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‘Oh yes,’ he says, with a quick grin. ‘Of course – maybe I did know that.’ No, he didn’t. But Julien doesn’t like to be shown up. Even if he has no artistic sensibilities to speak of, appearances are important to my husband. The face you present to the world. What other people think of you. I know that better than anyone.

‘Or,’ she says, ‘you could do something in the middle. There’s the hike up to the Old Lodge, for example.’

‘The Old Lodge?’ Bo asks.

‘Yes. The original lodge burned down just under a century ago. Almost everything went. So not a great deal to see, but it makes a good point to aim for, and there are fantastic views over the estate.’

‘Can’t imagine anyone survived that?’ Giles says.

‘No,’ she says. ‘Twenty-four people died. No one survived apart from a couple of the stable hands, who slept in the stable block with the animals. One of the old stable blocks is still there, but it’s probably not structurally sound: you shouldn’t go too near it.’

‘And no one knows what started it?’ Bo asks. We’re all ghoulishly interested – you could hear a pin drop in here – but he looks genuinely alarmed, his glance flitting to the roaring log fire in the grate. He’s such a city boy. I bet the nearest Bo normally gets to a real fire is a flaming sambuca shot.

‘No,’ Heather says. ‘We don’t know. Perhaps a fire left unattended in one of the grates. But there is a theory …’ Heather pauses, as if not sure she should continue, then goes on. ‘There’s a theory that one of the staff, a gamekeeper, was so damaged by his experiences in the war that he set fire to the building on purpose. A kind of murder–suicide. They say the fire could be seen as far away as Fort William. It took more than a day for help to come … by which time it was too late.’

‘That’s fucked-up,’ Mark says, and grins.

I notice that Heather does not look impressed by Mark’s grin. She’s probably wondering how on earth someone could be amused by the idea of two dozen people burning to death. You have to know Mark pretty well to understand that he has a fairly dark – but on the whole harmless – sense of humour. You learn to forgive him for it. Just like we’ve all learned that Giles – while he likes to seem like Mr Easy-going – can be a bit tight when it comes to buying the next round … and not to speak to Bo until he’s had at least two cups of coffee in the morning. Or how Samira, all sweetness and light on the surface, can hold a grudge like no one else. That’s the thing about old friends. You just know these things about them. You have learned to love them. This is the glue that binds us together. It’s like family, I suppose. All that history. We know everything there is to know about one another.

Heather pulls a clipboard from under her arm, all business, suddenly. ‘Which one of you is Emma Taylor? I’ve got your credit card down as the one that paid the deposit.’

‘That’s me.’ Emma raises a hand.

‘Great. You should find all the ingredients you’ve asked for in the fridge. I have the list here. Beef fillet, unshucked oysters – Iain got them from Mallaig this morning – smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, caviar, endive, Roquefort, walnuts, one hundred per cent chocolate, eighty five per cent chocolate, quails’ eggs’– she pauses to take a breath – ‘double cream, potatoes, on-vine tomatoes …’

Christ. My own secret contribution to proceedings suddenly looks rather meagre. I try to catch Katie’s eye to share an amused look. But I haven’t seen her for so long that I suppose we’re a bit out of sync. She’s just staring out of the big windows, apparently lost in thought.

EMMA

I check the list. I don’t think they’ve got the right tomatoes – they’re not baby ones – but I can probably make do. It could be worse. I suppose I’m a bit particular about my cooking: I got into it at university, and it’s been a passion of mine ever since.

‘Thank you,’ Heather says, as I hand the list back.

‘Where’d you get all this stuff?’ Bo asks. ‘Can’t be many shops around here?’

‘No. Iain went and got most of it from Inverness and brought it back on the train – it was easier.’

‘But why bother having a train station?’ Giles asks. ‘I know we got off there, but there can’t be many people using it otherwise?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Nor have there ever. It’s a funny story, that one. The laird, in the nineteenth century, insisted that the rail company build the station, when they came to him with a proposal to put a track through his land.’

‘It must have been almost like his own private platform,’ Nick says.

