‘The City Palace in Udaipur, out-of-this-world wonderful,’ I said as I found her the shots I’d taken from the speedboat on the lake on our way over to the Taj Lake Palace Hotel.

‘Wow, it looks so glamorous,’ she said as she scrolled through.

‘It was. India is a country of such extremes: amazing wealth on one hand and awful poverty on the other.’

‘Worst moment?’

I laughed. ‘Throwing up in Jaipur. I got what they called the Jaipur jitters, a sister of the Delhi belly. Took a while to adjust to the spicy food. And also …’

‘What?’

‘Not exactly worst moment, but something did happen that was weird; in fact it spooked me out a little.’

‘Sounds intriguing.’

I filled her in on my session with Saranya Ji. She listened without interrupting, which was unusual for Heather, though she did look highly amused and burst out laughing when I’d finished. ‘Sounds crazy.’

‘I know. It was typical of Marcia to get me something like that and at first I thought it was a load of nonsense.’

‘At first? Oh no, Bea, you don’t for a minute believe any of it?’

‘I can’t deny that it’s got me thinking. Marcia’s completely on my case now and she’s got Pete looking at ancestry records.’

‘Ancestry records? What’s she hoping to find?’

‘A record of Billy Jackson and Grace Harris. I keep telling her, even if she finds them, it doesn’t prove anything.’

‘No, only that people with that name existed. Doesn’t mean that you were Grace in a past life. Sounds like a lot of baloney made up by this Saranya Ji person to me.’

‘I thought the same but then …’ I told her about the imaginary friend I’d had when I was little and the research I’d done last night.

She burst out laughing again. ‘OK. Now I’ve heard it all. Bea, I think it’s stress or jet lag or eating too many spicy samosas have addled your brain. I mean, come on, this isn’t like you. Past lives? A soulmate in another body in another time? One that’s in a grave somewhere?’

‘Saranya Ji said that just as I am back as me, he is back in a new body.’

Heather put her forehead on the table, groaned then sat up again. ‘Oh, and did I tell you I had an alien visit when you were gone? Yeah. Spaceship hovering over the garden, then they beamed me up.’ She sighed. ‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound, Bea?’

‘Yes. No. So you don’t think there’s anything in it at all?’