The afternoon passed quickly, with a steady stream of readings. Nina called in to pick up a letter from her brother, and Imelda’s final customer of the day was a smartly dressed man in his thirties who looked more like he was on his way to an appointment with his bank manager than someone wanting to have his palm read or ask questions of the tarot cards. Imelda invited him in. He sat down on the edge of the chair and adjusted his spectacles nervously.

‘I’ve never done anything like this before,’ he admitted.

Imelda smiled. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll be gentle.’

He looked puzzled and realising that he didn’t have much of a sense of humour, Imelda took a more businesslike approach.

‘What can I help you with today?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not really sure how all of this works,’ he replied. He took off his spectacles and polished them with a pristine handkerchief before replacing them on a nose that was slightly too small for his face. He was called Neville – the kind of man that you could pass on the street every day without registering; his ordinariness rendering him invisible. And yet here he was, doing something new and, for him, clearly quite daring. Imelda was curious to know what had driven him to such uncharacteristic measures.

‘Do you have any specific questions you would like to ask, or would you just like a general reading?’

‘I don’t know how much I’m supposed to tell you. I’m looking for answers, but I’m not altogether sure I know what to ask you. What I mean is, I don’t want to give away too much in the questions.’

Imelda heard an impatient sigh escape from Shunty-Mae behind the curtain. Neville looked startled.

‘It’s my dog.’ It was the best Imelda could do, gesturing to where Grisha lay behind her. ‘Perhaps we should start with a crystal ball reading?’

Imelda moved her cloudy crystal orb to the centre of the table and asked Neville to place his hands just above it. She allowed her eyes to drift just a little out of focus, looking through the ball rather than directly at it. Soon the pictures began to flash across its glassy depths like a slideshow of hazy film stills and Imelda flicked them on with her hand. There were several houses. All smart, semi-detached, red-bricked neatness with wooden-gated driveways and square lawn gardens edged by regulation borders. The epitome of comforting conformity, they were the residential equivalents of Neville. One house kept returning. It had a dark blue front door with a brass knocker in the shape of a dolphin, and a ceramic tile painted with a number nine fixed to the wall.

‘Have you been house hunting, Neville?’

Poor Neville looked genuinely startled. ‘How did you know?’