Gabriela was sitting at the kitchen table, still in her pyjamas, a dressing gown pulled tightly around her body, her hands shielding her face in a futile bid to block the bright sunshine that flooded in through the French doors. When Tom spoke, her mind was somewhere else, picking through the details of the night before, trying to work through the knots gathered in her stomach.

Davy’s Wine Bar stood at the bottom of a discreet flight of steps on the corner of Crown Passage. Inside, under the old champagne vaults, a wooden counter ran along the right-hand side, and there were old cask barrels and low wooden tables lit up by candles in bottles. It was like closing the door against the world as they stepped inside, into a space untouched by the rhythms of the streets so that down here it might be any time or season. Her boots pressed tentatively against the stone flooring as if scared of giving her away as they moved towards the back of the bar, where two red leather armchairs were tucked out of sight.

Ivan spoke as though their being here together, in the middle of the afternoon, was the most normal thing in the world.

‘You OK with champagne?’

‘I’ll have a gin and tonic,’ she said, and he tipped his head in approval.

It was just a drink with a stranger, she told herself. It was the sort of thing she’d had to do a thousand times before, for work.

‘Is it actually your birthday?’ she asked over the edge of her drink, which was strong and bitter and sweet at once.

‘Of course, why would I lie?’

She raised her eyebrows slightly, her gaze drifting over his left hand as he lifted his champagne flute. There was no ring, though that meant nothing. Glancing down at her own bare fingers, she didn’t flinch; the image of Tom retreating as quickly as it had emerged.

There was something so disconnected about this place, about everything in this moment, that she could almost imagine she was someone else.

‘Happy birthday,’ she said, as their glasses touched. ‘So, how old are you?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘How old do you think I am?’

Her eyes scanned over him, drinking in the details: the curly hair, still thick but flecked with grey. His skin was lined in that way that made men more distinguished, and women reach for the scalpel.

‘Fifty-two?’

He pulled back. ‘Whoa, OK, don’t hold back.’ He took a swig of his drink.

She laughed, ‘Oh God, sorry – so how old are you?’

He shrugged. ‘Fifty-three.’ When he smiled, she felt an ache, as if she were pressing the brakes, too late, just seconds before a crash.

‘You’re not married?’ she asked before she could stop herself.

‘If I were married, I probably wouldn’t have asked you for a drink.’

Did she blush?

‘And you, Gabriela?’