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Jasper.”
    “Maybe there’s more to see than you want to think, Graham.”
    “It sounds as if you’d like there to be. That’s not like you,” I say but have to add “Is it?”
    “I don’t believe psychology can explain everything. There has to be more to all of us than that.” With a hint of reproach Christine says “He found out more about you than I had.”
    “I told you how.” Having left her unconvinced brings me close to rage, certainly only with him and his tricks. “Tomorrow I’ll prove it,” I assure her. “And honestly, now you know everything you’d want to know.”
    “Well, here’s something you didn’t know about me.” Christine takes rather more than a sip of her coffee as a prelude to saying “I told you Oliver started knocking me about and that’s why I left him. He’d lash out if he couldn’t win an argument, and I’d got tired of letting him win.” Another swallow of coffee lets her say “He kept telling me he’d had an abusive childhood as if that was an excuse. He even tried to make me feel it was up to me to understand him.”
    “You know I’d never do that. I hope you know.” When Christine only gazes at me, at least without disagreeing, I add “And see, you had a secret after all.”
    “It isn’t the same, Graham. It wasn’t about me.”
    I know better than to argue under all the circumstances. She finishes her coffee and glances at the recorder lying dormant on the table. “If you’re going to be busy with that,” she says, “I’m off to bed.”
    I don’t need to be psychic or even a psychologist to read her mind. “It can wait till the morning,” I say, and soon we’re on top of the quilt in the bedroom. The subdued light is all I need in the way of mystery. Her firm cool fingers on my back and her legs around my waist feel like forgiveness as well as the delicious messages they’re sending to my nerves. We don’t need words when we’re so close. I’m deeper inside her than any question could take me, and surely she feels united with me. We can forget about false spirits, as if there’s any other kind, and even about investigating them while I have Christine in the flesh. At last we gasp, sharing our breaths, and as we grow peaceful in each other’s arms I remember wondering as a boy why people called it the little death. This kind of dying I can live with, and before long we come back to life.

6: A Scar And An Insight
    “Police are appealing for anyone who’s seen Kylie Goodchild since the twelfth of May to contact them. Remember that was Diversity Dividend Day…”
    The twelve o’clock news is cranking up my irritation while I wait for Frank Jasper—not the content of the newscast or even Sammy Baxter’s chummy tone, but the way she links each item with the next. “Meanwhile in Baghdad a car bomb has killed at least twenty people…” What does she mean by meanwhile? It reminds me of captions in old cinema serials and makes me feel as if she’s trying to bundle the randomness of the world into a narrative that will lend it sense. One of the injured came from somewhere not too far from Manchester, which apparently renders the carnage more significant, though not for long in terms of airtime. “And now in sport there’s rumours of new blood at Manchester United…” I might be tempted to broadcast some wry comment once the news ends with the weather, but my jingle intervenes, and the Wilde Card slogan reminds me why I’m here. “Wilde is right,” I say. “Graham Wilde here, the Wilde man of Waves. Today I’ve got a special show for you. Clairvoyant Frank Jasper has agreed to leave the stage and take questions. Can he predict what’s coming? I’m hearing a voice in my head that tells me he’s here even though I can’t see him.”
    Christine widens her eyes and cocks her head in a gesture that might be on the way to a rebuke, and then she lets go of the microphone and leaves the control room. I’ve asked her to say as little as