‘Thank you, Sid.’ She lifted her voice. ‘It’s been a very long time since I lost my physical sight but I still like to know where I am and who I’m talking to. I have an ability to sense the atmosphere and I know that I’m surrounded by friends. At the same time, though, I sometimes find it hard to be sure on which side of the mirror those friends can be found. For that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between life and what most people call death. They are reflections of each other. Two different sides of the mirror.’

This was her introduction and for the next thirty minutes she talked about her life and philosophy, expanding on what I had already read in the festival programme. Born in Exeter, she’d had a happy childhood, an ordinary education, loving parents, a job as a librarian. She’d always had an interest in books and had dreamed of becoming a writer. She had met Sid on holiday in Jersey. He was the taxi driver who had picked her up from the airport.

So far so ordinary. Her story, which she had clearly told many times, became more interesting, and more occult, after she lost her eyesight due to diabetes. This had happened twelve years ago, when she was about to turn thirty.

‘Of course, I was angry,’ she told the audience. ‘I was shocked. I was in denial. But at the same time, I realised that although this side of the mirror – your side – was closed to me, the other was opening up. I began to call it Blind Sight. I cannot see what you can see. But you cannot see what I see, and I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that what I see is wonderful. There is no such thing as death. We are surrounded by friends and family who wish us no harm, who – quite the opposite – want to guide us. I never call them ghosts. That’s a word used to frighten children. Nor are they even spirits. That makes them sound angelic and I can assure you, not all of them are. To me, they are reflections. With Blind Sight I can see them. I am looking at them now.’

And so the fairground ride – the ghost train – began. I glanced at Hawthorne, wondering what he was making of all this, but he was giving little away, listening with polite interest. Elizabeth continued to describe ‘the other side of the mirror’, then suddenly pointed. I followed her quivering finger to a poster on the wall advertising Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation but I don’t think that’s what she had in mind.

‘There!’ she said. ‘I’m seeing a lady. Her name was Mary or Margaret. She was here for seventy years before she crossed to the other side . . .’