I looked down at my salmon, having suddenly lost all appetite for it. ‘So this is Alison’s idea?’ I asked, my buried resentment towards her in imminent danger of exploding to the surface.

‘Don’t stress about it. He’s not going to be there for long and if he didn’t come out with us, Roger and Luke might—’

‘I don’t care what Roger and Luke might,’ I interrupted. ‘And I’m not sure why you do either.’

‘Look, they’re not the only ones on Alison’s mind,’ she continued after a slight pause. ‘You are too. She doesn’t know that I’ve confided in you – and she mustn’t know that,’ she added hurriedly. ‘We’d all agreed to keep this confidential, OK?’

I frowned angrily.

‘Promise me you won’t ever mention it to her, Edie,’ she said pleadingly. ‘It could reopen a whole can of worms for me.’

‘Of course I won’t mention it. But it’s hard to sit by and witness all this crap. It’s so unjust.’

‘No one thinks that more than me, but I have to be pragmatic about it and I just want everything and everyone,’ she said pointedly, ‘to calm down and move on. It’s in my best interests.’

‘How is it in your best interests?’ I exclaimed. ‘I can see how it might be in his best interests, but our office politics isn’t your responsibility, or even relevant to you after today, and none of this is your fault. It’s your last day and your leaving drinks and you should decide who’s invited and who isn’t.’

‘Agreed,’ she said simply.

‘So why on earth are you inviting him?’ I asked, losing the battle to remain calm and throwing up my hands in exasperation. ‘He hasn’t admitted his guilt and apologised, has he? So you can’t be up for forgiving and forgetting.’

‘I’m not,’ she said, ‘but I am up for not making a difficult and potentially damaging situation any worse than it already is. It does me no good to gain a reputation for being difficult to work with. I need to maintain networks and focus on avoiding any negative impact on my career. Cameron and I both know exactly what happened; he’s nervous about that and that’s enough for me.’

I stared at her, not knowing what to say in response. She had told me a week earlier that she admired Alison’s career pragmatism but, until that moment, I hadn’t realised that she shared it to quite such a degree.