“You’re a hard woman, Brannigan,” he complained. “Never off duty, are you? OK, I’ll tell you. You know me and Jett go way back?” I nodded. I remembered Richard telling me the story of how he’d landed his first job on a music paper with an exclusive interview of the normally reclusive Jett. Richard had been working for a local paper in Watford and he’d been covering their cup tie with Manchester City. At the time, Elton John had owned Watford, and Jett had been his personal guest for the afternoon. After City won, Richard had sneaked in to the boardroom and had persuaded an elated Jett to give him an interview. That interview had been Richard’s escape ticket. As a bonus, Jett had liked what Richard wrote, and they’d stayed friends ever since.

“Well,” Richard continued, interrupting my reference to my mental card index of his past, “he’s decided that he wants his autobiography written.”

“Don’t you mean biography?” Always the nitpicker, that’s me.

“No, I mean auto. He wants it ghosted, written in the first person. When we saw him at that dinner, he mentioned it to me. Sort of sounded me out. Of course, I said I’d be interested. It wouldn’t be a mega-seller like Jagger or Bowie, but it could be a nice little earner. So, when he rang me up to invite us tonight and he was so insistent that you come along too, I thought I could read between the lines.”

Although he was trying to sound nonchalant, I could tell that Richard was bursting with pride and excitement at the idea. I pulled his head down to mine and planted a kiss on his warm mouth. “That’s great news,” I said, meaning it. “Will it mean a lot of work?”

He shrugged. “I shouldn’t think so. It’s just a case of getting him talking into the old tape recorder then knocking it into shape afterwards. And he’s going to be at home for the next three months or so working on the new album, so he’ll be around and about.”

Before we could discuss the matter further, the taxi pulled up outside the ornate façade of the grandiosely named Holiday Inn Midland Crowne Plaza. It’s one of those extraordinary Manchester