The afternoon was busy, with many clients seeking refuge from the blazing sun as much as an insight into their futures. At just gone four o’clock, Imelda decided that the next client would be her last for the day. A middle-aged woman marched purposefully into the booth brandishing her stout handbag as though it were a weapon. She sat down without waiting to be asked and thumped the bag down beside her. Grisha hauled himself to his feet and trotted off into the back room.

‘Traitor!’ whispered Imelda in the direction of his retreating tail.

‘I beg your pardon?’

Imelda turned to face her client. ‘Just clearing my throat. How can I help you?’

The woman folded her arms and jostled her bosoms. ‘I hope you haven’t got anything catching. I can’t abide germs.’

Imelda now wished that she’d made her previous client her last. She gritted her teeth and took a deep breath. ‘No, no. It’s just the weather. It’s very hot today and I’ve been doing a lot of talking. My throat’s rather dry. Now, would you like a palm reading, the crystal ball or do you have some questions for my cards?’

Imelda noticed that the woman’s hands had squarish palms and long, balanced fingers. Earth hands, perhaps indicative of her boorish bossiness. But the woman didn’t want her palms read.

‘What should I call you?’ asked Imelda, half expecting her to reply ‘Ma’am’.

‘The name’s Agatha Strop. Mrs Strop to you.’

How apt, thought Imelda. She handed Mrs Strop the cards and told her to ask her question out loud as she shuffled them.

‘I want to know where the painting is.’

‘You may need to be a little more specific than that.’

The woman tutted. ‘The awful painting of a woman fawning over her pathetic pooch – looks more like a fluffy rat with a bow in its fur if you ask me – that belongs to my skinflint father-in-law. We haven’t seen it recently and it was promised to my husband once the old man drops off his perch.’

Imelda laid the cards and turned them over, revealing the Queen of Wands first.

‘Do you or your father-in-law know a woman with light or possibly red hair and light eyes?’

Agatha Strop pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s she got to do with it?’

‘Is she close to your father-in-law?’

‘She’s his housekeeper and a harlot. A devious, scheming trollop.’

The cards begged to differ. According to them she was kind, conscientious and genuinely fond of her elderly employer. More so, it seemed, than his family was.

‘She looks exactly like that floozy in the painting,’ sneered Mrs Strop.

‘Which is perhaps why your father-in-law has given it to her,’ Imelda replied, trying to conceal her satisfaction at this turn of events. Mrs Strop was apoplectic, but Imelda was a little bemused.