But when she got through to Callum he barely had time to talk: he had been called on, at the last minute, to referee a football match between Denham Hall and St Lucian’s.

Tamsin immediately adopted the impatient, faintly contemptuous tone now familiar to her interactions with Callum.

‘There are bigger things in life than prep-school football,’ she told him.

‘And this is my job,’ Callum said steadily. ‘I can’t not do it. Give Chris my very best, will you?’ It cost him a lot, this calmness; but it was what he had decided – never to let her suspect his suspicions.

As soon as they had finished talking, Tamsin called Chris back.

‘I’m so sorry, Cal’s being lame, he can’t make it – some stupid football match or something.’

‘No, it’s my fault,’ said Chris. ‘I should have sorted all this much earlier.’

‘So, do you want to … I mean, you maybe don’t want to bother, if it’s just going to be me?’ She knew she was fishing, shamelessly, for a compliment he had no choice but to give; but she was still thrilled when he told her not to be ridiculous, that it would be great to see her.

* * *

Chris brought roses: a bunch of phony-looking cultivars in off-white fading out to liquorice red at their tips, as if they’d been dipped in ink. The idea had seemed harmless enough in the M&S at Liverpool Street. As he queued with his single can of Coke, he noticed that most of the other men in the queue were holding flowers. Beside each cashier was a bucket of cellophane-wrapped bouquets, ready to be snatched up as an afterthought, like chewing-gum or cigarette lighters. On the tube ride to Notting Hill he had enjoyed being one of the Valentine-bearing masses, a good-looking young man in a sharply cut black coat, on his way – as far as his fellow passengers were concerned – to meet the love of his life.

Waiting on the doorstep with the flowers, however, the gesture suddenly struck Chris as horribly inappropriate, open to all kinds of misinterpretation.

‘Sorry, just a silly impulse, seemed a shame to come empty-handed on Valentine’s day.’

‘Thank you, they’re gorgeous,’ Tamsin lied, accepting the roses and kissing Chris on both cheeks.

In the kitchen she made a pot of Earl Grey and found a vase for the roses. Chris stood with his back to the Aga, strangling his mug with his lovely big hands. When Tamsin had finished arranging the flowers she placed the vase in the middle of the table and sat down.

‘Sorry to hear about you and Leah,’ she said.

Chris scrutinised the bottom of his mug as he prepared to deliver his lines with the dolour he imagined Tamsin was expecting from him.

‘Thanks,’ he said. He looked up, swallowed, looked down again.

‘You doing okay?’