Alex and Josh were at home and happy in the salle de pressé on the Repos. They had no pressing urge to swim or stroll. To pack up at tea-time, as they intended to do, was treat enough. They liked it that the pace was down a gear, that the salle was populated today only by the diehard cycling enthusiasts who masquerade as journalists.

‘Would you mind finishing the last part of the tape?’ Josh, who types at a fraction of Cat’s speed, asked Alex. ‘I hate transcribing. It means we need only do it the once between us.’

‘Sure,’ said Alex, yawning, ‘sounds about all I’m capable of today. Fuck, I’m shagged.’

‘I’ll go and get caffeine,’ Josh informed. Alex fiddled with the earpiece before deciding to dispense with it. He set the tape running, turned up the volume, and transcribed from where Josh had left off. When Josh returned with coffee, Alex paused the tape and drank the liquid as if it were nectar.

‘Good old Luca,’ Alex laughed, ‘he says the only humping he’ll be doing is going up and down the mountains – “the fucking mountains”!’

‘God,’ said Josh, rewinding the machine, ‘did Cat just ask him if he was nervous?’

They listened. ‘Yeah,’ Alex confirmed, ‘but he didn’t bloody reply. We’ll have to ask her if he gesticulated positively or negatively or whether he kept a poker face. Fuck, she just asked him if he’s scared.’

‘No reply. I think that’s probably about it,’ Josh surmised, flicking down the volume.

‘I’ll just check,’ said Alex, turning the sound up again.

How long do you have? a male voice but not Luca’s seeps out of the dictaphone, Because I have about seven inches.

I have to write my report, a female voice, too British and unmistakable to be anyone other than Catriona McCabe, journaliste, le Guardian, is heard to reply.

All heads in the salle de pressé turn to Alex and Josh and Cat’s dictaphone; delighted, flabbergasted, hungry for more. Thank God only a third of the press men are working.

I want you now, the man is murmuring amidst much rustling.

You can have me now, the English girl replies whilst bedsprings creak.

There is the sound of deep, desirous breathing and some laughter and some moaning and some bed bouncing. Penetration or not – and the recording doesn’t divulge – it is indisputable what has been recorded; it is obviously an aural sex show and the press men are transfixed.

‘Come on,’ Josh tells Alex, ‘switch the fucker off.’ But neither of them silence the machine because both of them know they are listening to Cat and Ben.

Don’t stop, the girl pleads.

‘Whoa whoa whoa,’ says Alex, grabbing the dictaphone but not touching the volume, let alone switching the thing off.

Now! the girl is remonstrating when the man tells her ‘Later’. She is panting and gasping and audibly on the verge of orgasm.

Cat came into the salle de pressé just as she was about to come on tape. And when she came in, all eyes were on her in the here and now whilst all ears were still trained to her in the then and there. There was silence amongst the press corps. But not from the dictaphone.