‘What do I call it then?’

‘The Lake District. You should see it. It’s stunning.’ As the words slid out of her mouth, she regretted them.

‘Maybe I will one day.’

Chapter 24

Philip Tooting welcomed his esteemed lunch guest. The times she’d visited the club, she always used the back entrance. It was common for members and their guests to be discreet. The tabloids had photographers everywhere, and not only that, every person with an iPhone thought it their God-given right to poke it in people’s faces and press ‘play’.

Dame Charlotte was a hefty woman, as the most senior female civil servants were wont to be. His theory was that to get to the top of the slippery pole as a woman, you had to be either a lesbian, infertile or both. Either way, femininity had to be absent, and that included giving birth, cooking and taking care of one’s figure. Robyn Hastings was the same: lovely shoes and handbags, but bulging arse and wobbly neck.

Charlotte had been awarded her damehood for services to charitable organisations abroad, when she’d been a thrusting young dynamo in the Foreign Office back in the day. She’d chased FCO postings from China to Peru, and made her mark as a person to back. She’d never married.

‘It’s always a pleasure, Philip. I hope the marvellous chef here has worked his magic once again.’

He went to pour her wine. She put her hand over the top of the glass.

‘Never mix business with pleasure, Philip.’

He poured himself a large glass of expensive red. She watched him sip it, and he was reminded of a programme he’d watched with his son years ago, about two pythons squaring up to one another over a rat in the desert.

‘It’s not all business, is it, Charlotte?’

She threw him a wry smile and perused the menu. They were in a private room, as always, and the lighting was low, with gentle classics playing through the hidden speakers in the ceiling.