I boarded my husband's private jet and his secretary was in my seat, feeding him peeled orange. His mother told me to be considerate. I stepped off. Then the crew asked whether I wanted the flight cancelled.

Nobody on that aircraft knew I was in the city. Daxon knew. Nobody else.

And I sat in that board meeting the following morning at nine, with coffee, forty minutes before anybody else arrived.

I watched them come in. Eleven people, in ones and twos, and every single one of them stopped for about half a second in that doorway.

Aurelio came in seventh. He did not stop. He is better at rooms than any of them.

Somebody asked me, because I had taken a chair at the far end rather than my usual one near the head, whether I wanted to move up.

And I said: I'm fine here. I just need to be in the room today.

That sentence went round that building by lunchtime.

I did not intend it to. I was not being clever; I had been awake for twenty-six hours and I wanted a chair near a window.