My wristwatch said seven minutes to eight. Wherever I decided to go, I had to set off soon or it would be too late to get a train. My head heavy with crying and confusion, I hauled myself to my feet. Slowly, without looking at my half-dressed state in any of the mirrors in the room, I took a clean blouse and a pair of stockings from my case and put them on.

Once I was wearing my skirt and jacket again, I took up my hairbrush and sat down at the dressing-table. In my reflection I looked bony and black-eyed, like a small animal chased to the point of exhaustion, waiting for the hounds to gather for the kill. I began to brush my hair, moulding the waves round my fingers, musing on the fact that I was not a beautiful actress at all. I was the unfortunate victim – quite possibly deservedly so – of a confidence trick, and I certainly looked the part. Dejected, years older than my age, wondering if I could ever again believe what anyone said.

I took off the make-up round my eyes and did not renew it. But I decided to put on lipstick, as my lost alter ego, Sarah Freebody, had always done. Suddenly, I wondered what had happened to that stick of lipstick from the chemists in Aberaeron, the first and only one Sarah had ever bought. Was it still in my make-up bag? I had an overwhelming desire to find it.

The bag, a quilted satin one I had bought in Selfridges the same day as my fur, lay in a corner of my case. I rifled it desperately, hoping for a sight of that familiar brass tube. It was not there. I tipped the contents of the bag out onto the dressing table. Compacts, bottles, boxes and jars clattered on its glass surface. My old lipstick wasn’t there, but my eye caught a crumpled piece of paper with something written on it. Puzzled, I picked it up. 23, Raleigh Court, Bayswater, London W2.

I read it twice, and realization dawned. This scrap of paper had been in my make-up bag since that day when I lay in my dressing room, suffering from my first hangover. Without doubt, the address belonged to the person who had written it: my erstwhile leading man, Aidan Tobias.