“No, of course not,” I say for some strange reason instead. I should be going home. I’ll be working until the early hours, as it is, to catch up on the hours lost to this trip. But I don’t say that. Instead, I point back the way we came. “There is a nice bistro a few streets over, and I’m starving.”

“Really?”

I nod. And you need to eat, I think.

I turn back and walk at a slower pace. He looks at me suspiciously, and I adopt an innocent expression. “Ack, I’m tired,” I say. “Let’s walk a little slower.”

Despite his scepticism, he adopts my pace, and I don’t miss his sigh of relief.

The bistro is emptying when we arrive, as it’s nearing the end of lunch. I catch the waiter’s eye, and he comes over smiling. “Mr Carlsen. Pleasure to see you again. Table for two?”

I nod. “If that is okay. I know you are probably at the end of lunch. Will Lorenzo come running after me with a carving knife?”

He smiles. “Any time for you. You know that. Lorenzo is always pleased to cook for you.”

He shows us to a small table on the patio and set back from the road. The scent from a nearby basket of flowers fills the air along with a faint whiff of exhaust fumes.

“You’re known here?” Laurie asks. He gives me a startled look as I pull his chair out for him.

My cheeks flush. What the hell am I doing? “I defended the owner Lorenzo’s brother,” I say in a low voice. I catch a drift of his scent as he sits. The men I spend time with typically smell of expensive cologne or hair products. Laurie is completely different. He doesn’t appear to wear any cologne. Instead, he smells of turps with a faint hint of lemony soap. It’s surprisingly refreshing and reminds me of home when I was a child and the whole house smelt of my mother’s art.

I walk around to my seat, and he watches me. “Did you get him off?”

I hide my smile. “Laurie, that’s astonishingly personal.” I lean towards him. “Impossible as it seems, I was not Lorenzo’s type.”

He laughs, and I savour the way it lights up his face. I realise suddenly that his face has worn a shadow throughout the walk. “You know what I mean,” he says.

“Laurie, it’s me,” I say, holding my hand to my chest. “Of course I got him off.”

“Of course,” he says mockingly. He holds up his menu and squints at it before reaching into his pocket and bringing out a pair of glasses.

The tortoiseshell frames suit his face, making the green in his eyes look deeper. “You wear glasses?”