‘Poor Roger, more like. And her a Freudian expert.’ Jacqueline made a face. ‘Anyway, Kemi’s suggested some gong therapy instead!’

‘Do I want to know what that entails?’

‘Apparently she’s got this gong, and it … vibrates while we, sort of … Anyway, she went on a course on the Isle of Wight at Easter and said it was very uplifting. Very spiritual. She says she can give us a gong bath after the buffet.’

‘That sounds … good for the digestion,’ was the best Tara could manage.

‘Well, quite. Now, our new colleague – lovely Dr David. He’s having some trouble arranging an external supervisor so I wondered if you could step in? Just until he finds a new one.’

Every counsellor in the Centre had regular meetings with another therapist to discuss their work and address any problems they were experiencing with their clients. Until the start of the year, Tara had supervised Kathleen, the therapist David had replaced; Kath was an experienced NLP therapist who never had any real problems to unpick, and their sessions had been a good excuse for some extended lunchtime shopping.

‘He’s terribly nice – you’ll get on like a house on fire. Oh, and you can start by giving him this.’ She handed Tara a card. ‘It’s a thank-you card, from Mrs Richardson.’

Tara blinked. ‘The Mrs Richardson?’

Mrs Richardson – no one was permitted to use her first name – had seen everyone in the Centre and tried every available therapy in the hope of curing her insomnia. Tara’s CBT approach hadn’t worked. Neither had Hero’s amethyst pillow crystal, Darren’s acupuncture, Lionel’s homeopathic sleep drops, or any of the others’ attempts to get her off to sleep.

‘She slept through the recycling lorry last week!’ Jacqueline was visibly impressed. ‘Says she’s a new woman.’

‘Wow,’ said Tara, with a twinge of envy. For both David’s success and also Mrs Richardson’s deep slumber. ‘I’ll drop it in.’

‘She actually called David a miracle worker.’ Jacqueline looked almost starstruck. ‘The last review she did of her treatment here was “unlikely to cause permanent damage”.’

Tara seized the moment. ‘One thing I meant to ask about … I noticed David with some clients who’d brought a dog with them?’

Jacqueline nodded, as if this was completely normal.

‘And … since when did we allow that?’ Jacqueline had made a huge fuss about Tara’s electric diffuser.

‘Oh, it’s a key element of his methodology. Animal-assisted therapy. I said we’d give it a month’s trial, with provisos, but so far the results seem to be speaking for themselves. Anyway,’ Jacqueline indicated her ringing phone with an apologetic shrug, before Tara could probe further, ‘here I am, holding you back!’

It was Tara’s cue to leave, and she took it.