‘Great,’ Ruby says. ‘Then all we have to do is go to the venue, you show me the room and the exact spot you saw them doing it, what they were doing and how. I’ll take more photos, then manipulate them together, creating a seamless image of them in all their glory.’

‘Glory?’ Lauren says, not liking that.

‘Sorry, how about shameful glory?’ Ruby says, correcting herself. Lauren seems happier.

‘Do you think you can do that?’ Risky asks Ruby.

‘A hundred per cent, if you’ll tell me what you saw. Are you in?’

Again, Risky puts up no resistance.

‘I’ll pay you,’ Lauren says, sweetening the deal even more. ‘Five grand, each, for your help. I realise this is asking a lot.’

Risky might as well lie on the floor and start masturbating. She is all over this.

Ruby has stiffened a little. ‘Ten grand for me, I think, don’t you? I am the artist.’

‘Wow, OK. For you ten grand. I am paying for your silence. Everyone in?’ Lauren asks, looking much more excited than offended.

‘Well, that’s way more exciting than signing more of those NDAs,’ I say. ‘What will you do with the picture?’ I ask Lauren.

‘I’ll use it to get Gavin to stop making me out to be a fucking lunatic, that’s what. I’ll threaten him with it. Say I’ll post it if he doesn’t stop. His image is everything to him, he won’t be able to cope with that. All I want him to do is clear my name, that’s it.’

‘OK, I’m in,’ I say. That money will mean I can take even more time off to be with Tommy.

‘Me too,’ confirms Risky.

‘Great, let’s just get it done,’ Lauren says, ordering an Uber. The four of us head back to the venue, Tommy strapped to my chest in the carrier like my little partner in crime.

Ruby

‘OK, which room was it?’ I ask them, as we all make our way down the corridor like the kids from Scooby-Doo.

‘In here,’ Risky says, opening a door that leads into a library-type room. ‘They were over there,’ she adds, and I am pleased that the table they were leaning against is in front of a window. That will allow me to use the intensity of natural light to blur the minute details of the parts of the photo that I have to create. Like Mayra’s thighs, for example. I don’t have any photographs of her with her trousers down, obviously. I will have to improvise.

‘Right, who wants to be Gavin, and who wants to be Mayra?’ I ask the group.

‘I might sit this one out, if that’s OK?’ Lauren asks.