‘I understand,’ said Jeremy. ‘It’s perfectly natural that you wouldn’t want anything to upset such a fine balance. I suppose the real question here is—’

Before he could complete that sentence, his phone buzzed and he glanced towards it. Normally, Jeremy would have switched it to silent until the meeting was over, but when he saw the name that appeared on the screen, he read the message carefully.

‘Who’s that?’ George asked.

‘My niece.’

‘Well, can you tell your niece to fuck off until I’ve left, please? You’re charging me by the hour here, remember?’

‘Sorry,’ replied Jeremy, sending a quick reply and setting the phone aside again. ‘Her parents broke up recently and—’

‘Jeremy.’

‘Sorry, yes. You were saying?’

‘I was saying that I’ve had my fun, but now I don’t want it to affect my life in any negative way.’

‘Do you want to play a part in the child’s life?’

‘Angela says that I can be as involved or uninvolved as I like. But as I pointed out to her, a lack of involvement is involvement. Just in a different form. Absence is presence.’

‘You could just stay away?’

George shook his head. ‘I couldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘If a child of mine has the bad manners to be born, then I have an obligation to be there. I may be an asshole, Jeremy, but I’m not a complete prick. And I suppose I’d like to know the little bastard, to watch him grow up and to be a part of his life. I’m not the world’s greatest father, I think my kids would attest to that, but I’m not the worst either. I do my best. I’m actually quite loving when given half a chance. But I can’t see how to do all this without Beverley finding out.’

‘You could just tell her the truth and throw yourself on her mercy?’

‘It would be less painful to throw myself on a pitchfork. And the divorce would be horrendous. She’d take half of everything and the newspapers would have a field day with it. They’re always looking to take me down a peg or two. And with the current temperature at the BBC, I’m not even sure that they’d back me. Although at least Angela is age appropriate.’

‘How old is she?’ asked Jeremy.

‘Thirty-eight.’

‘And you’re sixty.’

‘Well, that’s age appropriate, isn’t it? What do you expect, that I’ll have sex with a woman in her fifties? If I wanted to do that, I’d just go to bed with my wife.’

‘Can I offer you a piece of advice?’ asked Jeremy.

‘Of course you can. That’s what I pay you for, isn’t it?’

‘These types of conversations. Never have them with anyone else. Just with your legal representatives. Or a priest. No one else. Never in public and never within spitting distance of a live microphone.’