‘So … that’s your agent?’ asked Ingrid, peering, confused. ‘With the baby?’

‘Taken two minutes ago. She hotfooted it down there this morning when she heard the news. But you knew that, didn’t you, Luce? You’re in the WhatsApp group?’

It seemed I had neither breath nor words to draw on. An awful lot of blood seemed to be leaving my face. My mouth opened mutely.

Ingrid fixed me with her cool blue eyes. ‘I don’t believe we were ever meeting your agent here,’ she said quietly. ‘I think you got me here to divert me, in some insidious way, from something else.’

Maggie looked horrified. Also baffled. She dropped the phone back in her bag. Then, making wide, apologetic eyes at me, she muttered her excuses and melted away.

‘I’m not interested in your husband, Lucy,’ Ingrid went on, never taking her eyes off mine. ‘He took me to lunch yesterday, and we had a nice time, but I shan’t be going again. And not because I’ve been warned off by you, or because in some weird way you tried to befriend me, but because he’s not my type. Believe me, though, if he had been my type, I wouldn’t let a little ruse like this stop me.’

She shot me a defiant look. Then she gathered up her suede bag and got to her feet. She adjusted the gold chain over her shoulder and turned on her heel. I watched as she threaded her way through the room. Despite the great legs, her skirt was a bit short and tight, although none of the men in the bar would have agreed with me. Their eyes all strayed from whosoever they were talking to, to follow her out. A female editor I knew smiled and rolled her eyes despairingly at me. But I couldn’t move my face at all. I just sat there, in the corner, frozen.

Maggie, sweet Maggie, beetled back. She took Ingrid’s seat beside me, and then my hand, distressed. She asked me quietly, ‘What on earth …?’ I licked my lips and told her, in halting, whispery tones, what I’d done. Or had tried to do. She didn’t speak. Didn’t judge. She just squeezed my hand. As my eyes welled up, she led me out of the bar to the Ladies. There I had a bloody good cry in her arms. Later, sniffing and balling bits of tissue from the loo roll she handed me, I assured her I was fine. She saw me downstairs and got me an Uber. And she wouldn’t say a word, not to anyone. She promised. I knew she wouldn’t. I trusted her. An old friend, who actually wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Not really. She watched me go, sadly, into the London traffic.