We entered the dining room. Freddie was sitting at a table in the middle of the room. He was with June Carberry, who’d I’d met once or twice, a friendly bottle blonde with a long, sharp nose and hooded eyes. Some of the women called her a ‘chorus girl’ behind her back because of her clothes, but if she knew she didn’t seem to care.

There were two others at the table. I guessed they were Ivy and Jim Brandon, more new arrivals. Jim was much older, with slicked-back dark hair that was greying around the edges, and a stiffly upright posture. Next to him, Ivy sparkled – all blonde hair and jewels and very red lips. Both men at the table were staring at her as she talked. Most people in the room were too.

‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Gregory said as we sat down. He caught the waiter’s eye. ‘I’ll have the cured salmon in honey mustard with toast, then the beef tenderloin.’

‘And to drink?’

‘A champagne cocktail for me.’

‘For me too,’ I said. ‘Nothing to eat.’

‘Very good.’

‘God, I like it here,’ Gregory said, then nudged me, nodding in the direction of Freddie’s table. ‘Something’s up.’

Brandon was standing awkwardly, glass raised. ‘To Ivy and Freddie,’ he said loudly, so the words carried across the room to us. ‘I want to stress that there are no hard feelings, and I wish them only the very best together. To Ivy and Freddie.’

The rest of the room was quieter now, and the other members of his table were completely still. After a moment or two Freddie raised his glass and the rest of the table followed suit. I played with the knife in front of me. So he’d moved on to someone else. Sylvie had moved on too. It was only me who’d been left behind. And Martha, I supposed, and felt a pang of sympathy for her. She must have realised by now that Freddie had used her.

Brandon sat down again and the room returned to normal. Gregory tapped my hand. ‘The Brandons have only been married two months,’ he said. ‘You’d think he’d put up more of a fight.’

‘Freddie always gets what he wants in the end.’

‘Lucky bugger.’

I shrugged, trying not to let him ruin my night too.

Gregory’s salmon arrived, and the cocktails. We clinked glasses.

‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t much I could do by the time you called me in.’

‘Could you have saved him if it had been earlier?’

‘I might. I’m actually a damn good doctor. Top of my year at Trinity.’

‘How come you’re out here, and not in Harley Street?’

‘No contacts. Rich people like their doctors famous, not academic. Deplorable. But there it is.’ He smeared the mustard over the toast and took a bite. ‘Thank you, for sitting with me.’