A group of men, some of whom I recognised, were hunched over a table apparently finishing a meeting over a meal, papers and dispatch boxes strewn between carafes of wine, half-empty glasses, bits of bread and reeking, sweaty cheese. At least one was a Tory ex-cabinet member whom I had investigated in the past. I ducked my head instinctively, wondering what they were discussing now. How best to explain their latest expenses maybe, after the Conway and son scandal. Whatever it was, the tension was palpable in the small hot room.

The driver signalled our presence to Lord Higham, who sat in the middle of the table, calmly holding forth about something, the men at either end arguing and gesticulating. When Higham saw us, he quickly made his excuses to the other men, moving down the back of the room to greet us, brandy balloon in hand. His half-moon glasses gave his rather lugubrious face a professorial air.

‘Welcome to Pandemonium,’ he said wryly, and I stared at him in disbelief, the eerie echo of his son’s words from years ago in my ears. ‘You have caught us at a precarious time.’

The other politicians hardly glanced round, so immersed in their discussions, and I had a sudden ghastly vision of Lucifer’s council: Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy. Dalziel had been obsessed with the rebel angels.

‘Or possibly our last supper,’ Higham smiled wearily. He was older, of course, and thinner than I remembered from our brief acquaintance after Dalziel’s death. More stooped; more avuncular, somehow. I thought again how he looked nothing like his son. His face was much broader, the features cruder than Dalziel’s finely boned beauty, his skin now folded in on itself as if it had been neatly creased in the middle of his cheeks.

‘So good of you to come.’ His mellifluous voice was assured as he removed his glasses now, courteously inclining his grey head. Instinctively I crossed my hands before me.

‘I’m not sure I had much choice.’

‘Well,’ he smiled. ‘I should apologise for asking you here at such short notice.’

‘I’m not sure ask is the right word, but I’m intrigued, Lord Higham,’ I said casually. Inside I didn’t feel the least bit casual, but I couldn’t let him see that.

I followed him upstairs to another dining room, most of the tables upended, red velvet chairs against the wall, one young waitress busy folding linen in an office at the far end. The walls were dotted with framed photographs of politicians and singers, many signed to someone called Mario, interspersed with small watercolours of Italian and English countryside.

Higham indicated an unlaid table in the corner, the white tablecloth ringed with old wine stains.

‘Can I get you something?’ he asked, offering me a chair beneath a watercolour of the white cliffs of Dover. ‘A glass of Chianti? A brandy perhaps?’