“Plus,” she adds, “Chris could have planted it.”

Damn. She’s right, of course.

I’m still not sure why I told Jemima I’d come. Well, except that I want to meet the chinless wonder of a boyfriend, look him in the eye, shake hands with the man who has no idea how his girlfriend is playing him. She has booked the terrace of some bar in Stockwell, somewhere that had once been a bit of a dive before COVID had shut it down. But some enterprising young hipsters had bought the place and spent a small fortune making it COVID-secure. More than just spacing the seating out a bit, they’d strung some fairy lights around the traffic bollards used to carve out an area that was previously a public footpath, and whacked out some little tables to create the so-called terrace area.

Then they started a trend called “Pandemic Chic.” Cocktails named after previous outbreaks: one with a Jägermeister base called Black Death; a modernization of sangria they called Spanish Flu; there was even a Bloody Mary garnished with pork scratchings instead of celery, named—yes, you guessed it—Swine Flu. The staff all wore full hospital PPE: gowns, masks, face shields, hair hidden beneath surgical caps. The whole thing was macabre. People flocked to the place.

I’m late. On purpose. I don’t want to be there for the flurry of awkward arrivals as everyone tries to do that stupid elbow bump. I think I might be too late though. Jemima has been drinking Black Deaths all night and her tongue is stained a deep blueish-purple like a bruise. She is stumbling toward me. “Jeremy!” She pauses to get the attention of a gaggle of similar-looking women in their late twenties, all aristocratic features and overly dyed hair. “My boss is here!” And then she launches herself at me. Luckily her boyfriend—Chester or Boris, or some other such name, I don’t really care—intercepts her and pulls her away to sit her down before she makes a complete fool of herself.

One of the friends, she seems a little more sober than the others at least, comes over. “Jeremy?”

“Eh, yes?”

“I’m Charlie.” She extends her hand to me and for a split second I wonder if she’s expecting me to kiss it, but then she pulls it back in close to her body. “Forgot about social distancing.” She grins and playfully slaps her own hand. “Naughty!” There is something there, hidden beneath the haughty veneer, like she knows a secret that she’s itching to tell. “You’d better buy me a drink.” She turns and begins to walk over to the bar in the far corner.

I follow because I don’t know anyone else here and to be fair, I am very much in need of a drink. Plus, Charlie has the kind of arse you only get from a vigorous horse-riding hobby and I am enjoying the view as I walk behind her. She stops suddenly and spins on her toes to face me.