Melissa thinks this girlie persona is good camouflage for what she’s doing in league with the rumpled but increasingly obsessed editor. She, and Mr Tredizzick, of course, are going to expose some criminal dealing in London. Down here nobody has a great opinion of London anyway, but since it turned out that overpaid and self-­important bankers didn’t have a clue about what they were doing, they have been happy to be confirmed in the belief that London is a sink of iniquity, double-dealing and miscegenation. They thank God there are still some real English men and women out on the margins. But Melissa knows it’s not that simple. Why, if London is such a hellhole, does London have the art and the theatre and the taste? Down here they throw us a bone, like the St Ives Tate, which has a few interesting daubs hanging on the walls, but mostly people are just doing rubbish watercolours and making wind chimes and seagulls on sticks. Why are people more stylish, worldlier and generally way more interesting in London? And why do people from all over the world want to live there? It’s the no-hopers with low horizons who find it convenient to hate London.

But she feels uneasy. Does she really want to be responsible for humiliating a family like the Tubals just for a story, for the sake of the Globe and Mail, which is already holed below the waterline? Or is it for the editor, who couldn’t hack it in London? She goes out and buys a cheap phone and a few hours of airtime. As she’s walking down Market Street, Alan39 texts her; she replies and soon he rings back from yet another phone.

‘He says you can call him tonight at ten.’

‘OK. Give me the number.’

He doesn’t say another word. Who is he frightened of, she wonders? She takes the phone back to Mr Tredizzick.

‘Ten is fine.’

‘OK. Well done. We will speak tomorrow.’