‘Is there a death in connection with this person?’ she asked immediately. ‘I see death. I see death, something very hard, something like a cry for help . . . Perhaps it is a cry for help. There is something terribly unpleasant here, which is giving me a headache, something very painful.’

Her brow creased in concentration and – perhaps – pain.

‘There is something very upsetting in your story, something painful, difficult. This bottle is giving me a real feeling of physical discomfort. It is linked to a death. I feel very unwell . . . I feel very uneasy.’

I tried to keep my expression inscrutable, not to give her any unnecessary leads, but I was impressed. A letter in a bottle is not usually linked to death. After all, 75 per cent of the 435 messages in the bottles which Wim Kruiswijk collected over his two-decade sample analysis were simply looking for a penfriend – and of the rest not one was classified as containing subject matter relating to death.

‘Is it a woman who wrote? Because I can see a woman.’ I nodded. ‘I see a woman suffering. I feel dreadful. I have a terrible headache beginning, a very violent headache.’

I must say she didn’t look particularly ill. But her manner was not melodramatic, she seemed to be simply telling me how she felt. She shuffled her cards again.

‘Give me thirteen cards,’ she ordered. ‘I have a terrible headache, you have no idea how it feels.’

She laid out the cards on the desk. ‘Yes, there is something very difficult, something painful here, there is a death in connection with this. I sense violence. I see a woman with mid-length hair, quite long hair . . .’ She swept her hands down the side of her face to indicate hair falling straight down to just below the shoulders. ‘Loose, like this,’ the imaginary hair flowed past her own neat chignon.

‘There is something very troubling,’ she continued, fingering the battered cards. ‘I see a woman with longish hair, quite thin, slim, I see someone – it’s very strange, how can I explain it to you? I think the person who threw this in did it quite deliberately, but I feel that something is not quite right in that person’s mind. I think the woman is quite . . . “deranged” is not the right word . . . I’d say “perturbed” rather.’

So far, she seemed spot-on, but I was careful to give her no encouragement,

‘Does she speak of the death of a man?’ she went on. ‘I see a death of someone male.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A boy.’

‘Yes, there is a death of someone male.’

‘How do you know?’ I asked, peering at the pictures on her cards. There was nothing simple and obvious – like the tarot card for Death – to indicate this.