The woman smiles. ‘Yes, and no. Because there were some … unintended consequences. This is whisky country. And there was a great deal of illegal distilling going on back in the day – and robbery from the big distilleries. The old Glencorrin plant, for example, is pretty nearby. Before the railway, the smugglers around here had to rely on wagons, which were very slow, and very likely to be stopped on the long journey down south by the authorities. But the train was another matter. Suddenly, they could get their product down to London in a day. Legend has it that some of the train guards were in their pay, ready to turn a blind eye when necessary. And some’ – she stops, poised for the coup de grâce – ‘say that the old laird himself was in on it, that he had planned it from the day he asked for his railway station.’ She sits forward. ‘If you’re interested, there are whisky bothies all over the estate. They’re marked on the map. Discovering them is something of a hobby of mine.’

Over the top of her head, I see Julien roll his eyes. But Nick is intrigued. ‘What do you mean?’ he asks. ‘They haven’t all been found? How many are there?’

‘Oh, we’re not sure. Every time I think I must have discovered the last one, I come across another. Fifteen in total at the last count. They’re very cleverly made, small cairns really, built out of the rocks, covered with gorse and heather. Unless you’re right on top of them they’re practically invisible. They disappear into the hillside. I could show you a couple if you like.’

‘Yes please,’ Katie says – at the same time as Julien says, ‘No thanks.’ There is a slightly awkward pause.

‘Well,’ Heather gives a small, polite smile, but there’s a flash of steel in the look she gives Julien. ‘It’s not compulsory, of course.’

I have the impression that she may not be quite as sweet and retiring as she looks. Good on her. Julien gets away with a little too much, as far as I’m concerned. People seem prepared to let him act as he likes, partly because he’s so good-looking, and partly because he can turn on the charm like throwing a switch. Often he does the latter after he’s just said something particularly controversial, or cruel – so that he can immediately take the sting out of it … make you think that he can’t really mean it.

This might sound like sour grapes. After all, Mark is always blundering around offending people just by being himself: laughing inappropriately, or making jokes in bad taste. I know who most people would prefer to have dinner with. But at least Mark is, in his way, authentic – even if that sometimes means authentically dull (I am not blind to his faults). Julien is so much surface. It has made me wonder what’s going on beneath.

My thoughts are interrupted by Bo. ‘This is incredible,’ he says, staring about. It is. It’s better than any of the places anyone else has picked in the last few years, no question. I feel myself relax properly for the first time all day, and allow myself just to enjoy being here, to be proud of my work in finding it.

The room we’re standing in is the living room: two huge, squashy sofas and a selection of armchairs, beautiful old rugs on the floor, a vast fireplace with a stack of freshly-chopped wood next to it – ‘We use peat with the wood,’ Heather says, ‘to give it a nice smokiness.’ The upper bookshelves are stuffed with antiquarian books, emerald and red spines embossed with gold, and the lower with all the old board-game classics: Monopoly, Scrabble, Twister, Cluedo.

On the inner wall – the outer wall being made entirely of glass – are mounted several stags’ heads. The shadows thrown by their antlers are huge, as though cast by old dead trees. The glass eyes have the effect some paintings have; they seem to follow you wherever you go, staring balefully down. I see Katie look at them and shiver.

You’d think that the modernist style of the building wouldn’t work with the homey interior, but, somehow, it does. In fact, the exterior glass seems to melt away so that it’s as though there is no barrier between us and the landscape outside. It’s as though you could simply walk from the rug straight into the loch, huge and silver in the evening light, framed by that black staccato of trees. It’s all perfect.

‘Right,’ Heather says, ‘I’m going to leave you now, to get settled in. I’ll let you decide which of the cottages suits each of you best.’

As she begins to walk away she stops dead, and turns on her heel. She smacks a palm against her head, a pantomime of forgetfulness. ‘It must be the champagne,’ she says, though I hardly think so; she has only had a couple of sips. ‘There are a couple of very important safety things I should say to you. We ask that if you are planning on going for a hike beyond our immediate surroundings – the loch, say – you let us know. It may look benign out there, but at this time of year the state of play can change within hours, sometimes minutes.’

‘In what way?’ Bo asks. This all must be very alien for him: I once heard him say he lived in New York for five years with only one trip out of the city, because he ‘didn’t want to miss anything’. I don’t think he’s one for the great outdoors.

‘Snowstorms, sudden fogs, a rapid drop in temperature. It’s what makes this landscape so exciting … but also lethal, if it chooses to be. If a storm should come in, say, we want to know whether you are out hiking, or whether you are safe in your cottages. And,’ she grimaces slightly, ‘we’ve had a little trouble with poachers in the past—’

‘That sounds pretty Victorian,’ Julien says.

