‘I’m Ellis,’ he said, twirling his hand and offering her a stagey seated bow. ‘Ellis Brown. Surname like the TV mentalist, but not named after him, you must understand. We do have our professional jealousies in the… industry. But my skills are for real, and I had the name long before him.’ He snuffled a laugh to himself.

‘Why is he here, Vincent?’ She could read from the glances between them, Vincent’s browbeaten slump, that they weren’t friends or housemates. What lay between them was the opposite of familiarity – there was an obnoxious spikiness beaming from the man.

‘He’s helping me with Beccie.’

‘How? What is he doing for you?’

‘He says he can get in touch with her, that he can help me find her.’

Oh, Jesus. One of those. Conman spiritualist ambulance chasers; they come out like cockroaches at the slightest sniff of desperation. ‘You know he can’t do that, surely.’

He shrugged. ‘I know it sounds crazy to you, but he talked to her yesterday – she told him things only we would know. I can’t really explain it to you.’ I don’t need to explain it to you, is what Petra heard.

She shook her head, turned to Ellis Brown. ‘And what are you charging him?’

Ellis shrugged and turned his empty hands over. ‘I’m not charging anything. I’m delivering a message from Rebecca, that’s all. It’s between Vincent and me.’

She glanced at Vincent but he looked back at her and shrugged. She stood up, walked behind his chair, and put her hand on his shoulder, aware while she was doing it that she was staking her claim on him, hoping to show Ellis Brown that she had some influence over him too. ‘If you need anything, just let me know. I’m around, okay.’

Vincent nodded, touched her hand for a second. ‘Thanks. Really. I need to do this, but I want you to understand why. I’ll speak to you soon.’

‘It’s fine. But I still don’t really understand why you called me here.’

‘I didn’t. It was him, probably.’

‘Guilty as charged,’ Ellis smirked.

He let this guy into his phone? That was just stupid. But she didn’t ask Vincent – while Ellis was in the room, at least, it was clear her opinion was not wanted. Instead she turned to face the conman, her arms tightly folded across her chest. ‘So why did you want me here, then?’

‘I wanted to meet you. You’re a significant energy in Vincent’s aura and I need to know how to mitigate it.’

‘Mitigate? What exactly do you mean by mitigate? Are you planning to mitigate me?’ Saying the words, she felt distinctly less brave than she wanted to sound.