After a moment he releases her and, as if a little ashamed of his show of feeling, rises and walks to his desk to check a notebook. Becky guesses that he’s not really looking at anything, but that he simply doesn’t know how to end their meeting. As an employee he told her when the meeting is over; as her friend, how is it done?

‘If you don’t mind, I’m going to call Sharon now,’ Becky volunteers.

‘Good. Let me know when you’ve done it and I’ll set up a nice dinner for us all – just you and me, Emilia and Sharon – so we can celebrate properly. I’ll take you all to a place that’s just opened in Fitzrovia. Private room. Have Siobhan look for a date we can all do.’

He is back to business. He reaches for the phone on his desk and, without looking up at her again, expertly taps in a long number. An American number, she guesses.

She slips out of his office and goes to her own desk as Matthew’s friend and fellow producer. In the trenches together, doing what they do – putting out fires and making room for magic. It is her and Matthew together now; they are the people with projects on the line. In the middle of all this ugliness, has she somehow been promoted? Is that actually what is happening now? she wonders, feeling the granules of the favour she is doing him dissolve into water. Transaction complete.

She feels such relief there is an explanation for it all, and just the slightest knot in her stomach at his genius, his sleight of hand: how he has turned the shape in her head, the possibility of a woman who was receiving something she did not want, into the woman who was not getting enough of what she wanted.

She looks out of the window and sees the clouds form animal shapes, or just clouds. The man is a magician, an alchemist, a god.

Chapter 15

A few days later, Becky is gingerly lifting hot mugs and plates from the dishwasher back into their homes. She is tired after last night when she, Matthew, Sharon and Emilia met to share toasts and successes, stories and champagne at a new gloss-black-tabled Japanese restaurant in town. The mood had been upbeat, those unpleasant allegations dispatched with, far in advance.

They had eaten diver scallops, Wagyu beef and mountains of sashimi. Sharon told them about getting stuck halfway up Mount Kenya with the giardia bacteria multiplying in her gut. The night ended with too many tequila slammers, which Becky managed to avoid by pretending she had a call to make. Out on the pavement after midnight, they had all turned to their Uber apps, high and happy and bonded.