‘OK, lunch break over,’ shouted Pavel, the director. ‘Back to work, guys. Ben, see if you can coax Her Highness back out …?’ His tone was pleading, and Ben took pity on him. Poor bastard – if it was difficult for Ben to act with Amy, it must be a bloody nightmare for Pavel having to direct her.

He strode across to Amy’s trailer, drawing admiring glances from all the female members of the crew. He really did look ridiculously handsome in his 1950s cream linen suit and panama hat with a navy-blue band around it.

‘Amy, sweetheart, time to get back to work.’ He knocked tentatively at the door.

‘Go fuck yourself.’ Oh, charming.

‘Come on, sweetheart. The sooner we finish this scene, the sooner we can get back to the hotel, and you can get back to Guru Mogadishu. We all know how spiritual you are, and you probably need to have your aura cleansed after such an exhausting day’s filming.’ It took all of Ben’s acting abilities not to sound as if he was smirking at this.

Amy had recently declared herself a Buddhist, and insisted on travelling everywhere with her own personal guru, with whom she meditated and practised yoga every morning and evening. The man was a flagrant charlatan, but he constantly massaged Amy’s ego, telling her that she was on a higher spiritual plane than everybody else, as well as being, it went without saying, immensely more beautiful and talented.

Ben could hear footsteps inside the trailer, and, sure enough, the door slowly opened.

‘Hurry up then, you asshole,’ Amy snapped at him. ‘I need to get this over with so I can get my chakras back in alignment. If you could try and get to the end of the scene without making any lame fuck-ups, I’d be grateful.’ And she waltzed back to the entrance of the restaurant.

Fuck you, mouthed Ben, flipping the finger at her retreating back. Several crew members who had witnessed this cracked up in silent laughter, giving him the thumbs-up and high-fiving him as he walked past. Ben was proving unexpectedly popular on location. He was professional and good at his job, with natural comic timing, and the contrast between his charming bonhomie and Amy’s incredibly stupid petulance was apparent to all.

In fact, Ben was still smarting from his encounter with Jennifer Jackson. How could he have got it so wrong? As a result, he had gained a little humility and lost just a touch of the old arrogance.

Back at the fish restaurant, Amy was sitting at an outside table, perusing the menu, Ben’s cue to spot her from the street. Her face, a picture a minute ago of spite and self-regard, shone with innocence and sweetness.

‘Take … Six!’

Ben sauntered down the street, hands in his pockets, whistling. As he caught sight of Amy outside the restaurant, he did a double take.

‘I say.’ He bowed slightly and doffed his panama. ‘Do excuse me for the interruption, but you look awfully familiar. Don’t I know you from somewhere …?’