‘No.’

She glances at the item he had placed upon the table. It’s pretty. Well-made. Antique, if she’s any judge. She likes all of the charms, but it’s the horsehead that makes her smile. She can imagine herself wearing such a piece, though she would hang it on a chain.

‘The person who wore this … she’s in pain, yes? She needs help.’

Another tear spills over his ruined eyelid. He blinks, slowly. The damaged eye does not close all the way. She is left staring into the milky grey of his lower eyeball: a Cheshire cat smile beneath the puckered lid.

‘If you could select a card from this pile, please, perhaps we can get …’

He shakes his head. Opens his eyes. ‘You’re a liar,’ he says, candidly. ‘I thought for a moment you understood. But no. A charlatan.’

She bristles. ‘Hey, back off there, mate, not everybody likes what they hear but I’ve been doing this for twenty-odd years and—’

‘How much money have you made in that time?’ he asks, staring a hole into her. He’s not looking her in the eye – seems to focus his burning gaze on the very centre of her forehead.

‘I provide a service, mate. You don’t like it, I can sympathize, but you came to me, don’t forget. You’re in my kitchen, my house. You’ve known pain, I see that, but we’ve barely begun and you’re calling me a liar, and that’s one thing I’m not. My daddy taught me to always tell the truth …’

‘Another liar,’ he says, sadly, shaking his head.

She rises, furious, knocking the table. A curl of ash falls from the incense stick: cards slide across one another, the pattern and meaning lost. ‘How dare you! Don’t you ever think you can—’

He picks up a crystal from the circle surrounding the stones. It’s heavy and sharp: sparkling and brittle.

‘Liar,’ he says, again, and hits her in the side of the head with such force that the jagged edges of the twinkling rock embed themselves in bone. There is a grotesque slurping sound as he pulls the gory crystal from the wound. She slumps forward. He hits her again. Harder, right at the back of the neck. Takes a fistful of her rosaries, and pulls.

The chain snaps.

Beads fall like hail.

He lets go before she dies. Pushes her onto her back. She’s heavy, and there’s a thud as she topples back onto the floor. One of the cats, nosing near her feet, gives a hiss before it darts away.

He crouches over her. Opens her eyes and peers in.

There’s life in there, he tells himself. A consciousness. Something that can still feel.

‘Charlatan,’ he says, leaning down so his lips are by her ear. ‘Deceiver.’

He considers the pupils in her dulling eyes. Changes his angle until he sees his own barely-there reflection in the glassy surface of the eyeball. Peers in as if searching for something. For someone.