A dirty silence settles over the disordered table. I know all too well who she means, and I imagine she includes me in the generality of soul-stealers. Did I not make secret approaches to her precious son? Was I not the devil’s spawn? Had I not penetrated her long-neglected private parts? Heavens, she can count herself lucky that I took only her virtue and not her Christian soul when I shagged her diagonally upstairs, on the bed of the Palmerston Suite.

I survey her through hooded eyes, savouring her fears – so archaic beside the multi-layered intellectual lives of the ‘primitives’ she despises. I owe her nothing, nor shall I see her again. She and her boy have been stepping-stones on my path to truth. I have trodden on them, and moved on. However, we are not savages. I could not have reached my destination without them and, remembering an ethic of my father’s never to give gratuitous offence, I resolve to allay her odious prejudices with a sophisticated dose of bromides.

‘So far as I am aware, my dear,’ I ooze, ‘the late Rabbi Katzenberg was, in his youth, a promising pupil of the distinguished Professor Flesch. The murder of his family in Nazi concentration camps propelled him towards a spiritual life, as I am sure Peter has told you. I had hoped to persuade him to become a mentor to Peter. Tragically, the accident intervened, and I was unable to find a substitute. Had Rabbi Katzenberg lived and continued to teach him, Peter might now be on his way to a glittering career.’

‘I was quite upset to read about his death,’ interjects Fred, ‘not that I knew anything of his background.’

‘Let’s leave it there,’ I conclude. ‘It has been good to see you both, and I hope all goes well with the birth. Please give Peter my good wishes. Goodness, is that the time?’

I have an hour left before my train. A brisk walk would do me good. There are no waiters around, so I take the bill to the reception desk and ask for Mr Woodward.

‘Doesn’t work here any more,’ says a trim young woman with a name-badge on her navy lapel. ‘Woody took early redundancy – sorry, retirement – last year. Can I help? I’m the new manager, Sue Summerfield. As you can see, we’re smartening the old place up for the millennium.’

Ms Summerfield graciously accepts my appreciation of her improvements. She recognises my name from the mailing list. I mention that Woodward allocated me a locker in the vaults, to save me shunting stock to and from London. ‘We’d better take a look,’ she says. ‘Good thing you came today. I put up notices two months ago warning customers to remove all their possessions by the end of this week. The builders are about to convert the basement, in phase two of our renovation, into an executive health club and swimming-pool.’