Sophie nodded and shuffled her papers. ‘Social media can be a murky place at times,’ she remarked.

‘Au contraire, Sophie,’ said George, his face breaking into a broad smile. ‘Au contraire! What I have come to recognize is the sheer courage of these tireless crusaders, so brave that they dare not use their real names, and who cry tears of frustration as they tap-tap-tap away on the Twitter and the Facebook and the what-have-you, blaming me for making them feel unsafe.’ He leaned forward in the chair and pointed a finger at his host. ‘These audacious souls, these titans of fortitude, these paragons of virtue, they have held up a mirror to me, Sophie, and I have not liked what I have seen.’ He lowered his voice now and shook his head sadly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his eyes. ‘I have not liked it one little bit.’

‘He’s being sarcastic, isn’t he?’ asked Beverley, turning to her daughter. ‘He doesn’t mean a word of this.’

‘You think?’ she replied.

‘I understand you have a message that you want to impart to the transgender community,’ continued Sophie, who appeared to be getting an instruction in her earpiece, because her attention wasn’t fully on her guest now.

‘I do,’ agreed George. ‘I certainly do.’ He turned towards the camera again with a smile, as if he was about to welcome Barbra Streisand on his chat show. ‘I want to say that I extended the hand of support to one of your number, I wished her well on her journey and encouraged others to be empathetic, considerate and kind. I tried to do something positive in a cruel, cruel world. But I see now that this was an outrageous act on my part and I fully accept that I was in the wrong. I think my producer, Ben Bimbaum, a homosexual of this parish, said it best when he said that I’m extremely sorry, that it was never my intention to offend and—’

‘George,’ said Sophie, butting in. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t sound as if you really mean any of this.’

‘Don’t I?’ he asked, sitting back in his chair and looking shocked.

‘No, it sounds a bit … well, mocking.’

George smiled and nodded his head. ‘There’s no getting one past you, is there, Sophie? That’s why you’re here in News and an old bigot like me is stuck in Light Entertainment! No, of course I don’t mean a word of it.’

‘Uh-oh,’ said Elizabeth, leaning forward now and setting her phone down on the arm of her chair.

‘Might I ask why not?’ asked Sophie.

‘Because it’s all a load of old nonsense, isn’t it?’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Look, everyone who has criticized me, both online and off, has claimed to be offended by what I said. But let me take you as an example. Were you offended, Sophie?’