Polly smiled at this – it nearly sent me unconscious, but she smiled, a pleasant little smile of alliance. Her duplicity turned my stomach.

Eddie picked up his pen and examined the flatplan that was laid on the table in front of him. ‘That happens. We’ve assigned pages for both. It would be great to get a sense of what they talked about, the kind of tone you’re going for. To make sure there aren’t any conflicts. What did you talk about with Alexander?’

I puffed out my cheeks. My heart was doing about two hundred beats per minute. ‘Phoo … lots of things.’

It was Eddie’s turn to smile, a mischievous, conspiratorial grin. ‘Sounds like Alex,’ he said. ‘One of God’s talkers – I bet you couldn’t believe your luck.’

‘Well, er,’ I said. It was true, I couldn’t believe my luck – Eddie had not heard anything from De Chauncey and my lie was temporarily intact. And I saw an opportunity. ‘That’s why transcribing has been such a challenge.’

‘Did he go into his background? That’s all quite interesting.’

Success had made me willing to gamble. Alexander De Chauncey – what could be read into a name like that? ‘I don’t know if the readers would care all that much about all that rich-boy stuff, to be honest.’

Eddie’s brows crashed together and his top lip wrinkled in disbelief. Error, error, abort, abort. ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘De Chauncey is interesting because he’s so different to that kind of story.’

The storm dispersed. ‘That’s what I thought. So what did he say to get your interest? What angle do you want to take?’

‘Property,’ I said, with a decisive little nod. ‘The property industry. In London.’

Eddie blinked. ‘Yes. Well, I should think so. But what in particular?’

‘In particular,’ I said, tasting the words, ‘he was … very interesting on giving a … general overview, taking in a lot.’

Eddie was nodding. ‘Top-down, eagle’s-eye stuff? On the industry?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Where it’s at. Where it might be going.’

‘What did he say about that? Where it might be going.’

‘He says …’ I stopped. Coming up with convincing lies was one thing, it would get me through the next couple of minutes. But I was also running up a bill for the future, placing demands and constraints on an interview that had not yet taken place, that had not even been arranged, and might never take place. If De Chauncey emailed today saying, ‘Sorry, I’m off to Miami for eight weeks, let’s do something in the summer,’ then I was stuffed.

‘It’s not quite there yet,’ I said, meaning to restrain the lie. It was getting away, pulling the boat. ‘Like I say, I’m doing follow-ups.’

Eddie narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean? I thought you said you had lots of material.’

‘Yes. Yes. But I really want to refine his central point, make sure I got it.’

‘What was that?’

‘What was what?’