‘I wonder whether she was in hospital for a while, a psychiatric ward or something . . . I see a woman losing lots of blood, blood from her lower stomach.’ She gestured with her hands to show the flow of liquid coming from the woman. ‘I can see her being hospitalized. This woman has been in hospital. One can become mad from grief.

‘Strange, I can feel something like madness, something rather deranged,’ the clairvoyant repeated. ‘She is more than perturbed, of course one is perturbed by the death of a child, of course, but this is worse. This is a woman who has gone to the very depths, to a level of consciousness . . .

‘I don’t feel her any more, I can’t feel the woman. Strange because I see her hair, I see her wandering, I see her walking on the coast, I see her drifting all alone. I see someone – a woman who is all alone, maybe divorced or separated, but anyhow all alone. Does she mention in the letter that she is alone?’

‘She doesn’t mention a man,’ I replied.

‘In my opinion she is alone. Completely isolated. A woman all alone, very disturbed.’ A pause.

‘You know, I can see this woman as clearly as I see you. If I were any good at drawing I could draw her. I see a woman with long hair.’

She pointed towards the bottle. ‘Hers is the darker of the two locks. Her hair hangs down like this, rather long,’ and again she drew her hands straight down the sides of her head.

‘Her face is not plump, she is rather thin, her face is a bit hollow.’ She sucked in her cheeks. ‘Her eyes are fairly pale. I see her drifting a bit, like those slightly mad women one sees, wandering around. I see her walking. I see a little house. A very lonely woman, in a skirt.’

She was in full flow now and needed no prompting. ‘She is a lonely woman, who has lived alone, a woman abandoned by men, who has suffered a great deal. Very lonely.

‘But she is no fool. She is a simple woman, not very sophisticated, but at the same time, a very intelligent woman, extraordinarily sensitive. A woman in search of love, alone and in despair, in search of love. And also I have the impression that she had only this son to cling to.’ Although she had not read the letter, the impression of solitude and of the relationship with the son seemed to be accurate.

‘The woman wrote the letter because she didn’t know with whom to talk. She did it because she was very alone. I see her walking, wandering around on the rocks, on the beaches, all alone, and she needed someone to know her story. This is someone who has confided her despair to the sea. Consigned her grief to the waves.