Twenty minutes later I turned the key in the office with a certain amount of trepidation and Lissa in my wake, having left her son with her sister and father in the Oak. My trepidation was twofold. Firstly, would I be able to help Lissa with whatever was troubling her? And secondly, what would be waiting for me in the bathroom? I’d left the leak considerably longer than I’d intended, and while the office was on higher ground than Phyllis’s bookshop, it was marginally lower than the Oak.

There was no water coming out to greet me, at least. I directed Lissa to the waiting room and made a beeline straight for the bathroom where I was relieved to find that other than an overflowing basin, the leak wasn’t any worse than it had been the day before. So, I emptied the basin, put it back under the leak and went back out to join my new and reluctantly acquired client. She was sitting where I’d left her, smoothing her hair nervously.

“All good,” I said cheerfully. “The roof isn’t going to cave in just yet. We can stay here in the waiting room if you like,” I added. “Bit less formal.”

Lissa nodded. She seemed even less self-assured out of the protection of her father, if that were possible.

“Fancy another coffee? Or tea?” I offered. “I think we have some milk.”

She gave a tight shake of her head, so I took the chair opposite and clasped my hands together. “So, how can I help you?”

She hesitated again, her gaze not fully meeting mine, so I spoke again. “Okay, firstly, I should ask you, have you taken advice already? Because if you’ve already got a solicitor at home, I can’t …”

She cut across me and said, “I don’t. Dad was right. There’s no one I can go to there.”

“Right, okay.” I stood up, grabbed an attendance pad and a pen from the reception desk and sat back down. “Firstly, what’s your full name? Are you Burns?”

“No. I took my husband’s name – it’s Bennett.”

I wrote it down. “Okay. Go ahead. Tell me how I can help you.”

“It’s about my husband, Chris.”

I looked up. “Your dad mentioned something about him. This would be Peadar’s dad?”

She nodded and looked down while I began to take a note. Then she sucked in her breath. “I think Chris is trying to kill me.”

I stopped writing and looked up. Lissa pressed her hand to her forehead, eyes glittering. Either she was telling the truth, or she truly believed that she was telling the truth.

“Dad doesn’t know,” she said. “And he can’t know. He’d kill Chris himself if he knew. And I might be wrong.”

I put the pen and pad down on the seat beside me. “Do you think you’re wrong?”