Heather raises an eyebrow. ‘Well, these people unfortunately aren’t. These aren’t your old romantic folk heroes taking one home for the pot. They carry stalking equipment and hunting rifles. Sometimes they work in the day, wearing the best camouflage gear money can buy. Sometimes they work at night. They’re not doing it for fun. They sell the meat on the black market to restauranteurs, or the antlers on eBay, or abroad. There’s a big market in Germany. We have CCTV on the main gate to the property now, so that’s helped, but it hasn’t prevented them getting in.’

‘Should we be worried?’ Samira asks.

‘Oh, no,’ Heather says quickly, perhaps realising for the first time how all of this might sound to guests who have come for the unthreatening peace and quiet of the Scottish Highlands. ‘No, not at all. We haven’t actually had any proper poaching incidents for … a while, now. Doug is very much on the case. I just wanted you to be aware. If you see anyone you do not recognise on the estate, let either of us know. Do not approach them.’

I can feel how all this talk of peril has dampened the atmosphere slightly. ‘We haven’t toasted being here,’ I say, quickly, seizing my champagne glass. ‘Cheers!’ I clash it against Giles’s, with slightly too much force, and he jumps back to avoid the spillage. Then he gets the idea, turns to Miranda, and does the same. It seems to work: a little chain reaction is set off around the room, the familiarity of the ritual raising smiles. Reminding us of the fact that we are celebrating. That it is good – no, wonderful – to be here.

KATIE

There’s no point in my expressing any preference over which cabin I get. I am the singleton of the group, and it’s been tacitly agreed by all that my cabin should be the smallest of the lot. There’s a bit of good-natured wrangling over who is going to get which of the others. One is slightly bigger than the rest, and Samira – probably rightly – thinks that she and Giles should have it, because of Priya. And then both Nick and Miranda clearly want the one with the best view of the loch – I suspect for a moment that Nick is saying so just to rile Miranda, but then he defers, graciously. Everyone is on best behaviour.

‘Let’s go for a walk now,’ Miranda says, once it’s all decided. ‘Explore a bit.’

‘But it’s completely dark,’ Samira says.

‘Well, that will make it even better. We can take some of the champagne down to the loch.’

This is classic Miranda. Anyone else would be content simply to lounge in the Lodge until dinner, but she’s always looking for adventure. When she first came into my life, some twenty years ago, everything instantly became more exciting.

‘I have to put Priya to bed,’ Samira says, glancing over to where the baby has fallen asleep in her carrier. ‘It’s late for her already.’

‘Fine,’ Miranda says, offhandedly, with barely a glance in Samira’s direction.

I don’t know if she sees Samira’s wounded look. For most of today Miranda has acted as though Priya is a piece of excess baggage. I remember, a couple of years ago, her talk of ‘when Julien and I have kids’. I haven’t seen her enough lately, so I’m not sure whether her indifference is genuine or masking some real personal suffering. Miranda has always been a champion bluffer.

The rest of us – including Giles – traipse outside into the dark. Samira gives him a look as she stalks off towards their cabin – presumably he, too, was meant to go and help with Priya’s bedtime. It’s probably the closest I’ve ever seen them come to a disagreement. They’re such a perfect couple, those two – so respectful, so in sync, so loving – it’s almost sickening.

We walk, stumbling over the uneven ground, down the path towards the water, Bo, Julien and Emma using the torches provided in the Lodge to light the way. In the warmth indoors I’d forgotten how brutal it is outside. It’s so cold it feels as though the skin on my face is shrinking against my skull, in protest against the raw air. Someone grabs my arm and I jump, then realise it’s Miranda.

‘Hello, stranger,’ she says. ‘It’s so good to see you. God I’ve missed you.’ It’s so unusual for her to make that sort of admission – and there is something in the way she says it, too. I glance at her, but it’s too dark to make out her expression.

‘You too,’ I say.

‘And you’ve had your hair cut differently, haven’t you?’ I feel her hand come up to play with the strands framing my face. It is all I can do not to prickle away from her. Miranda has always been touchy-feely – I have always been whatever the opposite of that is.

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I went to Daniel Galvin, like you told me to.’

‘Without me?’

