‘You don’t wanna be getting up to any of them Johnny Depp tricks here. Cost you a fortune.’ He guffawed at his own joke, his belly vibrating as he laughed.

‘Pardon?’ I was confused.

‘This hotel, it’s where that Depp bloke bathed in champagne with old whatsername – you know – Cocaine Kate, or so the story goes.’

Lost for words, I over-tipped him and traipsed up the polished stone stairs. Beside the most tasteful Christmas tree I’d ever seen, all silver and turquoise ribbons and tiny flickering candles, a handsome receptionist with puppy-dog eyes welcomed me most graciously.

‘Can I take your bags?’ he asked smoothly, his eyes sliding over my bruised forehead and away again, and I blushed as I confessed I didn’t have a bag. Without batting an eyelid, he led me up to a small room, heated subtropically, the balcony door ajar so that the floor-length white curtains billowed gently in the winter breeze.

‘Please ring if you need anything at all.’ He indicated the telephone, before shutting the oak door softly behind him.

The room was presided over by the most amazing antique four-poster bed, adorned with fat-cheeked cherubs flying across the painted top, gold trumpets in chubby hands, dimpled naked bottoms twinkling across the azure sky. In awe I slipped my trainers off and climbed two wooden steps to throw myself onto a mattress so enormous I almost bounced. I lay there for a moment feeling like the Princess and the Pea, and contemplated the life of a cherub. Quite nice, apparently, judging by their cheeky grins as they wafted through the fluffy clouds above me.

When I felt myself drifting off I reached for the phone and tried Johnno’s mobile, but it was switched off, so I rang room service instead and ordered some sandwiches and a bottle of champagne. Remembering Kate Moss and Johnny Depp I jumped off the bed, padding into a bathroom dwarfed by the most enormous tub. You’d have needed your own vineyard to fill that up with alcohol, so I settled for old-fashioned hot water instead.

The clock said Seb would be at least half an hour. I put some Beethoven on the stereo and sank into the steaming bath, glass of champagne by my side, floating into a doze of exhausted relief.

I came-to thinking I’d heard the bedroom door open. I sat up quickly as the old wooden floorboards creaked beneath the thick plush carpet, the violins soaring through my half-dream. For a moment, I thought someone was creeping slowly across the room, but when I peered nervously through the half-ajar door, I saw only that great bed. Lost in a world of Beethoven and his tortured dark soul, I was obviously imagining things. I’d have to learn not to be so very jumpy. Lowering myself back down into the bubbles, I floated off again.