Then she wiped her hands urgently on her jeans.

What the fuck just happened?

There had been no warning, no prior hints, no clues at all in all the time she’d known Vasily. Not from him. She knew so little about the person behind the champion cyclist. Not within herself; she’d rarely thought about the personality behind the body which raced bicycles.

Have I ever fancied Vasily? Have I ever thought he’s fancied me? Hand on my heart, no. I’m his soigneur. He’s my charge.

What just happened?

I have absolutely no idea.

How can that be?

I don’t know. I hardly know Vasily. Few people do. He’s such a closed book – one so many are desperate to read. Not me. I know his joints and muscles off by heart but I’ve never really stopped to contemplate the man they belong to.

Why did you stroke and not pat?

I don’t know. But I don’t think it was me, if you see – I don’t think he meant to kiss Rachel. Maybe it was an instantaneous reaction to me stroking, not patting – a chemical, hormonal, non-cerebral, male response. Shit, maybe it was the talcum powder itself. Maybe there’s a substance in it that’s banned. But it wasn’t me. It can’t have been. I’m just his soigneur. How can he know me as Rachel? He does not know Rachel at all.

You should get moving. You have a million and one duties to attend to.

I need to sit a while.

‘I know what I need,’ Rachel said, standing, glancing around the interior of the van, ‘I need a girlfriend – I need the insight of a woman. I need female company, complicity – a confidante.’

Contre la montre.

What a lovely phrase. It was Cat’s chant that morning as she gathered together her wits and her work effects. She was running late, having not been able to leave her bed for all the reliving of the night before and the projected ponderings for the day ahead. Sex? Perhaps. More than likely. Hurry up! Contre la montre. Against the clock. Morning, Josh. Morning, Alex. Hurry up, Cat. Sorry. Sorry. Allons!

‘You’re perky,’ Josh remarked, pleased that she was.

‘I had,’ Cat reasoned, ‘a very good – night.’

‘Moi aussi,’ Alex said, ‘like a fucking log. Out for the count.’

‘I slept really well too,’ Josh added, glancing in gratitude at Auberge Claudette before driving away.

‘Me too,’ Cat recapitulated.

I am going to sleep with Ben tonight and I’ll be most wide awake.

‘I’m interviewing Luca this afternoon,’ Cat said. ‘He’s riding early so I’ll disappear for an hour or so. Will you fill me in?’

‘Sure,’ Alex said, looking to the back seat where Cat was sitting and staring out of the window with an inordinately expansive smile on her face, ‘as long as you share any juicy Luca-isms.’

‘Where are you going to do him?’ Josh asked, curtailing any insinuation from Alex by stamping on the brakes to allow the race commissaire’s car priority.