Bastard boy racer, he frowns to himself, but why on earth wouldn’t she blush? There’d be something wrong with her if she didn’t. And, anyway, it’s proof to me that she’s a healthy, sexual person. And that’s good.

A couple of journalists call greetings to which Luca replies with the victory sign before disappearing into the open arms of the Tour’s medical team.

I should have called out something, Cat reprimands herself. Wouldn’t my voice have stood out, made him stop and perhaps notice me?

Cat looks a little forlornly at the space on the bench Luca has left. Her gaze shifts to the right and clocks a nice pair of Timberland boots, good legs clad in black jeans, a white shirt. Her eyes travel automatically upwards, over a strong neck, ditto chin, to a pair of just parted lips. She finally alights on very dark brown eyes which won’t let her go. She notes a handsome face enhanced by a wry smile, crowned by dark hair cut flatteringly close to the head and quite strikingly flecked through with grey. Momentarily, Cat wonders who he might be. But she knows he’s not a rider so her interest wanes.

Anyway, I have to go. I have to find the salle de presse. I’m working. It’s my job.

Ben watches her leave, rather gratified by the fact that he’ll see her again over the next three weeks.

Thursday. Salle de presse. 1 p.m.

Starving hungry, Cat’s appetite disappeared on entering the press room. Dread instead filled her stomach until fear was a hard lump in her throat and panic was a terrible taste to the tongue. She felt immediately that she had been transported back to Durham University, that she had just entered a vast exam hall and was ten minutes away from the start of her finals. The comparison was apposite but, as in an anxiety dream, disconcertingly twisted too. Noise. Too much of it. You can’t sit the test of your life amidst such a din. There again, you wouldn’t really sit your finals in northern France, in an ice rink requisitioned by the Société du Tour de France.

What had happened to the ice was initially of little relevance for Cat. Rather, she was transfixed by line upon line of connected trestle tables on which, at regular intervals, an army of laptops were positioned, gaping like hungry mouths eager to gobble down the information in any language as long as the topic was cycling. At the front and to either side, a brigade of industrial-sized televisions was mounted on tall stands, surrounding the journalists and perusing the scene like phantasmagorical invigilators.

If I’m not at Durham University, then I’m in a George Orwell novel or a Terry Gilliam film. Am I really at the Tour de France? It’s all so vast – anonymous, even. What on earth am I meant to do now? Where should I sit? This is my workplace for the next three days, how am I ever going to be able to concentrate?