‘You don’t think he was worried about the stomach trouble? That that’s what changed his mood?’

‘No. I just think he’d finally realized what a monumental cock-up he’d made by marrying that woman.’ Like her mother, Shannon deliberately avoided the use of Malee’s name, as if speaking it out loud would give the new wife a status she did not deserve.

‘When the excitement of starting afresh wore off …’ she went on, ‘and I don’t know, but I’d also imagine the same thing was happening with the sex – which was obviously what had trapped him in the first place. Men of his age are sitting ducks for women like her. The old blokes think they’re getting a new lease of life, a new surge of potency … It never lasts. I think Bill just came to the awful realization of everything he’d given up by remarrying … Billy and me, the grandchildren, a happy life. It’d be enough to make anyone depressed.’

‘Do you think he was depressed?’

‘I don’t know much about the subject, but he fitted descriptions I’ve read of depression.’

‘And did you recommend any therapy to him?’

‘I told you – I could have recommended anything to him, but he wouldn’t have listened.’

‘Did you actually mention anyone, though, any therapist?’

‘I may have done but, like I say, I might as well have been talking to a brick wall.’

‘Hm.’ Jude was thoughtful. ‘Going back a bit, to the first time you rang me …’

‘Yes?’

‘Asking me if I’d help your mum … I remember you said that you’d tried introducing another healer to her, and it hadn’t worked out.’

‘Right.’

‘You said you thought it didn’t work because he was a man?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you thought a female therapist would work better for a woman client and a male one for a man.’

‘That’s what I still think.’

‘Did you mention that male therapist’s name to Bill?’

‘Yes, I did. But, like I say, he didn’t listen.’

‘What was the therapist’s name?’ asked Jude.

‘Jeremiah.’

Jude put through a call to Karen in Ilkley. There was no reply, so she left a message.

She had a couple of clients booked in that afternoon, one suffering a lot of pain from carpal tunnel syndrome, the other totally disoriented by the menopause. She did her best for both of them. Neither noticed any difference in their treatment, but Jude was disappointed. She hadn’t met her own high standards. She was too distracted to bring to bear the total focus she required to be effective as a healer.