‘Oh, yes, absolutely, you must.’ I kicked my discarded clothes underneath the settee, out of sight. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, water?’ I poked at the cellophane on one of the gift baskets. ‘Ashwagandha tea with ceremonial grade matcha and guarana extract?’

Rachel’s eyes rested on a bottle of vintage champagne chilling in an ice bucket on the coffee table ‘Here’s a suggestion,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go and put something on that isn’t a blanket, and I’ll open this.’

‘What if I haven’t got anything that isn’t a blanket?’ I asked cautiously. She picked up the bottle and nodded with approval at the label.

‘All the more reason to crack a bottle. Surely there’s a robe?’

‘Surely there’s a robe,’ I agreed, scuttling off into the blue bedroom and fishing around in the wardrobes until I found exactly what I was looking for, a plush white dressing gown with the name of the hotel embroidered on the chest. Nothing could be that bad when you were wearing a hotel robe, it was an unwritten law of the universe. Sliding my feet into the matching slippers I found tucked away in a corner, I returned to the living room feeling fractionally more human.

‘Come on then, what’s the story?’ Rachel handed me a glass of champagne and then settled on the settee closest to the window. ‘What’s she playing at?’

‘I would love to tell you but I really can’t.’

‘NDA?’

‘NDA.’

‘If it makes any difference, I signed one too, so if you felt compelled to vent, please know I am the soul of discretion,’ Rachel said with a wink as I sat in the armchair across from her, keeping the champagne as far away from my nose as possible. ‘Keeping people’s secrets is my second most valuable skill after applying liquid liner. But I understand, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.’

I set the champagne down on the table, even the smell of it was too much, and exchanged it for a miniature bottle of water.

‘Even if I could, I wouldn’t know where to start,’ I told her. ‘She isn’t here and she isn’t coming. That’s it, basically.’

Rachel looked flat out shocked.

‘Wait, you mean she’s not performing at the Crystal Ball? I just assumed she’d double-booked me.’

I shook my head but didn’t say a word. You only had to mention the words ‘chicken nuggets’ and your phone bombarded you with adverts for air fryers; who knew who was listening in to this conversation?

‘And you’re left to clean up her mess?’