The sickness eased after her spell in the toilet and she passed the afternoon researching Warburton’s life and career from cuttings and library books. She’d spent several years working for the UK’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva, and Sylvia wondered what she thought of Switzerland and its record on women’s rights. What it felt like to have risen so high in a predominantly male profession, and to have made such an impact at the Foreign Office that the prime minister made you an ambassador, the first British woman to take up such a prestigious post. How she felt about working for an organisation that, until just a few years ago, would demand she resign if she married. Is that why she never had? There was so much she wanted to ask her that she almost didn’t know where to begin.

Roger stalked over to her desk in the early afternoon. ‘Tallis, a word.’ He retreated to his glass lair, clearly expecting her to follow.

She threw a glance at Max, who pulled a face she couldn’t interpret.

‘Denmark. Change of plan. I’m going to send Max Harmer instead,’ he said when she closed his office door after her.

‘I’m sorry?’ Sylvia’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Why is that?’

‘Because I can’t send a pregnant woman on a foreign assignment.’

Her stomach plummeted and she felt heat rise up her neck. ‘I was going to tell you.’

‘Well, someone else did first,’ he said, reprimand in his tone. ‘And congratulations on tying the knot, by the way.’

Her brain raced through the people who knew about her pregnancy and precipitated wedding and she only came up with one who would also have the means to slip a quiet word to her boss over a drink in the pub: Jim. But surely not; surely reliable, kind Jim wouldn’t do that to her.

She thought back to the morning after their argument. He’d said little as they got up, showered, rummaged in overflowing suitcases for their least creased clothes and tried not to set the bread on fire under a grill they weren’t yet used to. He’d kissed her as he went out the door before her, affection on his face, and she’d thought he was over it. After all, Jim was a calm, rational person. It was one of the things she sometimes found infuriating about him – a fire could be raging inside her over some issue or other, but he could always douse it with his calmness. So she’d figured he’d think it through and see she was right, and she would go to Copenhagen as planned.

‘Who told you?’