‘I didn’t see you there,’ he said. ‘Sorry for the language. Good job I didn’t break my leg on your impedimenta, that’s all. It’s the first Meet tomorrow.’

Helen nodded politely, evidently not understanding, and Oliver grinned at her as he scrambled up. She saw that there was a long scrape in the high polish of his boots, and had to resist the impulse to kneel down and rub the blemish off such a vision of perfection. At close quarters Oliver Mortimore was not only the most beautiful but also the most physical man she had ever encountered. He radiated such confidence, such highly-charged animal pleasure in his own existence, that set her skin tingling in response. He made Helen feel hot, and shapeless inside her clothes. Oliver held out his hand. He was six inches taller than Helen, but it felt like twice that.

‘I’m Oliver Mortimore,’ he said lightly. ‘Who are you, and why don’t I know you?’

‘I know who you are,’ Helen countered. ‘You don’t know me because there’s no particular reason why you should. My name’s Helen Brown.’

‘And what are you doing at Follies, Miss Brown?’

Helen moved forward under his gaze to pick up one of the scattered boxes.

‘What I’m doing is moving in. I’m going to live here for a year.’

Oliver was staring at her now with undisguised interest.

‘Oh really? You’re not in the usual run of socialites and harpies that Rose collects around her, are you?’

He was so clearly stating no more than the obvious that Helen found herself laughing with him.

‘I imagine not. Frances Page let me inherit her room. We’re friends,’ Helen told him crisply, ‘in a way.’

Oliver raised his eyebrows, but politely made no other comment on such an unlikely sounding friendship. ‘Ah, unlucky Fran,’ he said. ‘Perfectly okay for one’s own use, of course; but not very clever to start dealing in the stuff. Still, if you’re a girl with expensive tastes and no cash, like Fran, the books do have to be balanced somehow.’

Helen looked away. She didn’t care to hear muddled, aristocratic, silly Frances spoken of so lightly. For the time that they had lived in adjacent College rooms, she had been a good friend to Helen. She hadn’t been sent to prison for what Helen thought of as her witless dabbling on the fringe of the cocaine-peddlers’ world, though she could have been. But she had been sent down from Oxford, and Helen missed her.

Oliver was counting up the remaining items of Helen’s luggage.

‘Cases, three; cardboard boxes, miscellaneous, secured with string, four. You can’t possibly manage all this yourself. Where’s bloody Gerry?’

He picked up the nearest box. ‘Oof, what’s in here? Rocks or something?’