I reflected on that in surprise. I suppose it was true, one could read the letter and remain untouched. I wondered again just why I was spending so much time trying to find her. Was my interest normal? Was I turning into a ghastly stalker? A voyeur? Or perhaps just a bore? A woman with too little to do, too much time to spare?

‘Do you write?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Yes,’ I admitted. She could have looked me up on the internet, if she checked her daily appointments, but I doubted it. Earlier she had not seemed to know how to spell my name. After all, I was only one client among many.

‘It’s not by chance that the bottle came to you. It’s as though you are supposed to write about it. That would be a good conclusion for the letter. It’s a magnificent story. There is something utterly romanesque about it.

‘I’ve had a sudden astonishing thought,’ she exclaimed. ‘If one day you write a story about this, maybe someone will recognize themselves in it. They might contact you.’

But then she became serious and frowned at her cards again. ‘You’re going to have problems finding this person. Are you sure she’s alive? I see death. For me, this woman is no longer alive.’ She paused.

‘I don’t think you will ever find her,’ she said very definitely, staring intently at her cards. ‘I don’t see her alive any more. For me she is no longer alive.

And abruptly she gathered her cards together, wished me well, and swept from the room. The séance was – very suddenly – over. I packed up the bottle, feeling exhausted, and her secretary silently showed me out.

21

It seemed I had an answer. The letter-writer was, apparently, dead. And, again according to the self-professed seer, I was to write a book about her and about my search for her. My quest was, finally, at an end. I had exhausted the possibilities, explored the live leads and the dead ends, used both scientific and alternative methods of investigation. I could think of nothing more I could do, short of spending the rest of my life combing through the records of the 36,000 town halls of France, and I realized that my obsession had run its course. Once back in London, I took out the bottle and looked at it, and then picked up the telephone to call my friend the dog-walker and tell her it was over.