The terse exchange was enough to cause Luke to glance over his shoulder at us and, as I turned to pick up my bag, I saw that Roger too had shown an uncharacteristic interest in our conversation. Neither said anything though, and the silence, before I spoke again, was arctic.

‘OK,’ I said, beginning to unpack my bag.

Cameron didn’t move and, after a moment, I looked up at him. ‘Was there something else?’

He hesitated and I was conscious of my heart rate upping to a rapid thud. ‘No,’ he said at last, ‘that’s it.’

I offered him a coldly dismissive nod and returned my gaze, if not my thoughts, to my bag. There then followed another second or two of near unbearable tension, before he turned and walked away.

Had I been alone in the office at that point, I would no doubt have collapsed in a relieved heap across my desk. But being in the company of colleagues, I instead remained rigidly upright, staring at my screen and attempting to appear immediately engrossed, determined to avoid both conversation and eye contact with either Luke or Roger for at least the next half hour.

That plan, however, was immediately scuppered by Luke.

‘Ruby left a message for you,’ he said quietly and with uncharacteristic solemnity, as he approached my desk and placed a yellow Post-it in front of me. ‘She said she’d messaged you a couple of times but hadn’t heard back.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said, checking my phone, ‘she has. I’ve had it on silent. I wonder what she wants,’ I murmured absently.

‘Maybe checking about coffee?’

I looked up at him and frowned, before my expression cleared and I slumped in my chair. ‘God, I completely forgot,’ I said wearily, keen to see Ruby but completely lacking the energy for it, or for anything else other than breathing and remaining conscious. ‘Thanks, I’ll message her.’

He nodded a little anxiously and then returned quickly to his desk, fearful, I assumed, of a renewed invitation to join us.

For a moment I considered telling him not to worry, because I certainly didn’t want to spend time with anyone who was such an ardent admirer of Cameron, either now or in the foreseeable future, and I couldn’t imagine that Ruby did either. But in the end, I decided that the fewer words Luke and I exchanged that day – or any day, for that matter – the better.

Chapter 14

After delivering a crushing hug, Ruby sat down opposite me at one of the blue, Formica-topped tables, located towards the back of the small, bordering-on-gloomy, cafe, which was just a few doors down from the practice. The food wasn’t great, the staff were miserable and the ambience was dire, but the unpopularity of the place had always made it our cafe of choice whenever we fancied a quiet, unobserved coffee and conversation.