But she had to admit, this felt newsworthy. At first it had been a novelty, the papers full of photos of swimmers in the Serpentine, city workers cooling their feet in Trafalgar Square’s fountains and Brighton’s beaches packed with weekenders escaping the city. But as the heatwave continued, day after day, touching ninety degrees, it was as though London was caught in a pressure cooker. She saw its effects in the office workers flaked out in St Paul’s churchyard every lunchtime, in the sluggish steps of pedestrians on Fleet Street, walking as though carrying the heat on their backs, and in the general irritation that seemed to have infected the office. Sharp voices down the telephone, arguments in the corridors, more expletives than usual, a constant hum of exasperation. It was surely the heat that had Roger stalking the newsroom like an injured bear, the heat that changed his demeanour from merely wearily gruff to downright angry, the heat that made him dismiss any feature idea she proposed in the weekly meetings without a hint of discussion. The progress she felt she’d made with her Switzerland feature had melted away like an ice lolly in the sun.

But of course it wasn’t just the heat. She was being punished, she knew, not only for letting the side down by being such a stereotypical woman as to put babies before career, but for losing the paper the Warburton interview. It turned out that Britain’s first female ambassador hadn’t taken kindly to being told the journalist who was gifted the UK media’s only interview with her wouldn’t be taking up the opportunity after all. Initially, after first Max and then Roger got off the phone to Warburton’s secretary, clearly bruised by the experience, Sylvia had allowed herself just the briefest moment of self-satisfaction.

See! she wanted to say, Warburton wanted me, not Max, so you should have let me go.

She even wondered, for a minute, if Roger would change his mind and send her after all, but he didn’t, and the opportunity was lost. It felt as if he’d been taking it out on her ever since.