‘Why bother? There are a lot of porn hubs available out there.’

Jude was struck by his negativity and cynicism but was finding it hard to see evidence of mental illness, or indeed of any condition that could benefit from her healing services. She put this to him in as graceful a manner as she could.

Tom grinned triumphantly. ‘See? There’s nothing wrong with me. I wonder who Mrs Kendrick will turn to next – a witch doctor?’

Jude left the Shorelands Estate that morning with her mind unchanged. Whatever problem Tom Kendrick had, it wasn’t one that could be improved by her skills. Indeed, she wondered if he actually did have a problem, except in the eyes of his mother. Tom’s lifestyle may not have fitted societal norms, but Jude couldn’t see that he was doing much harm to anyone.

SIX

‘Don’t get old, Carole,’ said Bill Shefford. ‘It doesn’t do you any good.’

‘I already am quite old,’ she said. She had always felt her age to the last second. Few things annoyed her more than contemporaries saying, ‘Oh, I still think like an eighteen-year-old’, or, even worse, ‘Age is just a number.’ Who did they think they were fooling?

‘Take my word for it, things don’t get easier with the passage of the years.’

‘What do you mean?’

It was rare to catch the garage owner in reflective mood. Rare, in fact, for him to talk to her about anything other than car-related matters. He looked unhappy, Carole thought, the heavy features of his freckled face weighed down with gloom.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on. ‘You think you have things sorted, you think you’ve got your life worked out, and then something totally unexpected comes in from left field and you realize it’s all chaos. Things happen at the wrong time. Good things happen when you’re in no position to take advantage of them. It’s all a mess.’

Carole wished she knew the right thing to say. Had it been Jude sitting on the plastic seat in Shefford’s reception area, she’d have come in with some formula of words that would have relaxed Bill, maybe encouraged him to further intimacies. Jude might even have been able to help him, soothe his despondent mood. Carole knew she didn’t have those skills.

She was tempted to ask how long he thought Billy would take replacing the wiper blades on the Renault, but she knew that would be copping out. For the first time in their acquaintance, Bill Shefford was opening up to her. She shouldn’t reject the overture.

‘Is there,’ she asked awkwardly, ‘some particular event that’s happened to throw your plans?’

‘Life’s happened.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Or perhaps I should say, death’s happened. Not that it’s happened yet. But it will.’