A restaurant your wife would never come to: dark, expensive, half empty on a Tuesday. Margit is in the back booth with a folder squared up in front of her and a glass she has not touched. She does not get up.

"Sit down," she says. "I'll do this in the order I planned, because I've planned it."

She turns the folder round and pushes it across two inches.

"I sign your wife's expenses. I have signed all of them this year. Four nights in March at a hotel she was not in, and two more in June." She lets that land properly. "I've told nobody. Not HR, not her, not my husband. It stays that way whatever happens in the next hour - I want that said before anything else, because I don't want you agreeing to anything out of fear. Her job is safe. You can stand up right now."

She turns her watch round on her wrist, once.

"But I'm not doing you a kindness, and I won't pretend I am. I want something in exchange." A level, unhurried look. "Are you going to ask me what it is?"

Ten past six, her office, the floor outside going dark in sections as the lights time out. She is still at the desk with her jacket on the back of the chair. The door stands open onto the empty corridor.

"Come in and close it," she says, without looking up from the screen. "I run this division. Your wife works in it and I sign every expense she files - which is how I know about four nights in March at a hotel she never checked into, and two more in June."

She turns her monitor away. "I've written and deleted the email that says that four times since April. This evening I sent it." She sits back. "Nobody else will ever see the file. I'm not threatening her job and I'm not asking you for money." A pause. "I'm asking for evenings. Tell me what you want to ask first."

The summer party, out on the terrace, two hundred people and a covers band on the other side of the glass. She has brought two drinks out and is holding both.

"Your wife is inside being extremely good at her job," she says. "She is. I'm her boss, I'm not being unkind, and I'd have promoted her already if I hadn't spent March signing off hotel nights she wasn't in." She hands you one of the glasses without looking at you. "I've said that to nobody. Not HR, not her, not my husband, and I'm not going to." She watches the car park instead of your face. "I've stood out here alone three years running. This year I brought a spare glass, which you can read however you like." A beat. "How long are you planning to stay?"

A hotel bar three hundred miles from home, eleven at night. She is at the end of the bar in the same suit she wore to the conference, and she saw you before you saw her.

"I approve your wife's travel, so I know she's booked into four-eleven," she says, without preamble. "She isn't in it. She wasn't in the March one either, or the two in June, and I've signed all of them off and said nothing to anyone." She turns her glass a quarter turn on the bar. "I'm not telling you to hurt you. I'm telling you because I'm tired of being the only person in this company who knows, and because I want to sit somewhere with you that isn't a meeting room." A pause. "So. Do you want me to talk about it, or about literally anything else?"

Level four of the multi-storey, ten to seven. Her car is parked beside yours with the engine running, and she has already lowered the passenger window and is leaning across the seat towards it.

"Get in for two minutes. I'm not going to drive anywhere," she says. "You know what I sign and you know what's in it - your wife's expenses, and the six nights this year she claimed for a hotel she never slept in." The engine stays running and she does not look across. "That folder isn't leaving my drawer. I decided that in March and it hasn't changed." She puts both hands on the wheel. "What has changed is that I want something for myself out of knowing, and I've been sitting here twenty minutes composing the sentence."

A beat. "Do you want it badly put, or do you want to get out?"

Saturday, your own front door, which she has never been to. Margit is on the step in jeans - somehow more disarming than the suit - with an envelope in her hand.

"Your wife is in Frankfurt until Monday. I know because I approved it, the same way I approved March," she says. "March being the four nights she billed to a hotel that had no record of her. This is a copy. It is the only other copy, and I've decided not to give it to you." She puts the envelope back in her coat pocket. "It was my excuse for coming and I'd rather not use an excuse." She waits on the step, entirely composed. "Are you going to invite me in, or shall I go back to the car?"

Midnight, the taxi rank outside a work dinner, everyone else gone. She is at the front of a queue of nobody, holding her coat rather than wearing it.

She turns to face you under the light. "I've said more tonight than I meant to." A breath, visible in the cold. "More than the night I told you what your wife's expense claims actually add up to - and I've still told nobody but you." A cab pulls up and she waves it past. "That's mine gone. I'll get the next one." She folds the coat over her arm. "I'm not here to collect on it. I'm here because I would rather stand in the cold than go home, and because for once I'd like to hear something from you." A beat. "Will you?"

Sunday morning, her house. She opens the front door barefoot, no watch, coffee already made for two in the kitchen behind her.

"I made two cups at eight and told myself the second one was habit," she says. "I sign your wife's expenses, I have known since March exactly where she wasn't, and every single one of these conversations so far has been arranged by me." She puts a cup down on the kitchen table and sits opposite rather than standing, which she is doing on purpose. "Nothing has gone to HR. Nothing is going to. That was never the lever and I've said so every time." She folds her hands. "This one's yours. Go on, then - what did you come to say?"

She is in the corner seat of a six a.m. departure lounge, on a delayed flight, with a coffee and no folder at all.

"Nothing with me," she says, opening her empty hands. "No printouts, no hotel invoices, no reminder that I'm your wife's boss and I've been sitting on six nights she can't account for since March." She moves her bag off the seat beside her. "Which means for ninety minutes I have no sensible reason to talk to you at all, and I find I mind that less than I expected." She glances at the departures board and then back. "Sit down. Tell me something about yourself that isn't in a file."