My flight left at midday and would take around two hours, then the drive up to the lakes would be about an hour and a half. By my calculations, and the fact that clocks were one hour ahead in Milan, I reckoned that I’d get to the hotel between four and five. Time for a bath and to get ready, then down to meet my mystery man. I couldn’t wait.

My taxi arrived on time in the morning and soon we were speeding through the rain towards Heathrow. When we reached the motorway, we found that the traffic had slowed down to a standstill and for the next twenty minutes, we crawled along.

‘Must have been an accident,’ said the cab driver as we heard an ambulance’s siren behind us, then saw it overtake and weave its way forward as cars swerved aside to let it through. ‘Want me to try and find another route as soon as we can get off this road?’

‘Whatever gets me there in time,’ I said, as my vision of a leisurely hour cruising and trying on all the perfumes in duty-free went out the window.

The driver pulled off at the next junction but it appeared that a lot of other cars had had the same idea and we hit another traffic jam.

‘Looks like we’ll just have to sit it out,’ said the driver. ‘We’ll get you there but I can’t guarantee when. Where you off to?’

‘Italy.’

‘Lovely. With friends?’

‘On my own.’

‘Oh. Meeting friends out there?’

‘One friend.’

‘Ah. A romantic holiday.’

‘I hope so.’ If I make it, I thought. I felt a knot in my stomach as the minutes went by and we were still hardly moving, then half an hour … an hour … as we crawled forward. I started to panic when I glanced at my watch and realized that I was going to miss the flight. I got out my envelope with the travel schedule to look for any clue of a contact number, but there was nothing. I sighed with relief as cars started moving, nudging forward, then we were on our way again. I glanced at my watch again and felt my heart sink. The flight would be being called. No way was I going to get there on time.