‘I was saying thank you to Becky,’ says Antonia. She wipes under her eyes with the pads of her fingers and fixes Becky with a strong, determined gaze, dredged up from the silt. Her eyes are sun-warm with gratitude. ‘It probably hasn’t been easy for her either.’

‘It’s nothing,’ says Becky.

‘Will you stay for lunch?’ says Antonia.

‘Thank you, no, I can’t. I’ve got to get back to the office.’

‘Right, let’s move things along,’ says Matthew. ‘To the bat cave.’

‘Darling, I’ll put lunch on the table for one-ish,’ Antonia calls after them brightly, a weight lifted from her on his promise of a return to normality, or something that looks like it.

A walk down a wood-panelled corridor. Matthew leads Becky further into the heart of the house than she has ever been before: into a red-wine-carpeted room lined with bookcases and more wood panels, varnished darkly. A cumbersome moss-green leather-topped desk sits in the middle of the room, flanked by two padded red leather chairs, high-back seats fastened to their frames with lines of brass buttons. She stands at the perimeter a little breathless, a little anxious that there might not be enough air to breathe the further she ventures inside this crypt that smells of old hide and damp pages, of furniture polish and freshly brewed coffee.

‘The story heading into the nationals could have gone a radically different way,’ Matthew says, not going for the desk and instead slumping back into one of his study’s plump, old-world armchairs. ‘I’ve had three people from IcePR working on this and I think it’s almost safe to say we’ve won the conversation.’

‘I saw a lot of stories by that guy Alex you introduced me to.’

‘Yeah, he’s one of the good ones.’

‘How does it work? Do you pay them?’

‘It’s not quite as blunt as that. But everyone gets rewarded eventually. It’s an ecosystem. The smart ones understand that. Why do you ask?’

‘Only because I want to learn.’

She steps into the room and perches at the edge of one of the red leather chairs.

‘You may well call this experience educational. Not sure I wanted to be the case study, but there we are.’

‘So once the stories dry up, is it all over?’

‘The damage limitation part’s over, but then there’s a bit of rebuilding to do. You can’t do that immediately. It makes you look reactive and fraudulent. But in due course we’ll probably spend some money on mental health and actors: you know, how it’s a hard trade, not enough support for the vulnerable, body-shaming, etcetera. I don’t know if it’s a foundation or funding the right charity or opening up a conversation, but we’ll take a quiet lead on it, build it into a nice healthy debate.’