I didn’t see much more of Giles over the weekend, spending the rest of Saturday and half of Sunday in Hungerford at a small meet-up of university friends. When I did finally see him, he appeared fine and, as for his heartache over Kerry, he didn’t raise the subject and neither did I.

While I had little doubt that his silence on the matter was due to a wish not to be a bother, my reasons for an uncharacteristic display of discretion and self-control were quite different. Having agreed not to discuss Kerry’s relationship status with either herself or Nicky, I was desperate to avoid giving Giles any opportunity to extend the moratorium on discussion to include anyone else – such as Cameron’s friends, for example. And having succeeded in that aim, I arrived in the office at eight fifteen on Monday morning with a steaming cup of coffee in my hand and a determination to grill the hell out of loose-lipped Luke.

‘Morning!’ I said brightly, placing the coffee on his desk before staggering to my own to offload my multiple bags.

‘You’re a Monday marvel,’ he smiled, picking up the cup and saluting me with it. ‘But why the early start today? Playing catch-up again?’

‘No,’ I said, sitting down. ‘I just thought I’d get going and make the most of the day. Maybe leave on time for once.’

He looked at me with something approaching suspicion. ‘Well, thanks for this,’ he said, blowing on his coffee.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Where’s yours?’

‘My what?’

‘Your coffee.’

I glanced around my desk. In my haste to get to the office before Cameron arrived, I’d forgotten to buy myself a cup.

‘Didn’t want one,’ I said quickly. ‘So anyway,’ I glanced up at the office clock, ‘how was your weekend? I met up with my old uni flatmates. Wonder what everyone else was up to. Wonder what Roger did. And Alison.’ I laughed lightly and shook my head. ‘She’s such an enigma, isn’t she? And Cameron, he’s a bit of an enigma too. I wonder who he sees and what he gets up to. I wonder…’ I looked at Luke. ‘Any ideas?’

‘About what? That was a very long sentence,’ he said, sipping his coffee, ‘with a helluva lot of wondering in it.’

I clenched my teeth into a smile. ‘Start with Cameron. What kind of thing do you think he does at the weekend? And with whom,’ I added significantly.

Luke shrugged. ‘Well, he went to that gig with you, didn’t he? So that’s that one answered: he listens to shit music with needy types. Alison’s way more interesting.’

I looked again at the clock. Cameron would be in soon and if we sidetracked onto Alison, I’d have to take Luke to lunch to get anything useful out of him before home-time. ‘Yes, yes, she is an interesting character.’