McHenry Inc., her company, was based on the top floor of an old factory on the edge of Clerkenwell. They shared the building with an interior design company and a commercial solicitor’s office. It was bookended by an artisan coffee shop that had a cycling theme, and a shop that sold ceramics and art at eye-watering prices.

I went into the bright airy reception that served the whole building and a woman with very short, dark hair and bright red lips in a wide smile greeted me cheerily.

‘I’m here to see Anya at McHenry,’ I said, and she asked me to sign in, while she called via the switchboard.

I signed my name and hovered over the ‘From’ part of the visitors’ book. I had a childish urge to write something stupid like ‘NASA’ or ‘Hogwarts’ and concluded I had been hanging out with small children too much, so I just left it blank.

‘Okay, thanks, I’ll tell him,’ said the receptionist. She turned to me and her smile slipped by the tiniest degree.

‘Really sorry,’ she said. ‘But it seems she isn’t in today.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘Are you sure?’ It had to be a mistake. I mean, she’d told me she was going to work. If she wasn’t here, where was she?

She shrugged. ‘That’s what they said.’ Her expression became cooler. I struggled to remember the names of Anya’s colleagues.

‘Look, can you ask for Todd Bernstein, please?’ Todd was her immediate boss, an intense American man who always shook my hand for a bit too long, as though hoping to sell me something.

The receptionist murmured into the phone, her eyes down. I found myself opening and closing my fists, a nervous habit. I should have been at school, doing the job that was looking a bit shaky right now. Instead I had come all this way on a whim, for nothing. Plus, I had no idea where my own wife was. For a moment, as Todd emerged from the lift, a hesitant smile playing around his lips, humiliation was my uppermost thought and I contemplated feigning that I had just remembered where she was. But no, I needed information, however embarrassing this was.

‘Elliott,’ said Todd as I held out my hand for the customary over-shake. He didn’t disappoint, and I felt conscious of his crisp suit and ice-white shirt, some subtle aftershave wafting off him. ‘What can I do for you?’

I laughed, as though all this was a silly mistake. ‘Well, I think I got crossed wires with Anya this morning. Thought I would surprise her for lunch. Is she not here?’

Todd regarded me for a second and then gestured at the seated area.