One floor up, their office is painted white, with a little exposed brickwork to lend texture, and a nice long-leafed palm all tangled in fairy lights at the entrance to the fireplace, done for Christmas one year and then left because Matthew liked it. Only three of them are full-time but many more desks stand ready for production requirements. One such desk serves as a surface for stacked scripts and another as a place to lay out headshots of potential cast: long necks, long hair, high cheekbones, big eyes, soulful looks.

Matthew’s own office at the end of the floor is screened with glass walls and blinds. Becky looks at it anxiously. Matthew is inside it.

Siobhan grabs the phone on her desk before the door to the stairs has even swung shut. ‘David, I’m sorry, I did tell him you’d called. Yes, yes, I know … hold on.’ She presses her hand to the receiver. ‘It’s David Barraclough from Total Agents. Matthew’s been avoiding this call all morning. David is like, fever pitch angry.’

‘Really? But he’s so nice.’

DB, they call him: the linen-suited, salt-and-pepper-haired agent to a scrolling list of A-list actors whose careers he has launched and whose offspring he later calls godchildren. Becky recently took him for lunch at a tapas restaurant on Dean Street to discuss Medea casting ideas over half a carafe of red, chorizo and squid which she only occasionally sipped and picked at while he did most of the talking. He told lots of stories, some about the days he and Matthew were junior agents together, and she had encouraged it all by laughing along. Their lunch finished without any real business done but with DB feeling the warm fuzz of having been listened to, and that was everything that lunch needed to achieve. A success, by all accounts.

Siobhan throws up a hand as the voice on the end of the line rants on.

‘Hand it over, I’ll give it a go.’ Becky takes the phone from her, smiling. ‘Hello, DB! It’s Becky. I’m so sorry you’re having to chase Matthew. It’s crazy with Cannes at the moment. Is it anything I can help with?’

‘He needs to call me.’

‘He definitely will. And while I have you, in terms of Medea I think we’re closing in on our lead actress. Hoping to pin her down at Cannes, and then we’ll have someone for your men to cast against. You’ll be top of the list, of course.’

‘Matthew knows what I’m calling about. Tell him to stop avoiding my calls and get him on the phone to me.’

He hangs up and Becky holds out the receiver. She feels ants under her skin – scared, perhaps, that she may have somehow made things worse.

‘What’s that about?’ Becky says to Siobhan.