Something in his voice must have touched a nerve in her, because she softened a little.

‘Would you like to tell me what exactly you need to see him about?’

‘Honestly, I badly need some advice about our house – we’ve just moved into the area, and my wife and I are very seriously concerned by something that’s going on. If I could just see him face to face. Five minutes. That’s all. Please.’

To his relief, she invited him in.

He followed her across an imposing, oak-panelled hallway and through a doorway into a reception area that reminded him of a doctor or dentist’s waiting room. A row of mismatched chairs were arranged around a table on which copies of the Church Times, the Diocesan News and an assortment of other ecumenical periodicals were lined up. Bidding him take a seat, she went through into what looked like a tiny office and closed the door.

He had never before met a bishop. Was the Very Reverend Robert Parnassus going to be as stuffy as his name implied? Someone who would look at him contemptuously and dismissively, quote some biblical tracts at him, and send him packing? Or pat him on the head, sympathetically and condescendingly, and tell him to go home and take a couple of paracetamols?

Just as he was contemplating the options, the door opened, and a mellifluous and instantly likeable voice said, ‘Good heavens, I don’t believe this! My favourite painter in all the world is in my house!’

Jason looked up and saw a handsome man in his early fifties, with a receding hairline, cool glasses and fashionable stubble, dressed in a dog collar, baggy grey pullover and jeans. He jumped to his feet.

Two minutes later he was seated in the Bishop’s modest office which, to his astonishment, had two of his local landscapes on the wall. ‘Wow, you weren’t joking!’ he said.

‘My wife and I are your number one fans!’

Jason shook his head, almost in disbelief.

‘Maybe I could do your portrait one day?’ he asked.

‘I’d love it! Riding my Harley, perhaps?’

‘That’s yours, outside?’

‘My chariot!’

‘Nice machine.’

The woman brought them in cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits on a tray. When she left, Robert Parnassus spoke again.

‘So, what is this urgent problem you have?’

Jason gave him a brief summary of the events since they had moved into Lakeview Drive. The Bishop listened intently, occasionally jotting down notes on a pad. When he had finished, Parnassus sat silently for a while, his head bowed. Then he looked up.

‘OK, you seem a pretty rational fellow, Jason, what’s your own take on all this?’

‘If you’d asked me this question two weeks ago, I’d have said it was – basically – bollocks. Rubbish. Crap. But I can’t dismiss it as that any more.’

He steepled his fingers and leaned forwards. ‘So, we have a dead woman, Caroline Harcourt, that you and your wife have both seen. And a deceased vicar, Roland Fortinbrass, that just you have seen? I remember his name well, he died shortly before I was appointed here.’