What is going on with Luca? Cat wondered, walking fast to she didn’t know where. And Ben has suggested a drink to Josh. Is that why my work is slow today? Because I’m disconcerted? Some time with Rachel will be good.

She found a small café, ordered a latte and made a conscious decision to devote no more time to fretting about Luca, Ben, beer and her fabricated boyfriend.

I must head back and wrap up my report.

‘The bunch devoured the final 20 k of tarmac in twenty minutes flat,’ Cat marvelled out loud.

A very chic lady, sitting at the neighbouring table with a tiny dog on her lap and a Chanel handbag by her feet, looked at Cat. ‘That touch of wheels,’ she said, clearing her throat as if to lighten her accent to complement her very good grasp of English, ‘when the road drops with 500 metres to go!’

Cat smiled and nodded and suddenly her closing paragraph was clear. She asked for the bill but the lady waved her hand and insisted on paying. ‘Tomorrow,’ she asked Cat, ‘what are your thoughts?’

‘Keep an eye on Tyler Hamilton,’ Cat said.

‘Bonne chance, mademoiselle,’ the lady said.

‘Bonne chance, Tyler Hamilton!’ Cat laughed.

Cat slips back into the salle de pressé unnoticed by Josh and Alex, by anyone really. She doesn’t mind. She has work to do. She skims through the first chunk of her article and raps out the concluding paragraph with speed.

A touch of wheels with 500 m to go brought down the section of the peloton containing nearly all the key sprinters. While the speed meisters untangled themselves from each other, their lead-out men hammered ahead unaware. Luckily for Chris Boardman’s Crédit Agricole team, Australian Stuart O’Grady was not down under and utilized an excellent if wholly unintended lead-out from Zucca MV’s Gianni Fugallo to take the Stage. Fugallo looked simultaneously staggered and quite horrified to see the befreckled Antipode on his wheel instead of his dark duke Stefano Sassetta. Jesper Lomers and Stefano Sassetta hold on to the yellow and green jerseys respectively. The next two Stages will suit them well but the Time Trial on Saturday will suit their team leaders Fabian Ducasse and Vasily Jawlensky better.

<ENDS>

‘How bizarre,’ Cat says aloud, laying her palms on the trestle table and leaning back in the plastic chair.

‘Huh?’ mumbles Josh, swigging from one of the three Coke cans lined up in front of him.

‘You wha’?’ Alex mutters, not looking up from his laptop.

‘The Time Trial is on Saturday,’ Cat proclaims in a tone of disbelief. Her colleagues regard her. ‘Today is Wednesday – right?’ Alex and Josh look at each other. ‘How amazing!’ Cat declares.

‘What the fuck are you on?’ Alex asks, regarding her two cans of Orangina and a fairly decimated packet of Petit Beurre biscuits.

‘I forgot all about days,’ Cat says, offering the biscuits to the men. ‘To me, today is Stage 4, the day after tomorrow is Stage 6. None of this Saturday Sunday Solomon Grundy nonsense.’