tower’s bell chamber. Its old whitewashed stone walls were covered with cobwebs. Centre stage was Big Tom, five feet wide at its mouth, suspended by rusty iron brackets from what looked like an old waggon shaft, set into opposing walls. The bell’s markings showed that it had been cast on the Clyde in 1887. Wallace patted it lovingly. “Only ever been rung three times. On the death of Queen Victoria, the First World War armistice and VE Day.”

“So why are we up here?”

“Seems the powers that be down in Westminster want us to toll it at midnight tonight to signal to the islanders that the Brexit agreement has finally been concluded.” He paused, then picked up a piece of shredded rope from the wormy floor. “Only trouble is, since the end of World War II the moths have had just about all of Big Tom’s bell-rope! We’ll need to hang a new one down through that hole in the floor to the bell-ringing room. I’ve got a coil of it in the monastery workshop.” It took us all morning to fit the new bell-rope.

Following Compline, all the monks and the retreatants assembled outside the chapel to witness the first tolling of Big Tom for 75 years. The bell ringers first performed an intricate set of changes then paused to wait for the monastery clock to strike midnight.

With Brother Wallace, I slipped into the candle-lit ringing room to check that our work was correct. One of the novice monks was eagerly clutching the new rope’s red-and-blue-striped woollen grip. The monastery clock began to strike midnight and Brother Daniel nervously pulled Old Tom’s rope for the first time. A muffled sonorous sound rang out, to be repeated five seconds later. The second and third strikes were much clearer – as if Old Tom was clearing his throat. Suddenly there was a violent creaking in the floorboards above our heads, showers of dust descended and at the same moment the candles blew out. Brother Wallace whispered: “Safer to be outside I think, Nicholas.”

I was frozen to the spot as I spotted a huge orange bat with crimson claws sitting on one of the rafters eyeing me menacingly. The attic floor suddenly gave a violent lurch sideways, like the deck of a ship in a storm, causing the bat to fly excitedly round in circles above my head before flying out through the door. Old Tom chimed on.

“Quickly - come outside, Nicholas!” Brother Wallace and the Abbot shouted in unison.

The very last thing I remember was seeing the huge bronze bell crashing through the rotten floorboards, falling towards me, as if in slow motion. I knew for certain that it would strike me like a bolt of lightning.