‘Oh – I didn’t think. I suddenly had a spare couple of hours … we’d closed on something earlier than expected.’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘next time you go, let me know, OK? We’ll make a date of it. It’s like you’ve fallen off the planet lately.’ She lowers her voice. ‘I’ve had to resort to Emma … God, Katie, she’s so nice it does my nut in.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘it’s just that I’ve been so busy at work. You know, trying for partnership.’

‘But it won’t always be like that, will it?’

‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Because I’ve been thinking, recently … remember how it used to be? In our twenties? We’d see each other every week, you and I, without fail. Even if it was just to go out and get drunk on Friday night.’

I nod. I’m not sure she can see though. ‘Yes,’ I say – my voice comes out a little hoarse.

‘Oh God, and the night bus? Both of us falling asleep and going to the end of the line … Kingston, wasn’t it? And that time we went to that twenty-four-hour Tesco and you suddenly decided you had to make an omelette when you got home and you dropped that carton of eggs and it went everywhere – I mean everywhere – and we just decided to run off, in our big stupid heels …’ She laughs, and then she stops. ‘I miss all of that … that messiness.’ There’s so much wistfulness in her tone. I’m glad I can’t see her expression now.

‘So do I,’ I say.

‘Look at you two,’ Julien turns back to us. ‘Thick as thieves. What are you gossiping about?’

‘Come on,’ Giles says, ‘share with the rest of us!’

‘Well,’ Miranda says quickly, leaning into me, ‘I’m glad we have this – to catch up. I’ve really missed you, K.’ She gives my arm a little squeeze and, again, I think I hear the tiniest catch in her voice. A pins-and-needles prickling of guilt; I’ve been a bad friend.

And then she transforms, producing a new bottle of champagne from under her arm and yelling to the others, ‘Look what I’ve got!’

There are whoops and cheers. Giles does a silly dance of delight; he’s like a little boy, letting off pent-up energy. And it seems to be infectious … suddenly everyone is making a lot of noise, talking excitedly, voices echoing in the empty landscape.

Then Emma stops short in front of us, with a quiet exclamation. ‘Oh!’

I see what’s halted her. There’s a figure standing on the jetty that we’re heading for, silhouetted by moonlight. He is quite tall, and standing surprisingly, almost inhumanly, still. The gamekeeper, I think. He’s about the right height. Or maybe one of the other guests we’ve just heard about?

Bo casts his torch up at the figure, and we wait for the man to turn, or at least move. And then Bo begins to laugh. Now we see what he has. It isn’t a man at all. It’s a statue of a man, staring out contemplatively, Antony Gormley-esque.

We all sit down on the jetty and look out across the loch. Every so often there’s a tiny disturbance in the surface, despite there being very little wind. The ripples must be caused by something underneath, the glassy surface withholding these secrets.

Despite the champagne, everyone suddenly seems a bit subdued. Perhaps it’s just the enormity of our surroundings – the vast black peaks rising in the distance, the huge stretch of night sky above, the pervasive quiet – that has awed us into silence.

The quiet isn’t quite all-pervasive, though. Sitting here for long enough you begin to hear other sounds: rustles and scufflings in the undergrowth, mysterious liquid echoes from the loch. Heather told us about the giant pike that live in it – their existence confirmed by the monstrous one mounted on the wall of the Lodge. Huge jaws, sharp teeth, like leftover Jurassic monsters.

I hear the shush-shush of the tall Scots pines above us, swaying in the breeze, and every so often a soft thud: a gust strong enough to disturb a cargo of old snow. Somewhere, quite near, there is the mournful call of an owl. It’s such a recognisable yet strange sound that it’s hard to believe it’s real, not some sort of special effect.

Giles tries to echo the sound: ‘Ter-wit, ter-woo!’

We all laugh, dutifully, but it strikes me that there’s something uneasy in the sound. The call of the owl, such an unusual noise for city dwellers like us, has just emphasised quite how unfamiliar this place is.

‘I didn’t even know there were places like this in the UK,’ Bo says, as if he can read my thoughts.

‘Ah Bo,’ Miranda says, ‘you’re such a Yank. It’s not all London and little chocolate box villages here.’

‘I didn’t realise you got outside the M25 much yourself, Miranda,’ Nick says.

