“Oh no,” exclaimed Alex. “Luc’s much more important than I am. No clue what he does, but it seems terribly complicated and involves, oh, what do you call them? Things with the little boxes?”

Miffy wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “Cricket teams?”

“Not quite, old girl. Spreadsheets, that’s the word. I just muck about with the photocopier, check we don’t have more than two meetings in the same room at the same time, and keep Daisy alive.”

“Who’s Daisy?” asked Oliver, still ignoring me but, let’s be honest, I probably deserved it.

“She’s the aloe vera I’m growing in the filing cabinet. Our social media chappie burns himself on the coffee machine quite a lot, and Nurse always used aloe vera on us when we were small and it’s jolly efficacious. In fact, I’m thinking we might need two because the poor dear is looking quite denuded in the leaf department.”

“On another topic,” I announced, changing the subject with all the grace and subtlety of someone saying Can we change the subject now, “a scary old man went for me in the bathroom. I mean, yelled at me. Not, like, tried to hit on me.”

“Thank you for clarifying that.” It was Oliver’s driest tone. So far Operation Come Across as a Total Prick was running ahead of schedule.

Alex frowned. “How very rum. Did you do anything to provoke him?”

My apology window had closed an aloe vera ago. So I was basically stuck with sort of pretending I hadn’t been awful, even though I blatantly had, and trying to find the mythical middle ground between making it worse and overcompensating. “Nice to know you’re taking his side already. But, for the record, no. I was minding my own business by the sink when this mad old coot barged in and—”

“Alex, m’boy,” bellowed the mad old coot, materialising behind me like the serial killer in a horror movie. “How’s the old man?”

“Can’t complain, Randy. Can’t complain.”

“Very much enjoyed his speech in the Lords recently about, oh, what was it…”

“Badgers?”

“No, not badgers. Those other, what do you call them…immigrants.”

“Ah yes. Sounds like Daddy. Oh”—Alex gave a little start—“by the way, I should introduce you. You remember Clara, of course.”

“’Course I do. Never forget a face.”

“And these are my friends, Luc and Oliver.”

His eyes lasered over us and I wilted in my seat. “Pleasure. Any friend of a Twaddle is a friend of mine. But I should warn you, stay out the bathroom—there’s a mad Irish bastard ambushing people in there.”

“Actually, Your Honour,” said Oliver, in his best If it please m’lud, counsel is testifying voice, “we’ve met. I had a client before you last month.”

“Nonsense. Never forget a face. Got no idea who you are.” A pause. “Still”—he brightened—“did we get the bugger?”

“I was counsel for the defence, Your Honour, and the defence was, in this instance, successful.”

The judge scowled at Oliver, who met his look with studied mildness. “Well. Suppose we can’t catch ’em all. I’ll leave you to your dinner. See you at the Swan Upping, Alex, if not before.”

And, with that, the Right Honourable Racist doddered off.

“I say,” exclaimed Alex, turning to me, “it seems Randy met the same strange man that you did. Do you think we’ve got an intruder? Shall I tell somebody?”

“I suspect,” offered Oliver, “that won’t be necessary.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you know, can’t be too careful and all that.”

“I have no doubt Justice Mayhew dealt with the miscreant appropriately.”

Alex gave a fond smile. “He’s a feisty old bugger, isn’t he?”

“That’s certainly one way to put it.”

There was a brief silence, which Oliver delicately steered us over by asking if everyone was ready to move on to dessert. “I couldn’t help but notice,” he went on, “the jam roly-poly on the menu. I’ve always been rather partial.”

Alex bounced in his seat like a poorly trained beagle. “I’m a dick man, myself. Thick and solid, and piping hot, and slathered in what the French call crème anglaise.”

I was still having way too many Oliver-related emotions, but I couldn’t not steal a peek at him. And, of course, he didn’t look even the slightest bit as if he was about to die of laughter in a room named after a dead Tory.

“I’ll admit”—oh God help me, his eyes were legitimately twinkling—“that does sound good.”

Miffy looked rather dreamy. “You know, I was just thinking, I really fancy a tart.”

Were they doing this deliberately? They had to be doing this deliberately.

In any case, it turned out they could talk about pudding basically indefinitely, swapping childhood anecdotes, and squabbling over the merits of cobblers versus crumbles. They had, at least, finally hit on a topic—or rather, Oliver had introduced them to a topic—that I knew more than nothing about. And if I’d been a better person, I would have given them my hot take on which order you put the jam and cream on a scone. (It’s jam, then cream). Unfortunately I’m a mediocre person at best. And so sat there, trying not to sulk into my pineapple upside-down cake.

We finished up our desserts, and I was about to be relieved that it was nearly over when one of the Jameses came around with cheese, then coffee, then brandy, then cigars. We eventually exhausted the topic of pudding, but Oliver kept stubbornly guiding the conversation back towards accessible subjects. I was sure he meant well and, after the fuss I’d made, wanted to make sure I was included.

But between my dad, my job, Justice Mayhew, and all the ways I’d made a complete mess of tonight, I didn’t quite have the energy to be grateful.

Chapter 18

Eighty-seven thousand, five hundred and sixty-four gazillion hours later, we were finally allowed to leave the Cadwallader Club. Given how terribly the evening had gone, I was really looking forward to taking a quiet cab ride home, sticking my head under a duvet, and dying. But, of course, the whole point of the evening had been to get me photographed standing next to socially acceptable people. Which meant the moment we stepped outside, we were swarmed by a mixture of high-end paparazzi and low-end journalists.

My vision sheeted white as far too many cameras went off in my face. I froze. Normally when people took my picture, they had the decency to sneak around so they could catch me fucking against a wheelie bin or vomiting in a pub car park. This was a whole other level of attention. And I’d not particularly liked the old level.