Harrison Hipgrave opens his own door. It appears he has no staff. Certainly, no filing clerk. His office is messy. Papers piled high on every conceivable surface. Empty cans of soft drink. The furniture is tatty, albeit Harry is not. In real life, as opposed to in my vivid imagination, he isn’t so ridiculous as to be wearing a burgundy cravat and smoking jacket. He’s dressed in dark jeans and a khaki shirt. Tall, about six foot, his hair is lovely: thick, blonde and floppy. He’s a bit Harrison Ford, Indian Jones-ish – give him the accoutrements of fedora hat and cracking bullwhip, I can imagine him easily swinging over a pit of snakes, narrowly escaping a thundering boulder, in a booby-trapped temple of doom.

I give it two weeks before he and Faith are screwing each other senseless.

‘Come in,’ Harry says. In person, his voice is nowhere near as shrill as he sounded on the phone this morning. ‘Welcome to my world.’

He motions us through with an odd, circling arm swing. His hands are huge.

Inside, the walls are plastered with pictures of mostly attractive women, many in various stages of undress. It’s disappointing to note none are familiar to warrant the claim ‘Agent to the Stars’.

‘Not everyone gets up there,’ Harry says, noticing me staring – grimacing, I’m sure – at a particularly buxom blonde.

Some of them could be theatre stars. A few more are soapy-looking. Could be there are a few reality stars up there – I don’t watch enough television to know.

I smile sweetly.

Harry smiles warmly back at me. His skin is tanned. Sunbeds, judging from the crinkles around his eyes. Lovely eyes, though. Dark brown, bounded by bushy eyebrows and heavenly lashes.

He brushes past and his smell is intoxicating. As a chef, my olfactory senses are finely tuned. But I can’t, exactly, place Harry’s scent. Is it cedarwood? Smoky vanilla? Leather? Harry is wearing chunky leather boots. Whatever it is, it’s divine.

Nervous I might smell of sweaty old wine seeping through my pores, I shuffle slightly away, just in case.

‘Ladies, please, take a seat.’

Faith and I plop ourselves into a pair of squeaky green vinyl armchairs. In front of us is a big, old mahogany desk, on which sits a laptop and the messy piles of papers.

‘First, a confession.’ Harry stands across from us on the opposite side of the desk. ‘I’m a fan of your old show, Gracie.’ Harry is smiling broadly, and I’m not buying it. My typical viewer is female, over thirty and, generally, a retiree or a stay-at-home mum who’s parked their brood at school for the day. Harry may be smooth, but he’ll have to do better than this. ‘Absolutely loved what you did with those little pork medallions at the beginning of the series.’

‘The pork with thyme and rosemary marinade?’