I also found in the Guardian obituary more detail about the scar on her forehead. My basic recollection of what had happened proved to be accurate. The wound had been caused by shrapnel. Ingrid had been in Beirut in 1986, reporting on the hostage crisis, along with a BBC cameraman called Phil Dickie. They’d been filming a report when a car bomb went off only yards from where they were standing. Dickie, who’d been nearer the vehicle, had been much the more seriously injured and, in fact, his body had shielded Ingrid from the blast. But she had taken a lot of shrapnel, including the piece that had given her the trademark scar. Both she and the cameraman had survived the blast and been flown back to the UK for some months of hospitalization.

Reading the account in the obituary, I remembered coverage of the incident at the time, when I was in my early twenties. And I remembered the debate it prompted as to whether female reporters should be allowed to place themselves in danger on the front line. It would be taken for granted now, so maybe there have been some advances in gender equality. Not as many as I would wish for, though. And, coward that I am, the right to put myself in the way of bomb blasts is one that I would happily forgo.

I checked online for obituaries in the other dailies. They were all full of praise for an exceptional woman, who had repeatedly demonstrated unrivalled bravery without losing her humanity and vulnerability. It was universally thought to be a tragedy that the life of such an icon should be ended by a domestic accident.

The obituaries did not evade the fact that Ingrid Richards’ private life had also been a battleground. There were the two short-lived marriages. As she’d said to me, they ‘didn’t take’. Alexandra was mentioned fleetingly, but not the name of her father. Which I thought was slightly strange. Ingrid had told me there was no secret about it. The information was even available on Wikipedia. Maybe in the obituaries Niall Connor had been protected from being named by some old-fashioned Fleet Street omertà.

Reading so much about her, I felt honoured to have met Ingrid Richards, albeit so late in her life.

But I couldn’t get out of my mind a few sentences she had spoken during our bonding over the Jameson’s. ‘I’m extremely careful about my personal safety. My experience of war zones has taught me how to avoid avoidable risks. There are no doubt people out there who’d like to kill me – I’ve rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way in the course of my career – but there’s no way I’ll die by accident.’

Two o’clock I was due at Edward Finch’s. I arrived in Lancing early, as I always like to for an appointment, and parked round the corner from his bungalow to check the mobile. I’d heard the ping of an incoming call on the way over. I do have the facility for hands-free calls, but I find they distract me from driving, so I rarely answer until I’m parked up. Unless, of course, it’s Ben calling.