It took her ninety seconds.
She could be precise about it afterwards, because the whole thing was on the clock in the corner of the meeting-room screen, and because she had spent a great deal of the following eight months going back over that ninety seconds and taking it apart.
He came in at 9.02 with Duncan and a coffee he had brought from outside, which is a small thing that tells you a person does not intend to be at your mercy for anything.
"Everyone, this is Theo Lennox," said Duncan. "Theo's joining us from Whitcombe's, where he has been making a considerable nuisance of himself for six years, and we have finally solved that by buying him."
Laughter. Theo did the correct amount of ducking his head.
He was tall and he was thirty-one and he was, Yasmin noted with the detachment of a woman doing an inventory, extremely good-looking in the specific way that expensive men are — not beautiful, just finished. Good coat. Good haircut he had not thought about. The kind of watch you have to know about to notice.
"And this," said Duncan, "is Yasmin Haddad."
And Theo Lennox turned round and looked at her, and something crossed his face for about a fifth of a second.
It was not surprise. It was not the small readjustment men did when they found out she was the one who did the work, which she had seen perhaps nine thousand times and could identify from across a room in poor light.
It was recognition.
He had known exactly who she was before he walked in. He had a name and a photograph and probably a summary, and for one fifth of a second he had failed to hide the fact that he had been looking forward to this.
"Yasmin Haddad," he said. "You did the Marchmont carve-out."
"I did."
"That was a filthy piece of work."
"Thank you."
"I mean the deal was filthy," said Theo. "The drafting was surgical. We had four people on it at Whitcombe's, on the other side, and we spent a fortnight looking for the trapdoor, and on the Friday my head of department said a word I'd never heard him say." He smiled at her. "It's genuinely a pleasure."
That was the ninety seconds.
Priya, afterwards, in the kitchen, with actual stars in her eyes: "He's nice."
"Mm."
"He knew your work. He said it in front of Duncan. Yasmin, he made a point of saying it in front of Duncan."
"Yes," said Yasmin. "He did."
She took her tea back to her office and shut the door and stood at the window for a moment, looking out at the river and a grey January and eighteen years.
Then she sat down, and took out her phone, and made a new note, and titled it Theo.
6 Jan. Knew the Marchmont work. Said so in front of D, in the first two minutes, unprompted, in a room of eleven people.
A compliment given in public is not a compliment. It is a position.