‘And while you’re waiting for it all to take off, you wear nylon shirts and pour champagne. Very beautifully, in both cases, I must say.’

‘That? No, love, I was just helping out for a friend who runs the events company. We’re working together on a few projects.’

He was lying, she could tell, but it didn’t really matter. He was good looking enough to overlook that sort of bullshit for a night or two.

‘Coming back to our mutual friend . . .’

‘Oh yeah. She’s a designer, right?’

‘You could say that. Do you read Vogue at all?’

‘Do I look as if I do?’ He put an arm along the back of the chair, and gave her a good look down the front of his shirt. He was close enough to kiss, if she so wished.

‘Frankly, no.’

‘Damn right.’ He smelt nice – a woodsmokey sort of smell. She could count the individual hairs in his thick dark eyebrows, and had an urge to run her tongue along his jawline. ‘It’s not her, really. I mean, I met her.’

‘So you don’t really know her at all.’

‘No.’ It was just a line, then. A pathetic attempt to . . . ‘I know her mum.’

‘Her mum?’

‘Yeah. Christine.’ Those thick, dark eyebrows knitted together in a frown.

‘The barrister?’

‘That’s the one.’ He leaned a little closer. ‘Fucking bitch,’ he whispered, and moved in for the kiss. Victoria did not push him away.

The crowd parted a little, allowing Jessica Rodean to walk into the room, then to stop, turn and brush her hair back; she may have retired from the runway when she married a millionaire, but she’d never stopped modelling. She saw Isabelle, and put her hands to her face as if in surprise, although, as every film critic and pitifully few moviegoers knew, her acting talents had not been enough to sustain even a one-film career.

‘Isabelle Cissé!’ She tapped her little fists together in front of her face. ‘Wow! I love your stuff! I’m wearing you!’

‘Thank you,’ was all Isabelle could think of to say, and then she was interrupted by a high-pitched scream from Jessica, as a camera fired off multiple flashes. The cameraman, having got the shot he’d been paid to get, legged it up the stairs.

‘Oh,’ said Jessica, entirely unconvincingly, ‘I thought they told me that we’d be safe in here. I really must have a word with security.’ She waved her hand around in a rather royal gesture, as if ‘security’ would suddenly manifest at her side. ‘Well, Isabelle Cissé, I hope you don’t mind me gushing, but I just think you’re marvellous. Absolutely marvellous.’

‘That’s very kind of you . . . This is Will Francis, my business partner.’