Tara got up to leave, and David tried to grab her arm to stop her; she shook it off as he immediately dropped it, embarrassed, then once her bag was on her shoulder, Tara realized she didn’t want to leave. Their eyes met, awkwardly.

‘Sit down and I’ll explain,’ said David, so she did.

‘I’m not denying that I did, on occasion, at university, perform a bit of stage hypnotism. And yes, on occasion I made some rugby players – who were not known for their sensitivity towards other people, I would add in my defence – the butt of the joke, for a change. It’s not one of my CV highlights. I stopped doing it altogether when someone very like you, someone whose opinion mattered to me, took me to one side and told me I was being a cock. And I realized she was right. So I stopped doing it.’

He said it in a matter-of-fact way but his ears were a tell-tale red.

‘And, if you must know,’ he went on, with a visible wince, ‘I did not call myself Hypno Dave. That’s just what Justin and his mates called me.’

Tara raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘Did you have a better name?’

‘Of course not.’ He corrected himself. ‘Well, one rag week I did an event as Doctor Hypnoticus, but that was a joke.’

‘That’s actually worse.’

‘I know.’ He shrugged. ‘How long have you known?’

‘A while.’

David said nothing, but Tara knew what he was thinking (ha!): did she think worse of him for it? Affronted adrenaline was still charging through her, and she felt somewhat stranded on her high horse. Although for once it was him making the embarrassing revelation, not her. He was handling it with much more dignity, though.

‘People can only really change when they see what they were doing was wrong,’ he said simply. ‘And I did.’

His words hung in the air between them.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m … I’m too wound up about other things. Other … people.’

To his credit, David didn’t ask what, but he’d probably worked it out for himself. Tara couldn’t bear to humiliate herself by telling him he’d been right about the builders. She was much easier to read than a cat anyway.

‘You want to know why I don’t do missing pets,’ he said, by way of reconciliation. ‘I’ll tell you.’

‘I’m all ears.’ Tara leaned back in her chair, watching him.