Lindsay couldn’t help admiring Sophie’s matching look of bewilderment. “I don’t understand,” she said. “It was one of a batch that were all sent out together. The letter explained what the project was about, and asked for your cooperation, and said I’d visit one morning this week while I was in the UK, if that was convenient.”

He got to his feet, and produced two wooden folding chairs from the narrow gap between a pair of filing cabinets. “Well, it’s not inconvenient,” he said, unfolding the chairs and waving the two women to them. “I was just doing me paperwork, nothing that can’t wait a bit. Mebbe you could tell me what it’s all about?” He plonked himself back down in his own battered typist’s chair.

Lindsay cringed as Sophie launched into an elaborate explanation, heavily larded with medical, statistical and sociological jargon. What it boiled down to was that she and Lindsay were allegedly researching causes of death among national newspaper journalists, to see if there were any statistically significant changes following the introduction of computer technology in the eighties. To Lindsay’s ears, it sounded so outrageously silly it could only be true. Certainly, it seemed to impress the coroner’s officer.

“I see,” he said slowly. “And that would mean going back a few years, I take it?”

Sophie nodded. “We need to go back ten years before the introduction of new technology, which, in most cases, means going back between fifteen and eighteen years.”

“You’ll be after that lad that died during the union conference in 1984, then?” he asked.

Lindsay hoped her face didn’t betray the shock she felt. Sophie’s eyebrows rose. “You remember the case? That’s extraordinary,” she said.

“We don’t get many conference delegates popping their clogs,” he said. “You tend to remember, on account of how the tourist information lads get their bowels in a right confusion over it. If they had their way, we’d hold inquests at the bottom of a coalmine at midnight whenever they involve a holidaymaker or a conference delegate. They’ve never forgiven Neil Kinnock for falling in the sea before the Labour Party Conference. They said he made it look like Blackpool beach was a life-threatening place to go on holiday. I ask you!” He got to his feet. “The lad’s name?”

Sophie pretended to consult her personal organizer. “Ian Ross,” she said.

He went straight to one of the cabinets flanking the door, and stood on a set of library steps to reach the top drawer. He pulled out a bulky file and climbed down with it. “Here we are,” he said.

“I’m impressed,” Sophie said.

“I like to keep things methodical,” he said. “You never know when somebody’s going to need to take another look at a file. Things can take on a different perspective down the years, can’t they?” he added, almost wistfully.