‘You may be questioned, but what you simply say is that an anonymous source, not the foggiest idea of his name to this day, and don’t want to know, contacted you. He read your blog and offered some information anonymously. You passed it on to the editor, and that, Melissa, is exactly what happened.’

‘Yes, but what does he want?’

‘We don’t know. We don’t want to know. What we want is to follow a story of legitimate local interest, the shoddy treatment of Mr Artair MacCleod at the hands of one of the richest families in the land.’

‘Mr MacCleod is in the money.’

‘Oh is he? Where did that come from? I would hazard a guess that it came from someone close to his ex-wife who heard about your blog.’

‘It came from his wife herself.’

‘You can’t get closer than that.’

‘Why has she sent him money?’

‘The old boy’s kicked the bucket would be the sentimental reason, but the more likely reason is somebody’s advised her to shut him up. Has he been pestering them?’

‘He’s asked for information, but they never answer his letters. Mr Gerald Barnecutt of Barnecutt and Barnecutt has tried to get information, but he’s like failed miserably.’

‘That is what happens, Melissa. These big boys stonewall because they have very deep pockets and, if the little people persist, they set the lawyers on to them and then they bankrupt them with injunctions and libel actions and God knows what all. Barnecutt’s your man if you want permission to convert your garden shed into a crack den, but he’s completely out of his depth with this one.’

He’s enjoying this. But she wonders if he isn’t out of his depth too. Particularly, she wonders if there isn’t something more sinister behind this that he doesn’t understand. When he left Fleet Street, they were still setting the type by hand. She has seen that he is an old leftie, who hates banks and posh people with double-barrelled names and what he calls the aggregation of all power in London, and he hates the cosy relationship between banks, regulators and Parliament, which he says has got us into this mess. The government may be on the warpath now, he says, but they were the ones who were keen to remove the regulations – the policy of the light touch – so that the City could produce even more money. But it’s also true that if she sticks to the story and stays clear of the paperwork and all that sort of thing, she can’t really be sued or indicted.