I stare at him. I’m lost for words. I haven’t a clue what to say. All I can hear is a voice in my head and it belongs to Bullivant. We gather the evidence, he’s insisting. And the rest will be down to a jury.

‘They want to put us on trial,’ I manage at last. ‘For breaking the law.’

‘I’m sure they do. All we’re doing now is speeding things up a little. We need people to have their say. First here. Then a much wider audience. The point is this. The poor bloody woman was heading for a death most of us can’t imagine. Tomorrow night we’re going to explore what that death would have been like.’

‘How?’

‘We’ve got permission to use the Palo Alto footage. The Guardian has commissioned its video unit to knock some other stuff together. MND families. First-person witness. Other victims nearing the end. We’ll screen it all, then have a debate. It’ll be a clusterfuck, I guarantee it, but that’s in all our interests, most of all – dare I say it – yours.’

‘Clusterfuck?’ I’m losing it again. This is becoming a habit.

‘Huge media interest. The tabloids en masse. Three of the grown-up papers. Half a dozen news crews. Think satellite trucks. Think Channel Four News. Think Emily Maitlis. This will be the party no one dare miss. You thought the cliff fall turned into a media circus?’ Mitch rarely grins. ‘Just wait until tomorrow night.’

I nod, trying to keep my head above water beneath this torrential flood of images.

‘Sounds like a crusade,’ I mutter.

‘Exactly.’ The irony, for once, is lost on Mitch. ‘And you know the best of it? We’re catching a brand-new government as it’s beginning to hatch. That makes it a political story. Johnson thinks in headlines. Tabloid approval is meat and drink to him. Lose the Telegraph or the Daily Mail, and he can’t sleep at night. They’re both sending feature people down today to write colour pieces. These are their top writers, the scribblers who really know how to stir the pot, and they know exactly how to touch the nerve that matters. Christianne should have been allowed to die in peace. That cliff fall was nobody’s fault, but what’s happened since is. Leave her memory alone. Stop wasting public money. Call the dogs off. Put Bullivant out to grass.’ Another grin. ‘Clear the Budleigh Six.’