‘Vile!’ hissed Josh under his breath.

‘Loathsome,’ Cat agreed.

‘Total wanker,’ Alex contributed.

The three of them pulled themselves up primly and settled down to their work, sensibly ignoring Airie exclaiming, ‘Don’t stop! Don’t stop!’ in falsetto under the pretext of urging some Banesto rider’s bid for freedom.

With the high mountain Stages approaching, the main contenders for the yellow jersey will keep their energy expenditure to a minimum. With the Alps looming, the non-specialist riders can relish the chance to make a break and glean some glory before the Alps blow them away. Système Vipère, the team behind the yellow jersey of Fabian Ducasse, need to stay near the head of the bunch, to monitor the pace and control which riders they will tolerate in a breakaway. (Thank God for that, Jan Airie seems to have his imbecilic tendencies under check. Where was I? Oh yes, mountains and breakaways.)

But then Jan Airie started to sigh. And then he added a moan or two. Soon he was delivering a clangorous caricature of the female orgasm, soliciting the attention of the whole of the salle de pressé. Tittering developed into chortling which was soon full-blown laughter.

Cat is starting to feel angry. She feels something else too. Ben’s lips. They touch down first on the back of her neck and then along the stretch of her shoulder. The laughter subsides but Airie’s faked orgasm, which he is delivering with eyes shut, does not.

‘It sounds like you’re sick,’ Ben tells him very loudly.

‘He is sick,’ Alex confirms.

‘I think he needs help,’ Josh adds.

That shut him up! Cat marvels. Kiss me again, Ben.

Ben kisses her again and runs her hair through his hands, scooping it into a pony-tail, tugging it so her face tips back for him to kiss her forehead. Then he chats easily to Josh and Alex, massaging Cat’s shoulders all the while and fixing Jan Airie with a steely stare. And then, job done, he goes; telling Airie, very loudly, that if drugs don’t help a sanatorium might; telling Cat, very loudly, that he’ll see her later.

Darling boy, Cat thinks of Ben, as she gazes at the TV screens, noting that Hunter Dean is in a six-man break. Another darling boy.

The riders are racing in 36 degrees, with the sly winds of the region, the mistral and the tramontane, lurking in the wings as if deciding whether or not to have some sport and wreak havoc with the pack. (Ben York, Ben York – you’ve declared yourself my boyfriend; only how can you be if this is the Tour de France and in ten days’ time you’ll be in Colorado and I’ll be in Camden?)

‘That’s not my primary concern at this precise moment,’ Cat says to herself, eyes glued to the TVs, her concern and affection for the riders manifesting itself as a furrow to her brow and a swell in her heart. ‘Can my heart beat so hard in two places at once?’ she wonders quietly. Obviously it can.