“I never once asked you what you thought we were doing.

Not in two years.

I asked you about chairs and routes and Devereaux’s name and I never asked you the one question, and I didn’t ask it for the same reason Delphine didn’t ask it.”

Then she said the thing I went there for, although I had not known that was what I was going for.

She said: “I want to tell you what I actually think, and then you can decide what it’s worth, because I’ve had eighteen months and two lawyers and a great deal of time to work out whether I believe my own argument.

“I still think everything I told you in that office was true.