‘Look, now is not the time. We’ll talk about it in the office tomorrow, okay? I just – I need to –’ I inclined my head towards my friends.

Joseph stood up, quick to grasp his reprieve. ‘Of course.’

‘Stay and finish your drink if you like.’ I stood too. Despite my pity for him, I couldn’t deny the fact he made my skin crawl.

‘No, seriously, I should get home anyway. My parents will wonder where I am.’ He put out a clammy hand to shake mine. My graze smarted where our flesh met. We both winced.

‘I can’t believe you followed me all the way here just to confess,’ I said, following him towards the door. ‘It was brave, though, I’ll give you that.’

‘I didn’t follow you.’

‘What?’

‘No, seriously, I didn’t.’

My blood ran cold. ‘That wasn’t you running behind me in the street?’

‘No, seriously. Don’t get cross with me again.’

If he said seriously again, I would scream. ‘How did you know where I was then?’

He dug deep in his coat pocket and produced it like a trophy, though the colour mottling his pale pudgy face belied his emotions. ‘This is yours, isn’t it?’

My Filofax. The Filofax that had disappeared last week. I took it wordlessly.

‘The pub address is in it,’ he explained. ‘I’m just a bit of a detective, that’s all, Maggie. Seriously.’

‘Right. A detective.’ My mind was flitting about like a demented dragonfly. ‘So you weren’t – behind me when I was walking just now? Trying to catch me up?’

He shook his head. ‘No. I got a cab almost right to the door.’

The thought my stalker was real and not just a figment of my overactive imagination, coupled with the knowledge that he had been so close to me, was nearly enough to send me into the loos with some of Bel’s more excitable friends; those who were rejecting food for other delights. But I restrained myself. I sat at the table and pretended fervently that everything was fine, all the while feeling flushed and panicky. I talked to Bel’s devastated mother Lynn about how cheap and easy, honestly, it was to fly halfway round the world. At one point I thoughtlessly mentioned carbon footprints, but luckily Lynn thought they were a type of shoe. I chatted to Nigel about Bristol University and all the nice girls he’d met, and the fact he preferred the nasty ones.