‘Oi!’ She punches his arm. ‘I do, occasionally. We went to Soho Farmhouse before Christmas, didn’t we Julien?’ We all laugh – including Miranda. People think she can’t laugh at herself, but she can … just as long as she doesn’t come out of it looking too bad.

‘Come on, open that bottle, Manda,’ Bo says.

‘Yes … open it, open it—’ Giles begins to shout, and everyone joins in … it’s almost impossible not to. It becomes a chant, something oddly tribal in it. I’m put in mind of some pagan sect; the effect of the landscape, probably – mysterious and ancient.

Miranda stands up and fires the cork into the loch, where it makes its own series of ripples, widening out in shining rings across the water. We drink straight from the bottle, passing it around like Girl Guides, the cold, densely fizzing liquid stinging our throats.

‘It’s like Oxford,’ Mark says. ‘Sitting down by the river, getting pissed after finals at three p.m.’

‘Except then it was cava,’ Miranda says. ‘Christ – we drank gallons of that stuff. How did we not notice that it tastes like vomit?’

‘And there was that party you held down by the river,’ Mark says. ‘You two’ – he gestures to Miranda and me – ‘and Samira.’

‘Oh yes,’ Giles says. ‘What was the theme again?’

‘The Beautiful and Damned,’ I say. Everyone had to come in twenties’ gear, so we could all pretend we were Bright Young Things, like Evelyn Waugh and friends. God, we were pretentious. The thought of it is like reading an old diary entry, cringeworthy … but fond, too. Because it was a wonderful evening, even magical. We’d lit candles and put them in lanterns, all along the bank. Everyone had gone to so much effort with their costumes, and they were universally flattering: the girls in spangled flappers and the boys in black tie. Miranda looked the most stunning, of course, in a long metallic sheath. I remember a drunken moment of complete euphoria, looking about the party. How had little old me ended up at a place like this? With all these people as my friends? And most particularly with that girl – so glamorous, so radiant – as my best friend?

As we walk back towards the lights of the Lodge and the cabins, I spot another statue, a little way to our left, silhouetted in the light thrown from the sauna building. This one is facing away from the loch, towards us. It gives me the same uncanny little shock that the other did; I suppose this is exactly the effect they are meant to achieve.

The privacy of my cabin is a welcome respite. We’ve spent close to eight hours in each other’s company now. Mine is the furthest away from the Lodge on this side, just beyond the moss-roofed sauna. It’s also the smallest. Neither of these things particularly bothers me. I linger over my unpacking, though I’ve brought very little with me. The aftertaste of the champagne is sour on my tongue now, I can feel what little I drank listing in my stomach. I have a drink of water. Then I take a long, hot bath in the freestanding metal tub in the bathroom using the organic bath oil provided, which creates a thick aromatherapeutic fug of rosemary and geranium. There’s a high window facing towards the loch, though the view out is half-obscured by a wild growth of ivy, like something from a pre-Raphaelite painting. It’s also high enough that someone could look in and watch me in the bath for a while before I noticed them – if I ever did. I’m not sure why that has occurred to me – especially as there’s hardly anyone here to look – but once the thought is in my mind I can’t seem to get rid of it. I draw the little square of linen across the view. As I do I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror above the sink. The light isn’t good, but I think I look terrible: pale and ill, my eyes dark pits.

I’ll admit, I half-wondered about not coming this year. Just pretending I hadn’t seen the email from Emma in my inbox until it was ‘too late’ to do anything about it. A sudden, rebellious thought: Perhaps I’ve done my part? I could just stay hidden here for the three days, and the others would make enough noise and drama without actually noticing that I had disappeared. Nick and Bo and Samira are loud enough when they get going, but Miranda can make enough noise and drama for an entire party on her own.

Of course, it would help that I’m known as the quiet one. The observer, melting into the background. That was the dynamic when we lived together, Miranda, Samira and me. They were the performers, I their audience.

If you told all this to the people I work with I reckon they’d be surprised. I’m one of the more senior associates at the firm now. I’m hopefully not far off making partner. People listen to what I say. I give presentations, I’m pretty comfortable with the sound of my own voice, ringing out in a silent meeting room. I like the feeling, in fact … seeing the faces upturned towards me, listening carefully to what I have to say. I command respect. I run a whole team. And I have found that I like being in charge. I suppose we all carry around different versions of ourselves.

