In the course of the conversation he answers some of their questions with a few words, and in answer to others a story comes pouring out of somewhere, bringing details he thought he had forgotten about, like driftwood.

He remembers that, as a baby, Lauren liked looking at the therapy CD covers. One had a picture of dolphins, another was a picture of a sunset and a third was the Tibetan mountains. Lauren’s favourite was the clàrsach album, an instrument Christine said she would learn one day. Niall remembers berating her: ‘Whatever you play, for God’s sake lay off the pan pipes.’ There could be times when he felt as though all they did was pretend to hate each other. Secretly he dreamt that she would play the clàrsach for him.

When there were not enough massage or alternative-therapy appointments, Christine started to read palms and tarot cards. The pack she used was battered. She kept it in a blue velvet pouch decorated with gold stars. It must be knocking around the house somewhere now. All these things she used must be. Niall had refused to let her work from their home. He suspects she used her crystal ball too, and black obelisks, but didn’t tell him. She worked from the therapy room and at the castle sometimes to entertain guests, and at fairs. He hated seeing her dress up for the occasion in her strange clothes and jewellery. It is easy to remember what annoyed him about her. She used to say, The lungs hold grief. He called her Mystic Meg and Rafiki. She called him Ozzy and Nigel, after the front man from Spinal Tap.

‘And can you tell us a bit about the type of therapy Christine practised?’ the bald policeman asks. Niall isn’t fully aware of how much he has answered aloud and how much he has kept silent.

He has some understanding of her therapy techniques. She was nineteen then. Niall used to worry that male tourists would pick up her card and think she offered more than a massage. Yet her only clients seemed to be retired women with flowery scarves who kept their grey hair long. Christine would say that there was trauma inside them. Her therapy took their trauma into her and cleansed them of it. Whenever she spoke about this to Niall they argued.

First she would tap the top of the client’s head, then under their eyes, then above their mouth, under their mouth, under their breast bone and below their armpits (The lungs hold grief). These were points that caused ‘energy blockages’. The client all the while would be saying words that came to mind, words connected to what was troubling them. It was called Emotional Freedom Technique.