‘Did you know the “T” stands for tittle?’ I asked, my right leg bouncing up and down. Sarah arched her left eyebrow without moving any of her other features. ‘And tittle is an old English word for the tiniest amount? I love words, I love language. Reading is one of my favourite things. You can’t go wrong with a book, can you? Unless the book isn’t very good, I suppose, but you can always learn something from a book, even a bad one. I didn’t love Fifty Shades of Grey but I doubt there’s anyone who read that and came away without learning anything, even if it was only about contract law.’

She stared across the desk, cool, calm and even.

‘Anything else you’d like to share?’

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, shaking my head instead. Silence was, after all, golden.

‘Good,’ Sarah said, pushing aside my CV and clicking at something I couldn’t see on her computer screen. ‘Let’s get down to it. The NDA you signed gives us legal protection against leaks, but I’d rather not have to sue anyone else out of existence. Quite frankly, it’s a lot of paperwork and I’m busy enough as it is.’

I pressed my palm down on my knee, trying to calm my jitters. This was starting to sound less and less like your average assistant job. Who exactly had they sued out of existence? I felt a sudden longing for one of Suzette’s morning muffins, slightly concerned I might be getting into something out of my depth.

‘I’ve already run a background check and everything came up clean. Either you’re very good at keeping out of trouble or very good at keeping trouble away from you. Which is it?’

‘The first one?’ I replied as I rubbed at the gold band on my right hand. ‘Sorry, you ran a background check? On me?’

‘Standard procedure,’ Sarah said, as though it was a perfectly normal thing to tell someone. ‘Don’t worry, we didn’t find anything incriminating.’

Make that two morning muffins and a vanilla slice chaser. Was this an interview for a temp position or was I being vetted to join MI5? I was good at languages and very much enjoyed listening in on other people’s conversations, but I was a shit poker player and couldn’t be in the sun for more than ten minutes before I turned into a lobster, and they both seemed like factors that would get in the way of my obtaining double ‘0’ status. When was James Bond not titting around on a beach somewhere?

‘You’re not very active on social media, are you?’

‘More of a lurker than a poster,’ I replied, wondering if she had found that photo of the two sheep doing it as funny as I had when I posted it in 2016. ‘Could we talk more about this background check?’

‘No.’