Jules took a long time showering, but still hadn’t found time to wash her hair, Nina noticed, and a long time in her room getting ready, emerging in a sleek black silk dress, her hair piled on her head. She seemed happier, more like her usual self, as she strutted ahead to flag a taxi to Oberkampf, Nina and Alice close behind in a denim jumpsuit and floral cocktail dress respectively.

‘Oh, Paul called,’ Nina said, remembering in the taxi, as the city flashed past them, black and gold, their legs squashed side by side. ‘He said he’d been trying you, but I explained the charger situ.’

‘Oh yes, he said,’ Jules answered, not meeting Nina’s eye. ‘I called him while I was getting ready.’

Nina glanced at Alice and she shrugged and pulled a quick well, there you go expression.

They sat at the countertop at the restaurant, over the open kitchen. It was industrial-chic, wood and steel, the food French-Korean. Nina watched the chefs carefully as they prepared the surprise tasting menu (the only dining option), hoping there wasn’t any raw fish. Jules was on form, slipping away for long stretches to use the bathroom but returning happy, almost giddy. Was she on drugs? Nina wondered. But that wasn’t the Jules she knew. So strait-laced in that respect, almost prim. She’d baulked when an intern gave her some study drugs and only pretended to take them at work to fit in.

‘You’re not drinking,’ Jules said suddenly to Nina, her eyes flitting rapidly between the bottle and Nina’s glass. ‘Have you had a drink this weekend?’ It was like Jules had been living in a fog but the fog had cleared.

‘What? Of course I am,’ Nina said in a strangled voice, taking a gulp of her wine and holding it in her mouth. She swallowed it under Jules’s intense gaze and noticed Alice staring at her with a strange look on her face too, as though trying to work something out.

‘We shared two bottles of wine last night,’ Alice said, but her voice wavered, as though it was a question rather than a fact.

‘I’m not drinking as much,’ Nina said, waving her glass around. ‘I told you, with the stress of the new launch my IBS has flared up and you know how red wine gives me the shits.’ She smiled broadly, not letting the tiniest chink of doubt in. If her friends looked too closely, they would see. ‘So what’s the deal with the casino?’ she asked, to change the subject, and because she thought at least an activity would get Jules off her phone. Nina had been to a casino once before and it had been fun. She’d won fifty quid.

‘Tarv from work told me about it. He said it would be right up our street. Very glam,’ Jules added, her eyes alight with enthusiasm. ‘There’s a nightclub on the floor above. An Oskia.’

‘Isn’t that the one with booths that cost a thousand pounds, and sparklers streaming from bottles of champagne and vodka are paraded through the crowds?’ Alice asked. There was a branch in London that Ted frequented on work nights out.