Seraphine leaned forwards, took the book and placed it in her lap, folding her hands around it. She expected Dr Bloom to react to the very obvious act of mimicry. People often raised an eyebrow or flashed a micro-smile. But Bloom didn’t respond at all. She quizzed Seraphine on her home and school life and Seraphine did her best to deflect and defer.

Seraphine left an hour later feeling rather smug about her ability to manipulate a psychologist. Until, halfway down the corridor, she remembered the tissues. I was supposed to need the tissues. She wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake next time.

5

Bloom checked her coat pocket for her Oyster card as she approached Angel tube station. Then she caught sight of the commuters jostling towards the ticket gates and decided to walk the mile and a half back to Russell Square instead. Meeting a new client was always puzzling and the fresh air would help her to reflect on the session.

She took a right turn into Chadwell Street, planning to scoot around the edge of Myddelton Square and weave through the quiet back streets, and then her phone rang.

‘G’day, Sheila.’ Marcus Jameson had no Australian blood and yet, every day, his greeting was thus, complete with a suitably authentic accent.

‘G’day, Bruce,’ replied Bloom without even trying to conceal her distinctive Yorkshire lilt.

‘What’s occurring?’ Jameson said, switching to Welsh.

Bloom wondered if a man with such a decorated history in the Secret Service should be more politically sensitive. But she expected his penchant for accents was like a pathologist’s sharp humour, a coping mechanism to balance out the dark. Or perhaps she was over-interpreting. Perhaps he just liked accents.

‘I’m on my way back now,’ she replied. ‘I should be with you in ten minutes or so.’

‘How’d it go with the newbie?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Tricky case?’

‘Tricky person, I think. But maybe that’s unfair. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘It’s OK to have a hunch, you know, Augusta. You can’t live in an unbiased vacuum. Sometimes your gut simply knows.’

‘Yes. Yes. That may be so, but the effort to be objective is never wasted. Now I need some time to think. I’ll see you shortly.’

‘Actually … I rang because I need a favour.’

Bloom pushed the phone firmly against her ear to drown out the traffic. This was new. In the five years they’d worked together at their little consultancy Jameson had never once asked for a favour. He was one of those independent do-it-yourselfers. It was why she liked working with him. After counselling young offenders, she couldn’t handle a needy business partner.

‘I’m listening,’ she replied.

‘There’s someone at the office I’d like you to meet. She needs our help. Her mother’s missing and, well, it’s a bit weird.’