She glanced at him, worried he might think she was fishing for praise and reassurance. But there truly wasn’t a day that went by without her feeling she wasn’t up to this job, wondering if she wasn’t any better than the mystical dabblers she was obliged to keep warning off.

‘Then make me a list of these saintly buggers.’ Bernie Dunmore would never have considered himself one of them either, but then saintliness had never been a prerequisite for bishops. ‘Fax it across to the Palace or give it to Sophie. I’ll make the approaches, if you like. Suppose we start with… what would you suggest… two?’

‘Two clerics?’

‘That’s enough to begin with. Don’t want Deliverance looking like a faction. And, ah, would they… pardon my ignorance, but would these two need to be, ah…?’

‘What?’ Merrily blinked.

‘You know.’

‘You mean psychic?’

He looked pained. ‘What’s that other word?’

‘Sensitive?’

‘Yes. Well… would they?’

‘That’s a good question.’ She sipped some water.

‘I mean, I never liked to ask, Merrily, but would you say that you yourself…?’

‘Well, er…’

‘This is not a witch-hunt, Merrily.’

‘I don’t honestly know,’ she said. ‘Maybe we all are, to a varying degree. And maybe just doing this job gives you… insights. That is, God-’

‘All right,’ Bernie said. ‘Forget it. What else do we need?’

‘A tame shrink. Sure, we can make a good guess at who’s in genuine psychic torment and who’s clinically paranoid, but a guess isn’t good enough.’

‘And how on earth do we go about finding one of them?’ The Bishop shook his cider can, but found it empty. Merrily rose to fetch him another from the fridge, but Bernie shook his head and put a hand over his glass. ‘I mean, should we make a direct approach to the Health Authority, asking for nominations? And wouldn’t a proper psychiatrist require some kind of retainer? Doctors don’t like to do anything for nothing, in my experience, and the Archdeacon would be the first to query any kind of-’