‘Oh, Salvi,’ she says breezily. ‘He booked a table. You can go inside and wait.’

She turns, showing me her immaculately pert arse in her tight black dress, and leads me through the archway into a cramped and tiny low-ceilinged brick vault, damp and dusty and cobwebbed, but it’s beautiful. There’s a small bar set into the open brickwork at the end like a jewel, its optics glinting opal and amber. There are thick stubby candles in alcoves, fairy lights strung from the squat domed ceiling and oil lamps on each rough-hewn table. It’s hot down here; womb-like. Romantic and seductive and perfect for assignations between spies and lovers, getting up to all sorts in the glow and the dark.

The beautiful girl shows me to a table.

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘Someone will be over shortly to take your drinks order.’

She glides off through the vault, watched by a thousand hungry eyes. I perch on a stool and place my bag under it. I have purposely chosen the stool facing away from the room, like I always do, and, as I read the menu, I turn my head every few seconds to check if Salvi’s coming in.

It’s a young crowd in here tonight. The hipster men are all accompanied by young beauties – giggling and chatting, twiddling strands of hair around their fingers, huddling together for selfies. I see one being taken by two young women and a man in the corner, the phone held high. One of the women has hair like spun vanilla and sooty eyebrows like overfed tadpoles. On her mate’s phone she probably has bunny ears and a curtain of exploding love hearts raining down on her. I hate selfies. I have never knowingly been involved in one.

On my fifth head turn, with massive relief, I spot Salvi in the archway. He gives the beautiful girl at the podium a devilish smile and then he is laughing his way into the bar, touching arms and shoulders as he moves through the confined space, charming strangers with what look like gems of banter; gifts bestowed. He’s wearing jeans, a tight white T-shirt with some kind of silky scarf tied loosely round his neck. He diverts suddenly and bounds to the corner where he hugs Vanilla Selfie Girl, who beams from the folds of his scarf. She knows him? Then he is off again, making his torch-lit way to me, the middle-aged woman hiding in plain candlelight.

‘I’m not late, am I?’ His hair is smoothed and parted, his face looks like it has seen moisturizer; he smells of lemons and musk and warm Italian nights.

‘Well, technically you are,’ I say, looking at the watch I’m not wearing with a bravado I’m not feeling. ‘By ten minutes.’