Tabitha picks her phone up from the desk. She scrolls her screen with a slow, stroking motion. Too late, I realise she’s Blofeld. The phone is the cat.

‘Funny,’ she drawls. ‘Because I used to work with Libby at Tatler—Elizabeth Watson Hughes, who runs the naked speed dating events. And I just so happened to notice that she posted something on Instagram about it being cancelled last minute, due to unforeseen circumstances.’ Tabitha smiles at me, almost affectionately. ‘Between us, I happen to know that “unforeseen circumstances” is code for pubic lice. She’d brought in a load of rugger boys to make up the numbers—Jonno, Jonty and Jon—all riddled! So, I was quite surprised when I overheard Harri thanking you for filing your piece.’ The eyebrow is soaring higher and higher, like a carrier bag tossed to the trees on the wind, up into the undergrowth of Tabitha’s multicoloured fringe. Are her roots…pink? Is Miami Vice the hair trend of the moment? ‘But, you know, maybe there was some other naked speed dating event going on.’

I stick my chin out. ‘Um, yes! I remember, there were two. There was Libby’s, and the…other one. Which is the one I went to.’ Tabitha looks me in the eye. I’m on the table. The laser is heading for my crotch. ‘Why are you lying, Imogen?’

I look past her shoulder, at the create your own reality sign. The first ‘a’ is unlit. Crete. It’s a sign I should flee to Crete. ‘I…I don’t know.’

‘I wonder what Harri would do if she found out her star journalist was veering quite so far from fact. I was talking to Harri earlier. She is very excited about your piece appearing in Vogue Italia. It would be quite embarrassing, wouldn’t it, for Vogue Italia to be syndicating the work of a liar? The Know—and Hudson—certainly wouldn’t want to keep employing someone who had embarrassed them so badly.’

‘Look, Tabitha…I made a mistake. I don’t…I didn’t…anyway, why do you care? What’s it to you?’ Does she want to blackmail me? I don’t have any money.

The last trace of unhappiness leaves Tabitha’s face and she smiles, properly. It’s dazzling. She’s quite beautiful. It’s very unfair.

‘I just thought you should know what I know.’ She picks up her phone and turns to leave the office, swinging her black, buckled Balenciaga over her shoulder. It’s a metronome. Counting down the seconds until the end of my career.

Chapter Forty-Three

A law unto herself

Harri

‘No.’

Harri barks out a laugh, assuming Mackenzie is having a go at British sarcasm. Akila yelps an incredulous ‘PARDON? I’m sorry, but why not?’