There was a pause. ‘My daughter seems unwell…’

‘You would like a doctor? Is it the baby?’

‘No, I don’t think it’s the baby. She’s just very listless…almost as if she’s in shock. Perhaps it’s something she’s remembered. DS Mohktar, I feel very disturbed.’

‘Mrs Campbell, I will now immediately call my friend, Doctor Janus. She has seen your daughter before. She is a very gentle lady,’ Mohktar said. But he knew it was not her daughter’s physical state Fleur was worrying about. ‘I will be with you in half an hour.’

‘Thank you so much.’

Mohktar shaved and put on a spotless shirt, buffed his shoes and resisted the urge to rush. He had a hard knot of anticipation in the pit of his stomach and he knew instinctively this meant there was going to be something he must concentrate on, something he must be sure not to miss. Rushing would not calm his mind.

In this instance he did not want Blythe with him, and he left a message for the inspector and made speedily for his car. He rang Dr Janus as he drove. Her clinic was on his way and she agreed to check on Miss Montrose before she opened up her surgery. She took her own car and they arrived at the small car park at the same time and walked together to the house.

Mrs Campbell was waiting for them on the balcony. The amah brought out orange juice clinking with ice and they sat at the table outside. Dr Janus was looking at Fleur closely. She was very pale and Mohktar said, giving her his lovely smile, ‘Please, before we talk to your daughter, will you tell us your worries?’

Fleur turned the glass in her hands. ‘Nikki sometimes gets like this when she has had a really bad nightmare. She wakes exhausted, drained. She has had bad dreams on and off all her life…’

‘Since her sister died?’ Mohktar asked.

‘Yes.’ Fleur looked up at him. ‘My husband was always better than I was at calming her down as a child.’

Because you showed your own fear of her dreams, Mohktar thought.

‘So, she had a nightmare last night?’

‘I heard her cry out. I woke her up. She was feverish and incoherent. I put the fan on and bathed her with cold water and she eventually became calmer as it got light.’

‘Could she tell you what she had dreamt?’ Dr Janus asked.

‘No. She just lay there shaking, her teeth chattering, but she wouldn’t speak.’

‘She was afraid?’ Mohktar’s voice was soft.

Fleur nodded. ‘Yes. She was too afraid to speak about it.’ She paused. ‘It will sound…odd to you, I know, but Nikki, as a child, believed Saffie came to her at night. That she could see her and talk to her. Sometimes I think she still believes this.’

Both Dr Janus and Mohktar stared at her. To them it did not seem odd at all. Dr Janus smiled and adjusted her sari. ‘Only the western world believes in the impossibility of this. Why should it not be so? Why is it impossible to believe that the dead are not beyond our reach?’