‘There you have it,’ Felicity announced, removing her pink oven gloves with a flourish. ‘A deliciously decadent fabulous four-cheese lasagne, made with fresh homemade perfect pasta.’

‘Cut,’ shouted David, and the silent studio erupted into life. ‘That’s a wrap for the day, everyone. Felicity, darling, that was marvellous as usual. How you manage to look so damn sexy serving cheesy pasta is beyond me.’

Esme Kendrick watched as they exited the studio. As a food technologist, she’d done all the cooking this morning: chopped all the ingredients, grated the different cheeses, made a velvety béchamel sauce. She’d even made the pasta at the crack of dawn before the greedy pigeons had started cooing, getting up in the dark and padding about in the cold kitchen as a wintery wind blustered around the apartment. It was November, and as cold as a penguin’s flipper outside, but to Esme November meant nearly Christmas, and there was something different about London at Christmas time. Everyone was a little friendlier, a little kinder, and with parties and celebrations the city was alive with a kind of electricity. After a rushed cup of coffee, she’d made her way to work, with the great strings of Christmas lights swinging above, glittering in the winter gloom. The lasagne, complete with a perfect golden-brown finish, had then been presented to the world as the handiwork of TV goddess, Felicity Fenchurch. In reality, all Felicity had done was smoulder at the camera and mix things in a bowl.

‘I’m so nervous,’ Esme said to Helena, her best friend and a fellow food technician. ‘Why am I so nervous about pitching Grandma’s double-layer chocolate chestnut cake to Sasha?’

Helena brushed her dark brown bob behind her ear. ‘Oh, I don’t know, is it because it’s your absolute favourite recipe of your gran’s? The one you make every year at Christmas, the one you never, ever stop talking about as soon as summer’s over and the weather gets even the slightest bit nippy. The one that—’

‘Yeah, maybe it’s that,’ Esme interrupted playfully. ‘Right, wish me luck. See you tomorrow.’

Sasha’s office was of the new modern glass variety that looks more like a greenhouse. As their producer, she was scary but fair. Never rude or patronising, not like Felicity, but she was a powerhouse – a confident, composed, I’ve-achieved-my-dreams-with-effort-and-hard-work kind of woman. The type you look up to and fear all at the same time. The glass wall, with a view onto the corridor, was lined with tall green plastic pot plants designed to make the place seem homely. Esme was just approaching the door and about to knock when she heard voices from inside. Peering through the dusty leaves of a banana plant, Felicity Fenchurch sat purring at Sasha discussing something oddly familiar.