Dr. Robinson sighs and leans forward on the little table. We have a session this morning and then she’s coming back for another session in the afternoon when DS Allen gets here. Dr. Robinson has told me that it will be a difficult day for me. But she is on perky form. Perhaps she lives for difficult days – she can go back home to Si Hubby and the kids and feel that she’s really doing something with her life. She is more colourful today. She’s in a different kind of uniform, very straight but trying not to be; she’s wearing a dress with a jaunty design on it. She looks as if she’s stepped out of a Boden catalogue. She might be a French teacher or a shop assistant. I like to watch her contained and measured movements. And there’s something else about her that’s different today. I’m still trying to puzzle out what it is when she smiles at me.

‘Thank you, Connie, for the document. I found it very interesting. And you write very well.’

‘Why, thank you, Dr. Robinson. And may I take this opportunity to say how well you do your job too.’ I have always had a problem where I sound sarcastic even when I don’t mean to be. This time I do though. It all seems suddenly ridiculous.

I am smoothing out my magazines. I’ve read them all and the sum conclusion I have reached is that big bottoms are in. What a relief, I can let mine out. I’ve hidden Annie’s diary; it is my secret. When Annie does decide to come and visit me, I don’t want her to think I’ve been reading it. And I certainly don’t want Little Miss Boden forensically examining Annie’s business.

Dr. Robinson screws up her face. ‘I was intrigued,’ she says, all Miss Marple now, closing in on the cracked vase. ‘I wanted to know what happened next.’

‘Ah, well, kind of a prerequisite for a writer’s work, I suppose.’

‘How are you today?’

‘Fine, thank you.’

‘You’re looking better,’ she says. I’ll take her word for it; I don’t look in the mirror.

‘And so are you,’ I reply. It’s not exactly true. Her eyes are puffy – she had a few last night – but she has a renewed energy about her, a skip to her step. Then I get it!

‘Ahhh!’ I say, Hercule to her Marple. I chuckle knowingly, cross my arms and lean back in the chair so that the front two legs come off the ground. I give her a cheeky-chappy wink.

She makes the mistake of looking quizzical.

‘So, Si Hubby got lucky last night . . . ?’ I say.