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sense, that kind of thing?’ I shrugged noncommittally. ‘It’s a possibility, but I wouldn’t know for sure.’
    ‘But if I told you that when Gerald died I consulted a clairvoyant, you wouldn’t laugh at me and think me stupid.’
    ‘Of course not. Nothing unusual about that kind of thing these days. In fact, I’ve heard some of these people -clairvoyants, mediums, psychics, whatever you’d care to call them - can bring a lot of comfort to the bereaved. The one or two I know around town seem harmless enough.’
    They can do more than just comfort. Some of them can heal the sick just by thought or touch.’
    She was a believer all right.
    ‘You mean faith-healing? Well, I’m not too sure about -‘
    ‘Don’t dismiss it so easily.’
    Tetchy about it too. ‘Many of them can look into a person’s future as well as their past. Some can know your thoughts just by looking at you and without your saying a word.’
    Yeah, and some can con you into parting with cash by providing all manner of useless information. ‘Can I take it, then, that you’ve consulted such a person, Mrs Ripstone?’
    ‘Gerald’s death left me in a bad way,’ she replied by way of answer or an excuse, I wasn’t sure which. ‘I missed him so much and his death came so quickly and so horribly. He was an awkward man sometimes and he had his black moods. But he cared for me. I know he really cared for me, despite some of the things he said, the things he did…’ Her tiny handkerchief had become a scrunched-up ball in her fist. A large, diamond-cluster ring on one of her fingers caught the light from the window behind me. ‘I’m still not over it, Mr Dismas. His death, I mean.’
    ‘It can take a while,’ I commiserated, ‘maybe a couple of years to get over the loss of a loved one, and even then you’re not really over it. You just learn to cope.’
    ‘You’ve been through it too?’ She seemed almost hopeful.
    ‘Uh, no. No, it’s only what I hear.’
    ‘Oh.’ She wiped the dampness from her cheeks, then squared her shoulders as if determined to get a grip on herself. ‘It was so hard to accept that Gerald was gone at first. I think I went a little bit crazy with grief. I locked myself away, saw no one, talked to no one, wouldn’t even answer the telephone for a while. And then a feeling came over me - I don’t know how to describe it. I just woke one day and felt there was something I could do about my loss, that if there really was something called the “soul”, as the Church tells us, then perhaps I could contact Gerald again. I didn’t have to be entirely on my own.’
    Uh-oh, I thought.
    ‘I hadn’t really believed in spiritualism before, you know, contacting the dead? But at the same time, I’d never disbelieved in it. I just hadn’t given it much thought. D’you understand?’
    ‘Sure,’ I answered. ‘Most people don’t like to think about death until it comes close in some way or other. So that was when you decided to approach a medium?’
    ‘Not at first. It wasn’t a sudden urge, anything like that. It just come on gradually, a sort of feeling I should contact Gerald. And I wanted to find a good clairvoyant, a genuine one, not one of them phonies.’ Estuary kept breaking out despite her efforts to contain it. ‘Lucky for - luckily for me, one of my friends knew of someone who didn’t live too far away.’
    ‘You wouldn’t have to look far in Brighton.’
    Well, this one lived in Kemp Town.’
    (Kemp Town is an adjunct of Brighton, although it likes to keep a separate identity.)
    ‘Her name’s Louise Broomfield,’ Shelly Ripstone continued. You’ve heard of her?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘She’s quite well-known. In those sort of circles, I mean.’
    You went to see her.’ I tried not to let my impatience show.
    ‘I got her phone number and I rang. Apparently she doesn’t just see anybody, she has to talk to them first. She knew I was distressed right away.’
    There’s a surprise, I