Aidan was a teacher and worked in a big comprehensive near our home in Balham. We’d been together for four years, having been introduced by my matchmaking mother who was one of his colleagues.

‘I’ll see you when I see you then,’ Aidan said. ‘And try not to get too tipsy. There’s still a big stain on the carpet from the last time you rolled in drunk.’

I laughed and told him that I loved him, then put the phone back in my shoulder bag.

‘From the sound of it, things are still great on the home front,’ Kate said.

I nodded. ‘It couldn’t be better. We’re a good match, and thankfully Aidan’s pretty understanding about all the unsocial hours and stuff.’

‘You’re lucky. I’ve come to the conclusion that good men are a dying breed.’

Kate had been bitter and cynical about men ever since I’d known her, but I had some sympathy. Her marriage came to a brutal end after only two years when she found her husband – a fellow detective working at the same station – in bed with another woman, for whom he promptly left her.

What compounded her suffering and humiliation was the fact that most of their colleagues had known he’d been having an affair for months and no one had told her.

But the sorry saga did not end there. Two months after walking out, her husband died in an accident outside his new home when he was struck by a car that mounted the pavement. So grief was suddenly added to Kate’s emotional burden.

‘Are you seeing anyone at the moment?’ I asked tentatively.

She shook her head. ‘I was going out with a bloke until a couple of weeks ago. He was some kind of financial adviser, and that was the problem. He kept trying to get me to part with money. When he said he could double my savings I realised he was a wrong ’un and told him to sod off.’

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, but then it was a familiar story. I knew a couple of other middle-aged women who’d had similar experiences on the dating scene.

‘I made the mistake of telling that lech Tony Marsden that I was single again,’ Kate said. ‘And he had the cheek to ask me if I wanted to go out for a drink with him.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told him that I wasn’t that bloody desperate and that he should be ashamed of himself.’

I grinned. ‘I’m sure he’s heard that before.’

‘Maybe so, but the slimy toerag then said I didn’t know what I was missing.’

We both laughed and I went on to tell her about how Marsden tried it on with me at the last Christmas do.