The Royal can just about manage a competent English breakfast. I remember Sandra’s frugality on Tuesday, but today she has blown diet to the winds and loads up on fried proteins and bread. I make do with orange juice and muesli, returning a second time to the buffet for a prohibited Danish, all sugar and starch. I need to replenish lost energy if I am going to continue at this pace.

‘We are meeting to discuss your future,’ I remind her. ‘Let’s dispense with preliminaries. I’m offering you a job.’

‘What makes you think I’m available?’ she retaliates.

‘You tell me.’

‘Well, I’m in a dead-end position that was created for me by the General Purposes Committee so that I can take time off to be Olly’s dogsbody at his evening dos and not feel too hard done by. My youngest has just started secondary school and my husband wants to run for Parliament but won’t get selected. Yes, I might just be prepared to consider a lucrative alternative. What’s on offer?’

‘How much are you earning at the Council?’

‘Fourteen four,’ she replies, meaning fourteen thousand four hundred pounds a year, before income tax, national insurance and compulsory pension contributions – say, a hundred and forty take-home a week. A pittance, in plain English.

‘You have been knowingly undersold,’ I tell her.

‘What am I worth?’ She smiles coquettishly.

‘Twenty basic, plus a share of profits.’

Her colour rises and drops like the thread of a thermometer. Is she too transparent for my kind of work? My doubts are balanced by the booster-rocket of her pent-up ambition.

‘What’s involved?’ she demands. ‘Nothing illegal, I hope.’

‘More immoral than illegal,’ I chortle. ‘We’re talking music business.’

I give her the broad outline of my grand plan. I am setting up a new subsidiary, Simmonds Artists, and I shall need her to run an office in Tawburn, looking after our first signings, Olszewska and Stemp – along with another performer whose identity I will disclose in due course. She will also look after northern sales of Simmonds scores and instruments to provide cashflow. She will also maintain contacts with conservatories to monitor new talent and she will visit London weekly to report and co-ordinate with me.

She will receive, on top of salary, twenty per cent of net profits from any artists she signs. If the business prospers, she will be made a partner in two years, with the right to buy out my share when I retire.

‘When do I start?’ she beams.

‘How much notice do you need to give in your present job?’

‘A statutory month, but I am owed six weeks’ holiday. If I call in sick today, I can drop a letter of resignation at the town hall and start working for Simmonds in about two hours flat.’

‘What about your husband?’

‘Olly knows I can’t bear the bloody Council any more.’