‘I see someone who has a fever, but at the same time someone underwater trying to fish out something, perhaps it is a scene that has nothing to do with the death of the child. I see someone diving. But it’s her going under the water, her swimming underwater. I don’t think it is someone who drowned, no, not him. He had something like a fever, an infection, something like that. But her, I see her often with her hair, like that, underwater.’

In my own mind’s eye I could see the dark-haired, pale-eyed, lonely woman diving from the small boat, swimming down desperately to find something. An active Ophelia, not lying there calmly waiting to drown. The clairvoyant’s hands waved beside her head, like seaweed floating in the tide.

‘I don’t know the story surrounding the water I see. Why is she diving under? Looking for something? I don’t know, I can’t tell you. But it is not the child I see under the water, because I see her next to the coffin, next to the child. I see him on a bed. The child is on a bed. But why is she diving? Is she looking for something? I don’t know. Sometimes I see her on a boat too. I see a great deal of water.

‘What’s that in the bottle?’ she suddenly asked. ‘Is it little stones?’ I tried to explain about the sweet-smelling sandalwood shavings, but my French vocabulary deserted me and I was left mumbling about ‘good-smelling things’.

She nodded. ‘I wonder if the thing she is diving for, whether it is not this bottle floating . . . I don’t know. There is something very conscious in all this. There is a good deal of planning involved here. The scented bits, the bottle, the two locks of hair. The bottle is lovely. Beautiful. Extraordinarily beautiful. Again I have a terrible headache. I wonder whether the child didn’t have something wrong with his head . . . if he had terrible headaches. These headaches, there must be something to do with the head.’ I thought about the tarot reader, who had also indicated that the death had been linked in some way to the child’s head.

‘But it’s strange, there is a death. Are you looking for her? Do you want to meet her?’

The sudden question took me by surprise. ‘I don’t know. I want to know the story,’ I stumbled. Did I want to meet her? I no longer knew. I could not foresee any circumstances under which such a meeting would be easy. I think I did not want to meet her, I simply wanted to know the answers, and to know that now she was happier.

‘This story has upset you a great deal, hasn’t it?’

‘Wouldn’t anyone be upset who thought about it?’ I countered.

‘Not necessarily,’ she replied, shrugging.