‘I’m fine really,’ Sara said valiantly, if untruthfully. ‘You shouldn’t be making tea. You’re the boss.’

‘But you’re the one who’s pregnant,’ Olympia said with a warm smile that transformed her face from its usual severe lines. She cultivated that severity, determined to make the world believe it. But her natural kindness had a habit of breaking through, although usually only Sara saw this and she was sworn to secrecy.

‘That’s better.’ Sara sighed gratefully when she’d sipped the strong tea. ‘Did you ever want children?’

‘Once I did. When I married David I was madly in love and all I wanted was to be his wife and the mother of his children. Which probably makes me a disgrace to modern womanhood. But I was eighteen at the time, so maybe there was some excuse for me.’

‘Did he appreciate this slavish devotion?’

‘Did he, hell? He needed a working wife so that he could take courses and get diplomas that would help his career. When he moved onward and upward to the next promotion, plus the next wife, I was left with nothing. So I worked like the devil and made a career for myself.’

‘You were unlucky, but not all men are like him.’

‘Most of the ambitious ones are. They use us unless we use them first.’

‘So that’s what you do,’ Sara agreed, regarding her boss sympathetically, and recalling various incidents in the last couple of years that now made more sense. ‘Are you happy?’

‘What’s happy? I’m not unhappy. I remember how I felt when David walked out, and that’s never going to happen to me again. I’m going to get Tandy’s job, you wait and see. I just have to work on-whoever turns up from Italy.’

‘How’s your Italian?’

‘Not bad. I’ve been learning hard, but I suppose everyone else here has done the same.’

‘None of the others will have prepared like you have, either in the head or the-’ Sara made a gesture indicating Olympia’s appearance, and Olympia laughed.

Both inside and out, her grooming was impeccable. Her mind was focused, steely. Her body was slender and elegant, clad in a blue linen dress.