With this group I have always been an also-ran. People have often wondered, I’m sure, what someone like me is doing with a friend like Miranda. But in friendship, as in love, opposites often attract. Extrovert and introvert, yin and yang.

It would be very easy to dislike Miranda. She has been blessed by the Gods of beauty and fortune. She has the sort of absurd figure you see held up as a ‘bad, unrealistic example to young girls’ – as though she has been personally Photoshopped. It doesn’t really seem fair that someone so thin should have breasts that size; aren’t they made up largely of fat? And the thick, infuriatingly shiny blonde hair, and green eyes … no one in real life seems to have properly green eyes, except Miranda. She is the sort of person you would immediately assume was probably a bitch. Which she can be, absolutely.

The thing is, beneath her occasionally despotic ways, Miranda can be very kind. There was the time my parents’ marriage was falling apart, for example – when I had a standing invitation to stay at her house whenever I felt like it, to escape the shouting matches at home. Or when my sixth-form boyfriend, Matt, dumped me unceremoniously for the prettier, more popular Freya, and Miranda not only lent me a shoulder to cry on, but put about the rumour that he had chlamydia. Or when I couldn’t afford a dress for the college Summer Ball and, without making a thing of it at all, she gave me one of hers: a column of silver silk.

When I opened my eyes at one point on the train journey up here I caught Miranda watching me. Those green eyes of hers. So sharp, so assessing. A slight frown, as though she was trying to work something out. I pretended to sleep again, quickly. Sometimes I genuinely believe that Miranda has known me for so long that somewhere along the way she might have acquired the ability to read my mind, if she looks hard enough.

We go back even further than the rest of the group, she and I. All the way back to a little school in Sussex. The two new girls. One already golden, the sheen of money on her – she’d been moved from a private school nearby as her parents wanted her ‘to strive’ (and they thought a comprehensive education would help her chances of getting into Oxford). The other girl mousey-haired, too thin in her large uniform bought from the school’s second-hand collection. The golden girl (already popular, within the first morning) taking pity on her, insisting they sit next to each other at assembly. Making her her project, making her feel accepted, less alone.

I never knew why it was that she chose me to be her best friend. Because she did choose me: I had very little to do with it. But then she has always liked to do the unexpected thing, has Miranda, has always liked to challenge other people’s expectations of her. The other girls were lining up to be her friend, I still remember that. All that hair – so blonde and shiny it didn’t look quite real. Eyelashes so long she was once told off by a teacher for wearing mascara: the injustice! Real breasts – at twelve. She was good at sport, clever but not too clever (though at an all-girls’ school, academic prowess is not quite the handicap it is at a mixed one).

The other girls couldn’t understand it. Why would she be friends with me when she could have them, any of them? There had to be something weird about her, if her taste in people was so ‘off’. She could have ruled that school like a queen. But because of this, her friendship with me, she was probably never quite as popular as she might have been. But that didn’t matter to the boys at the parties we began to go to in our teens. I never got the invites to houses of pupils from the boys’ grammar up the road, or parties on the beach. Miranda could have left me behind then. But she took me with her.

When I think of this, I feel all the more ashamed. This feeling is the same one I used to get when I stayed over at her beautiful Edwardian house and was tempted to take some little trophy home for myself. Something small, something she’d hardly notice: a hairclip, or a pair of lace-trimmed socks. Just so I’d have something pretty to look at in my little beige bedroom in my dingy two-up two-down with stains on the walls and broken blinds.

There’s a knock on the front door at about eight: Nick and Bo, thank God. For a moment I had thought it might be Miranda. Nick and I met in freshers’ week, and have been friends ever since. He was there through all the ups and downs of uni.

The two of them come in, checking out the place. ‘Your cabin is just like ours,’ Nick says, when I let them in, ‘except a bit smaller. And a lot tidier … Bo has already covered the whole place with his stuff.’

‘Hey,’ Bo says. ‘Just because I don’t travel with only three versions of the same outfit.’

It’s not even an exaggeration. Nick’s one of those people who have a self-imposed uniform: a crisp white shirt, those dark selvedge jeans, and chukka boots. Maybe a smart blazer, and always, of course, his signature tortoiseshell Cutler and Gross glasses. Somehow he makes it work. On him it’s stylish, authoritative – whereas on a lesser mortal it might seem a bit plain.

We sit down together on the collection of squashy armchairs in front of the bed.