Rufus himself soon became aware of the crackle in the air and simmering uneasiness on his right. At first he assumed that the poor girl was simply overwhelmed, what with 16 stones of him on one side and what must be in excess of 20 of fetid seamonster on the other. But, upon closer examination, she was noticeably turned away from him, as far as the confines of the seats would allow, facing towards The Creature From the Deep. Strange.

On the middle finger of her left hand was a statement of a ring, in platinum and set centrally with a fiery and sizable black opal, flanked by two exquisite little sisters. It struck a chime of familiarity in him; the kind of thing one didn’t see often or forget lightly, and he’d mostly forgotten it, so it seemed. He concentrated hard on the stone, steadily tightening and tightening his sphere of vision until it contained nothing else, no other distractions or contaminations. Then, just as steadily, expanding that sphere from the focal point, what could he see?

Around her hand grew a speckled, mainly white, surface of granite or quartz or some such. Large silver thimbles on dimpled black rubber, a stench of waste beer and a background hum that still told of bravado and self-satisfaction, before its inevitable degeneration into abject despair; the scene drew itself with growing confidence on Rufus’ memory. There she was. She flashed a plastic key at the barman without smiling. Her task appeared to be to get the four large wine glasses and the gin and tonic back to her billet in one piece, but she was certainly in no hurry. She let her hand linger on the bar and pretended to check her phone.

‘Why don’t you come back once you’ve dropped those off and have a real drink?’ he boomed with a patronage of which he was totally aware and equally unashamed. ‘I’ll send over a couple of bottles to keep that lot quiet,’ he signalled vaguely with his head towards the increasingly raucous upstairs function, ‘and we can enjoy one of our own in a bit of peace. Sound ok?’

‘Fine, but none of that non-vintage shit, I want the good stuff. If you’re going to violate me later, you’re going to have to prove yourself worthy first.’ He supposed it was a fitting response. With a broad grin he hooked an idle barmaid and the rolling boulder had been dislodged at the top of the mountain. Just try stopping it now – you are weak and made of flesh.

The rest had gone pretty much as Rufus had expected, up to a point. She had a homely flat, if a bit out in the country, and certainly no inhibitions. As he dragged himself out of her fresh white linen at 5am the next day, a bruised rib or two and some punctured flesh the worse for wear, he reflected on a notably successful night to top off a notable week. He made himself a short, sharp coffee, dressed quickly, retrieved his phone from under the bedside table – how the hell had it got down there? Had he made a call last night? Surely he’d been too busy for that? Maybe a photo or two? They would make great conversation pieces, quite apart from being useful aides-memoire if he ever felt the need to do something similar again – and slid away as stealthily as any other number 8 would. He found a lit taxi within minutes, who informed him that he was in Raynes Park, whatever that meant. Still, he was the expert, and even knew the way to Wandsworth Common, which was his only requisite. There weren’t any photos.

The first call came three days later. Rufus was attempting to bask in the sweaty glory of another successful encounter on the squash court. This time the vanquished was a man 10 years his junior, too. Fresh out of university, he should be young and hungry enough to be running an old lag like Rufus ragged round that steaming box. But some of these kids let other things get in the way. Uncertainty. Fear. If he’s afraid to confront the small matter of winning against an old man on the squash court, where the hell is he going to end up? Picked up by the scruff of his scrawny neck and buggered, metaphorically at the very least, to within an inch of his life, that’s where. No such problems for Rufus in his early years, he remembered clearly. Many had been the time when he clawed back seemingly lost games simply because he couldn’t bear not to. Those guys were competitive enough, of course, but when it came to finally wrenching the frisbee from the pit bull’s loosened jaws, his terrier eyes changed tenor and the game became primal. That was enough to disconcert some pretty hardened types. Shoulders and testosterone dropped and the game was lost in an instant. This is the measure of a man, raged Rufus triumphantly to himself, and ten years later it remained the measure. And thank God for graduate recruitment, which kept him in playing partners as the older husks dropped away. Shame it was all pussies coming up through the ranks now.

So the phone rang: that wasn’t unusual. He didn’t recognise the number and let it drift to voicemail while he dried his nuts for just a little bit too long. Long enough to bring this trainee up to speed on the latest with Singapore and how he might handle the Chinese tomorrow. The youngster was learning; just so long as he could keep up and handle the subtleties he was in good hands. This is wisdom gained from the rockface and from the very top that Rufus is feeding him. Make the most of it, young man, as it’s an audience granted to few and won’t last forever. At this rate, my bollocks will be dry in no time.

It’s a lonely walk back to the office with just a trainee for company. What’s that message? It starts off a bit simpering. It’s a woman, that much is clear. Friday night (hazy but not yet lost): sensational (check), athletic (OK), imaginative (get a grip), intriguing (ha!), disturbing (hmmm), date sometime this week (…..) ….. Errrrrr. Something is lost in translation here. Non capisco. That’s worth a chuckle, though, especially as the details come flooding back with the sound of her pleading voice. You’d think that someone with such a diminished level of self-respect would be happy just to disappear into the translucent world of posterity, well away from real living human reminders of her depravity. This is a big enough place that it’s pretty unlikely you’ll run into someone who knows all that about you, as long as you don’t go out of your way to do so. So why call? Talk about intriguing and disturbing. He’d have to think about this for a while – ordinarily he wouldn’t have even considered a call back, but this time something gnawed at him. Like how did she get this number?

Two more days gambolled ignorantly past; another victory in the sweat box was almost too facile to be worthwhile, but not quite. Another lonely walk back, another incoming call. He didn’t recognise the number and treated his voicemail service to another titbit; he had bigger fish to fry. Thursday was the big day of the week for Rufus. A day of reckonings, some large and some small, bookended by video conferences with both hemispheres. A day to prove his worth to those who mattered and to parade it to those who might follow him one day. So it wasn’t time to be badgered by an automated stalking device. He answered the third time the messaging service called back. ‘Hi…. Rufus…. It’s Victoria. We met last Friday. I don’t believe you could have forgotten. I called on Tuesday, left a message. I was hoping to have heard from you now.’ There’s a long pause. Is that it? Hang on. ‘Errrr…. so, call me when you can. Maybe we can arrange a repeat performance. I’m free this weekend. Call me.’ Well, well, well. She’s a live one, that’s for sure, and totally bereft of sexual morals, which is normally to be applauded in a woman, but this is getting a bit much now. Now it’s his shot, if he should even choose to take one.

Call number three arrived on Friday morning. He was mid-sentence but this time he answered. She seemed a bit taken aback.

‘Oh….. hi. It’s Victoria. From last Friday. I’ve left you a couple of messages this week, so I was just……’

‘I remember. I remember extremely well…… Where do you work?’ She told him. Foolish girl.

He mentioned four or five names she recognised. ‘Would you like me to go on?’ he asked. She didn’t, really. ‘So, do everyone a favour and delete all vestiges of this number from your ridiculous pink phone and forget that I ever happened.’

He had almost surprised himself with his matter-of-fact brutality, but not quite.

And this was her ring, without a doubt. There couldn’t be two of them knocking around. And she might well live on the Northern Line – difficult to say either way. It was months ago, and she’d only really seen him in the dark and through vintage champagne glasses. There’s no way she’d recognise him. Still, he felt a small surge of pride as he stole a glance. Very nice indeed, by far the best specimen in this carriage, and his instincts had been right about her appetites and leanings. Christ, hadn’t he been right. Lordy. But head down and dig into that FT – wipe that stupid grin off your face.