‘I wasn’t,’ she said. ‘This was the one and only occasion on which such a thing happened. And this one shouldn’t have, either. But if it hadn’t, I would never have had my darling Scarlet, and I wouldn’t have been without her, no matter what I had to put up with.’

Pip’s smirk slipped. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. Her whole demeanour had altered. ‘Was it against your will?’ Her voice was so low that Evelyn could barely make out her words.

‘No, no,’ Evelyn replied. ‘It wasn’t rape. But I’m not sure I entirely agreed to it.’

‘Then that’s rape, surely?’

‘Oh, Pip,’ replied Evelyn with a sigh. ‘Things are rarely ever that straightforward.’

Pip sat up straighter in her chair. ‘Well, that is,’ she said sharply. ‘There is no doubt. You either consented or you didn’t. There are no half measures.’

Evelyn wasn’t at all sure she was right. ‘Well, I went into his room willingly. When he suggested we had sex, I was a little shocked. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I was more naive than anything, I suppose. I thought it was a business meeting, you see. I had no idea . . .’

Pip’s mouth fell open and creases appeared across her smooth brow. ‘What exactly happened, Evelyn?’ she asked, her tone suddenly very serious. She shifted forward in her chair, her spine straight and her eyes boring straight into Evelyn’s.

Evelyn felt a little as if she were being interviewed. Was this how Pip dealt with her clients? She shuffled a little and let her eyes fall to the Formica table between them. ‘It’s all such a long time ago,’ she said vaguely, but Pip was having none of it.

‘Come on, Evelyn. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you can’t remember?’

Evelyn could see she was on a hiding to nothing taking that line. So she took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. ‘His name was Rory MacMillan and he was the producer of a television show that I’d been cast in. My agent thought I had the part in the bag, but he told me I had to go to a meeting at Mr MacMillan’s hotel to go over some final details.’

Evelyn surprised herself by using such a formal description of the man. People didn’t really do that these days. The use of titles had fallen by the wayside and yet, despite everything, Evelyn felt compelled to use his. Pip’s expression altered minutely, but she didn’t stop her.

‘When I got there, he asked me if I wanted a drink, and then one thing led to another and we ended up having sex.’

‘But you didn’t want to?’ asked Pip.