Jude was always surprised what a relief it was to be out of Fethering. The needs of her clients, the concerns of the village, trapped her in an opaque bubble, out of which she could not see the wider world. But being away from the place was like breathing newly minted air. Her life until she settled on the South Coast had been fairly nomadic. Fethering was the place she’d stayed longest. And when she wasn’t there, she wondered whether it had been for too long.

The ‘Healing Is in the Head’ conference in Leeds was fun, and it was a pleasure to be amongst people to whom she did not have to explain what she did. Also, amongst people who did not raise their eyebrows and draw in their breath after she’d said what she did. It was an opportunity for Jude to mix with old friends and be introduced to new people. The programme of talks, panels and seminars had been well thought through, and she was stimulated by the influx of new ideas, which often encouraged her that she was doing something right, but sometimes made her healthily question the way she did things. Such events had often stimulated her to experiment in different areas of healing.

Above all, the conference was an opportunity to spend time with Karen and Chrissie.

The beginnings of Jude’s relationship with Karen had been as healer and client. Karen Thomlinson had had everything that in Fethering counted as success – an accountant husband wealthy enough for her not to go out to work, three healthy children at private boarding school and a house on the Shorelands Estate. The only detail that apparently distinguished her from other well-heeled Fethering housewives was that she believed in the powers of healing. Karen Thomlinson had it all.

Yet, when she’d first arrived at Woodside Cottage, she had been so crippled by back pain that Jude had had to help her from the BMW into the house.

Though she would never use words like ‘psychosomatic’ in conversation with a client, experience had taught Jude that the origin of back pain was frequently in the mind rather than the body. Inner tensions expressed themselves externally. Her healing could ease the physical pain, but nothing approaching a cure could be achieved until the underlying causes had been addressed.