Thus was unleashed the tabloid story of the decade, a rip-roaring, roistering, reputation-traducing media frenzy that held the nation in thrall for weeks and provided a welcome respite from the relentless misery of the news emanating from Baghdad. Here was a story with legs (it runs and runs) involving the world's most famous footballer, a man of immense wealth, unusual good looks and few words; a man with the same stellar status as Princess Diana in his ability to shift newspapers and magazines. Also featured was his glamorous but demanding and unpopular wife, Victoria, a chanteuse; and a number of other young women alleged to have shared the footballer's bed. Prominent among them was one Rebecca Loos, dubbed "the sleazy senorita" — never mind the fact that she was neither Spanish nor sleazy. Facts, in the tabloid world, must never stand in the way of alliteration.

In the next few months, it seemed nothing would go right for the golden boy. His two disastrous missed penalties in the Euro 2004 finals were blamed on lack of concentration because of troubles in his private life, and many were the reports that he had become tearful, listless, unable to sleep and fretful about losing touch with his working-class roots.

It had all begun on the morning of July 1, 2003, in the unglamorous setting of Torrejon military airfield outside Madrid. Gathered on the tarmac, waiting for the arrival of the Beckhams' private jet, was a posse of invited photographers, officials from Real Madrid football club, and a team from SFX, Beckham's management company. Included in the SFX team was Loos, a glossy brunette, 26 years old, fluent in Spanish and several other languages, whose duty it would be to help the Beckhams settle into their new home in Spain.

The purpose of the two-day visit was to allow Beckham to undergo a medical before signing the contract that would bind him to Real Madrid after his former club, Manchester United, decided it no longer had any use for his services. Victoria was to spend the time searching for a house for her and David and their two small children, Brooklyn and Romeo. "When their plane arrived, we all lined up and were introduced," Rebecca recalls. "Victoria was wearing some kind of catsuit and David was in torn jeans with a white vest and blazer. He had a diamond necklace, diamond earrings, big watch — the whole thing. He wasn't my type at all. I don't like guys overly into their own image — I prefer a more classic look."

(Unlike the majority of newspaper stories featuring Loos in recent months, all the quotes attributed to her here were obtained from Loos herself in a face-to-face interview, rather than from unnamed "close friends".)

While David was whisked away by Real Madrid officials, Rebecca and an estate agent took Victoria house-hunting, an unrewarding and unsuccessful experience, as Victoria had made it crystal clear she was deeply reluctant to move to Spain, away from her family and her home in Hertfordshire. As she had reportedly told one of the legion of "close friends" feeding the media's insatiable appetite for gossip about the Beckhams, "I'm not going to be no se–orita."

In the weeks following Beckham's move to Spain on July 22, Victoria was to be seen far more frequently in London and New York, working on a new album with which she hoped to resurrect her flagging career as a pop singer. She was photographed in the company of Damon Dash, a large, black, cigar-chomping rap-music entrepreneur said to be helping her with the hip-hop tracks. David, meanwhile, was languishing in his suite at the luxurious five-star Santa Mauro hotel in Madrid, where he would eventually notch up a bill of £433,157 for his first 80 days, including £74,285 for parking the five cars he'd had sent over from Britain.

Bored and lonely, it was perhaps inevitable that he should entertain impure thoughts about his luscious personal assistant, who was great fun, good company and the kind of woman few red-blooded males could ignore. Rebecca certainly noticed a subtle change in his attitude towards her: "I was getting messages from him late at night — messages with a double meaning. Over the weeks I had changed my opinion about him and realised that there were lots of things about him I really liked. He was very attentive to me and I sensed something was growing between us."

On the afternoon of September 18, Beckham was due to pose for a photo shoot in his hotel. Rebecca was there, with other members of the SFX team. Afterwards a couple of friends turned up. They all had a few drinks in Beckham's suite and then went to the Thai Garden restaurant for dinner, accompanied by the bodyguards whose primary duty was to protect Beckham from the paparazzi. They had not been there long before word spread that Beckham was there, and a group of photographers gathered outside.

By the time dinner was finished, the group was in a party mood and someone suggested that they should all go on to the Ananda nightclub. The bodyguards advised against it — there had been a fashion shoot at the club earlier in the evening and the place was crawling with media. Beckham still wanted to go, so Rebecca took charge. She telephoned the club, arranged for a small area to be cordoned off for them with extra security, and briefed the bodyguards to make sure that nobody with a camera got near them. With that, the party left the restaurant through a back door to where two cars, also arranged by Rebecca, were waiting. They did not leave the Ananda until 3.30am.

It was, in every respect, a memorable night for Rebecca Loos since, instead of going home to her parents' house in the suburbs where she still lived (her Dutch father works for the diplomatic service in Madrid), she ended up in bed with Beckham in his hotel suite. When she got home the following morning, her Anglo-Spanish mother, Elizabeth, guessed where she had been and warned her wayward daughter, the way mothers do, to be "careful".

Unfortunately for Rebecca, friends of Victoria Beckham were also at the Ananda that night and got word to Victoria in New York that her husband seemed rather too friendly with his personal assistant. Victoria, not unnaturally, was furious and resolved to give Rebecca what is known in Essex parlance as "an earful". Among the more printable epithets she would apply later to Rebecca Loos were "tart", "slag" and "lying cow".