Dinah interrupts me angrily. ‘What person who sold them to him? Coco Chanel? Of course they’re couture quality! They’re not copies! Let me tell you what they’re doing, Fern. They want it for a cheap price so they can put a low estimate on it. You can’t see that?’ She throws the green jacket at Tallulah. ‘They have labels!’ she yells.

Tallulah hands the jacket to Cathy, who puts it with the others.

I put my coat back on for a quick getaway. People are looking at us. I’m trying to keep calm.

Dinah’s eyes flash with anger. She pushes her chair back and the legs scream against the floor. ‘I don’t believe it. It’s not possible. It’s not possible.’ She frowns and pats her lips. ‘Moss bought them from Paris. He bought them from Paris, Fern. They have my measurements at the fashion house.’ She’s pleading with me to believe her. She winces in pain.

‘Dinah, are you okay?’ I say in alarm, afraid the shock is going to kill her.

‘We went to Claridge’s,’ she says, pushing away a strand of dark hair that’s falling into her eyes, ‘and he told me …’ She tails off and looks at me uncertainly, as though she can’t trust this story anymore. She turns back to Cathy. ‘All of them are fakes? Every one?’

With obvious effort, she musters together her dignity and stands up very straight. ‘Well then, he couldn’t have bought them where he said he did, could he? They came from somewhere else.’

All around us people are coming and going.

Her mind is working the same routes as mine did and she clutches her throat. ‘Obviously, he lied to me about Paris. He knew they weren’t genuine, right?’ She blinks hard, squeezing back the tears.

Trapped in her drama, I feel frozen. ‘I don’t know, Dinah. I guess so.’

She takes in a deep, shuddering breath and looks through the window at a man pushing a buggy, a toddler kicking his chubby legs in the front. ‘Okay, so they’re copies,’ she says bitterly, nodding to herself. ‘As she says, good ones. Bah!’ She gazes out of the window thoughtfully and strokes her chin with her elegant fingers. ‘All that money for the real thing. So, if it’s as good as the real thing, it might as well be the real thing – it’s got the workmanship. That’s what he told himself, isn’t it? But where did he …?’

The truth dawns on her and she raises her fine eyebrows. ‘Moss made them himself,’ she says.

Of course he did. Now I understand why he was so hostile, why he didn’t want me to be friends with Dinah, why he didn’t want me to see her wardrobe. It wasn’t because he thought I was dishonest. It’s because he was.