‘I don’t want to tell you. The people involved are extremely famous.’

‘So, was it published?’

‘No, thank goodness, but no thanks to Conrad, and it took some persuading on my part to convince them that I hadn’t had anything to do with trying to do a deal.’

‘How did you manage it?’

‘I told them what had happened as soon as I found out and advised them to get on to their lawyers straight away. The lawyers got it stopped without too much trouble and fortunately I could prove that the image had been stolen.’

‘How did he get hold of it? Did you leave the neg lying around in your darkroom?’

‘No, I did not! It was stolen from the recycle bin on my laptop.’

‘Shite!’

Thea hadn’t talked to anyone about this for a long time. ‘I lent him my laptop. I didn’t need it. I never suspected he’d look in the recycle bin –’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Either because he’s a nosy bastard, which is my preferred option, or that the machine was running slowly and he wanted to clear the recycle bin, which is his story. Either way he came across a JPEG, which is a saved image, which mentioned the name of these celebs.’

‘You’d never tell me who they were?’

‘Quite right. I never would.’

He grinned. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Well, he double-clicked and got a full-page picture of someone very famous, very commercial, in glorious colour, in a very tasteful but erotic pose.’

‘You mean, she was naked.’

Thea nodded.

‘And you’d taken the picture?’

She nodded again.

‘How’d you get to do that?’

‘The family wanted a series of special, intimate shots for their personal family album. I stayed with them for a week, taking shots of them eating breakfast, having a barbecue, that sort of stuff. Then one day the woman, whom I’d got to know quite well by then …’ Thea paused reflectively. ‘I think she was a bit lonely and found me easy to talk to, although I’m quite a bit older than she is.’

‘I can understand that part.’

Thea ignored this. ‘Anyway, she wanted me to take a picture of her naked, wearing this special antique jewellery her man had given her, in a copy of a pose in an old master they had.’ She glanced at him. ‘No, I’m not telling you the name of the old master, either. That’s confidential too.’

‘So you took the shots?’