While Granville fiddles on his computer, still standing up, and we hear the last breakfasters process down the passage towards the hall, I look around the walls. I’ve never been in Granville’s study before and, with the Tavistock news, I find myself trying to gauge his hinterland. There are photographs, big pictures of Granville with Branson at Necker, Granville with Murdoch in Hong Kong, etc. but nothing to denote that Granville is in touch with his ego or his id or whatever, so I begin to wonder whether it’s for real, whether Granville can really afford to give up whatever it is he does to listen to other people’s problems for hours.

Meanwhile, Granville carries on giving me the lowdown on the late arrivals. Obviously, I don’t mention the letter that I couldn’t help reading on his screen, but I do sort of look at him with fresh eyes. ‘Going back to the baron, I said to Esmond, a few weeks ago, I said, “Who d’you want to bring to the shoot today, old chum, mmm?” ’ Granville is standing over the printer now, running off something I presume is the letter. ‘The baron takes the house and the shoot for a weekend every year, and I know, because the beaters tell me, that when he does, there’s no shortage of young and beautiful women around, but no Jacqueline, if you get my drift.’

‘Yes I do,’ I say, almost forgetting about the Tavistock, loving it.

‘And he said, all hoity, “When I pay, I invite whom I like, but when you invite me, as a guest, then, of course, I bring my wife.” ’

Now, around two hours later, Maddocks is taking up a position behind the trestle table, ready to dispense tea and soup into tin cups, and the men have started ambling towards us, guns broken, some bringing dead birds by the neck to give to the beaters, others lighting up cigars.

I reach out for a sandwich.

‘This is elevenses, Mimi,’ Rose says, as she takes small sips from a mug of grouse soup laced with sherry, ‘go easy! There’s still the Shooting Lunch.’ Her voice suggests this is a ritual on the same scale as Christmas Dinner. I notice Rose is looking at my bulk underneath the anorak with a slightly beady eye. ‘So leave room, I would.’

So I hold back, and only have soup and a packet of crisps, but I notice that all the guns and the beaters fall on the provisions as if they haven’t eaten for days, and neck long cans of ale, but still put plenty of distance between us and them.