‘Well, we’re in the process of trying to find out all there is to know about Rachel. So, can you tell me why she made an appointment? Was it for any particular reason or just out of curiosity?’

‘Like most people who come to me, she wanted to know what the future held for her,’ Lisa replied. ‘She told me she was about to embark on a new and precarious phase in her life and it was making her anxious.’

‘What exactly did she say to you?’

‘That she was moving to another country. It was actually hard work getting her to open up, but she did say that she was happier than she’d been for many years because she was in love.’

‘Did she say with whom?’

‘Her boyfriend. She said his name was Carlo and he was Italian.’

‘And what were you able to tell her from the cards?’

‘Not much, unfortunately. You see, not long after the reading began, she got a shock when I turned over the notorious death card.’

‘How did she react?’

‘Badly. She jumped up from the chair and I thought she was going to cry. She asked me if it meant she was going to die and if so when it would be. I tried to explain to her that the card doesn’t represent physical death. That is signifies transformation and a time of a significant change in one’s life – an end to one phase and the start of another. But I failed to convince her. She did eventually sit down again though and we carried on for a bit, but she’d stopped paying attention and I found it hard to concentrate. So, we both agreed to end the session prematurely. I offered her a refund but she said to keep the money because it was her fault.’

‘And was that the end of it?’

‘Yes, but before she left, she did say something that struck me as odd.’

‘Oh?’

‘She said that if things didn’t work out as she was hoping they would, then she would rather be dead anyway.’

James told Abbott about Rachel’s visit to Lisa Doyle as they set off in a pool car for Libby and Greg Murphy’s house in Burnside.

‘She was obviously desperate to seize what she saw was an opportunity to change her life,’ Abbott said. ‘It suggests to me that before she met this Salvi bloke, she must have been terribly unhappy.’

James nodded. ‘And seeing that death card obviously freaked her out and made her believe that fate was going to be unkind to her yet again. And sadly, it was.’

‘It reminds me of someone Sean knew when he was living and working in York some years ago,’ Abbott said. ‘The guy went and had a tarot reading with some of his mates on Halloween for a laugh. But he too was confronted with the death card and it scared him shitless.’

‘You’re not going to tell me that something bad happened to him as well, are you?’