‘No more fruit juice for Precious,’ she told the waiter, indicating the Chinese girl.

‘You use bar names,’ I said, and she smiled. I looked at her face, thinking of the men she had been linked with. JFK and Reggie Kray and Errol Flynn. Everybody’s dead, I thought, everybody except her, and I wondered which one of them was the father of her child. I nodded at the Chinese girl as she attempted to climb on to a barstool.

‘Her name’s not Precious,’ I said. ‘Not outside of the Hopewell Centre. But why do you use bar names if nobody knows they’re here?’

‘Convention. Call me old-fashioned.’ I felt she was beginning to lose patience with me. As if I was asking too many questions. I wanted to get my phone back and bring down all hell on this old crone. ‘Have you made your choice yet, Mr Dempsey?’

‘I like her,’ I said. ‘Precious.’

‘She’s a new arrival. I’m not sure we’re going to keep her on, to be honest. Why don’t you try someone else?’

‘I like her,’ I said.

She narrowed her eyes and gave me that blazing white smile.

‘Of course you do.’

Madam Theresa clapped her hands and it sounded as vicious as a slap.

The Chinese woman came over, moving as if she was in a dream, the wedding dress trailing behind her. Madam Theresa took her arm, and I saw the girl flinch with pain as the old woman shook her like a dog with a dying rat.

‘If you upset anyone else tonight I am going to be very cross with you, Precious,’ she said, turning to me as if we had exhausted all of our small talk. She could have been a market trader losing patience with a dozy customer. ‘Do you want a room or the bar fine?’ she said sharply.

‘Room. Let’s see how we get on.’

We stood up just as a door opened down the corridor.

Bianca from the Champagne Room walked out with two Korean businessmen. The men went to the bar, laughing among themselves, while Bianca stood there smiling at me.

I felt my stomach fall away as she came over. I had stopped breathing.

‘Max!’ she said.

I stared at Bianca while Madam Theresa stared at me.

‘I think you’re mistaking Mr Dempsey for someone else,’ she said, not taking her eyes off me. ‘Don’t stand around with your pretty mouth open, dear.’ She clapped her hands again, an edict that must be immediately obeyed. ‘Your friends are waiting.’

Bianca joined the two Koreans at the bar, glancing over her shoulder at me, smiling uncertainly. Precious was talking to herself in Chinese.

‘Room four,’ Madam Theresa told the waiter.

‘Follow me, sir.’