Sensible had never been her strong suit, but for once she was able to possess her soul in patience, since she had something else on her mind that was sufficiently interesting to occupy her. She emerged into Leicester Square and waited for an empty phone box. The one she ended up in smelled of sour milk and strong aftershave, its windows papered with postcards advertising the services of an assortment of prostitutes. Lindsay found it as sexually alluring as the inspection pit of a garage. Trying to ignore the pathetic faces whose photographs stared down at her in a parody of desire from several of the cards, she called Helen. “I’ve got an idea,” she said. “Can you meet me for lunch?”

“I can’t really go out, I’ve got a million and six things to do and I’m expecting a phone call from New York that I don’t want to miss. Why don’t you come here?” Helen said. “Those two gobshites are out filming today, so you won’t have any embarrassing encounters. I’ll order in some sandwiches and we can have a picnic in my office, okay?”

“Perfect,” Lindsay said. “See you around one.”

Her next call was to Eleanor Purdey, a fellow alumna of her Oxford college. Although they’d both read English, Ellie had abandoned literature for the law, joining a large commercial firm just as the eighties had started to boom. Now she was a full equity partner, a profitable role since her company had avoided the worst excesses of the recession by moving neatly into rescue packages for companies facing financial and fiscal disaster. They’d never been close at university, but when they’d met a few years later at a party Lindsay had attended with her barrister lover, they’d discovered they were both gay. Coupled with their St. Mary’s connection, it had been enough to forge a bond. In spite of their widely differing political perspectives, Lindsay and Ellie had always stayed in touch. In Lindsay’s journalist days, Ellie had been a valuable insider contact. For Ellie, Lindsay suspected, she had provided a tad of street cred in a lesbian scene where establishment professionals like Ellie were mistrusted and often excluded.