That explained the Two of Wands on the table.

‘Each one has asked me to be his mistress,’ she continued, ‘and I wanted to know who would provide the most favourable terms and conditions, so to speak.’

Imelda had to admire the woman’s chutzpah, but she was glad that Shunty-Mae wasn’t there to overhear their conversation. She was pretty sure that her mother would have some advice of her own to offer and it was unlikely to be as polite or professional as Imelda might wish.

‘May I ask one more question?

‘Of course.’ Imelda gathered up the cards and handed them over to be shuffled once more.

‘What will make him happy in the bedroom?’

‘Are we talking soft furnishings or sex?’

The woman smiled for the first time. Imelda spread the cards and turned over the Devil, the High Priestess inverted and the Six of Wands.

‘Tie him up and talk dirty to him,’ she advised.

At the end of the reading the woman handed over her payment in crisp, clean notes.

‘You know, you’d be surprised how little sex my job actually involves,’ she confided, as she snapped shut her purse and returned it to her Hermès handbag.

‘I minister to their egos far more than their erections. If they can get them.’

Imelda’s next client was a very distressed elderly lady called Mildred, whose beloved cat had gone missing. Grisha sprang to attention like a jack-in-the-box at the mention of the ‘c’ word and was banished to the back room behind the curtain. Mildred’s hands were shaking so badly that she could barely shuffle the cards.

‘What’s your cat’s name, sweetheart?’ Imelda asked gently.

‘Corporal Jones. Jonesy for short. After that chap in Dad’s Army. It’s my favourite thing on the telly and Jonesy – my Jonesy – always sits on my lap and watches it with me.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ‘Every week we have faggots for tea and then watch Dad’s Army. But this week Jonesy didn’t come home for tea or the telly and I’m worried sick.’

‘Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring,’ Imelda replied with a wink as she spread a Celtic Cross. ‘Let’s see if we can find out where he’s got to.’

The cards suggested that Jonesy was stuck inside a wooden shed that stood under some trees.

‘That’ll be my garden shed!’ Mildred sounded relieved but her tone soon changed. ‘I’ll bloody strangle that daft bugger of a son of mine,’ she exploded.

Apparently, her daft bugger of a son, otherwise known as Malcolm, had been round at the weekend to cut his mother’s lawn.