appeared to serve the purpose of a doorstop. Yolanda looked to be someone who covered all the spiritual bases, Barbara concluded.
"Anyone here?" she called.
In reply a woman emerged from behind a beaded curtain. She wasn't dressed as Barbara had expected. One somehow thought a psychic would be decked out in gypsy gear: all scarves, colourful skirts, and heaps of gold necklaces with matching hoop earrings of massive size. But instead, the woman wore a business suit that Isabelle Ardery would have heartily approved of as it was tailored to fit her somewhat stout body and even to Barbara's unschooled eyes it seemed to announce itself with the words French designer. Her one bow to stereotype was the scarf she used, but even this she'd only folded into a band to hold back her hair. And instead of black, the hair was orange, a rather disturbing shade that suggested an unfortunate encounter with a bottle of peroxide.
"Are you Yolanda?" Barbara asked.
In reply, she put her hands to her ears. She clamped her eyes shut. "Yes, yes, all right!"
She had an odd, low voice. She sounded like a man. "I bloody well hear you, don't I!"
"Sorry," Barbara said, although, to her thinking, she hadn't spoken loudly at all.
Psychics, she thought, must be sensitive to sound. "I didn't mean - "
"I'll tell her! But you must stop roaring. I'm not deaf, you know."
"I didn't think I was loud." Barbara dug out her ID. "Scotland Yard," she said.
Yolanda opened her eyes. She didn't cast even a glance in the direction of Barbara's warrant card. Rather she said, "Quite a shouter, he is."
"Who?"
"He says he's your dad. He says you're meant to - "
"He's dead," Barbara told her.
"Of course he is. I could hardly hear him otherwise. I hear dead people."
"Like in „I see dead people'?"
"Don't be clever. All right! All right! Don't be so loud! Your dad - "
"He wasn't a shouter. Not ever."
"He is now, luv. He says you're meant to call on your mum. She's missing you."
Barbara doubted that. Last time she'd seen her mother, the woman had believed she was looking at their longtime neighbour Mrs. Gustafson, and her resultant panic - in her final years at home she'd grown to fear Mrs. Gustafson, as if the old lady had somehow morphed into Lucifer - had not been assuaged by anything Barbara had attempted, from showing her identification to appealing to any of the other residents among whom Mrs. Havers lived in a private care home in Greenford. Barbara had not yet been back. It had seemed, at the time, the course of wisdom.
"What shall I tell him?" Yolanda asked. And then with her hands over her ears once again, "What? Oh, of course I believe you!" And then to Barbara, "James, yes? But he wasn't called that, was he?"
"Jimmy." Barbara shifted uncomfortably on her feet. She looked at Winston who himself seemed to be anticipating an unwelcome message from someone in the great beyond. "Tell him I'll go. Tomorrow. Whatever."
"You mustn't lie to the spirit world."
"Next week then."
Yolanda closed her eyes. "She says next week, James." And then to Barbara, "You can't manage sooner? He's quite insistent."
"Tell him I'm on a case. He'll understand."
Apparently he did, for once Yolanda communicated this matter into the spirit world, she breathed a sigh of relief and gave her attention to Winston. He had a magnificent aura, she told him. Well developed, unusual, brilliant, and evolved. Fan-tas-tic.
Nkata said politely, "Ta," and then, "C'n we have a word, Miss - "
"Just Yolanda," she said.
"No other name?" Barbara asked her. This would be for the record and all that. Because as this was a police matter ...Yolanda would surely get the point, eh?
"Police? I'm legal," Yolanda said. "Licenced. Whatever you need."
"I expect you are. We're not here to check your business details. So your full name is ... ?"
It turned out - no surprise - that Yolanda was a pseudonym, Sharon Price not having quite the same cachet when it came to the psychic trade.
"Would that be Miss or Missus Price?" Nkata asked, having his notebook out and his mechanical pencil poised. It would be missus, she confirmed. Mister was a driver of one of London's black cabs and the children of mister and missus were both grown and flown.
"You're here because of her, aren't you?" Yolanda said shrewdly.