His charm works. I am off guard and say something I regret.

‘Do you know, I’ve never actually read it.’

Now it’s Todd who professes surprise. ‘But it’s a classic.’

‘I’ve started it so many times. But I never got past the chapter on the Gorbals’ tenements. In my defence,’ I add feebly, ‘I lived that book, every day, throughout childhood.’

Even breakfast with Dad – ‘continental’, of course, vast wedges of Edam squeezed between laterally sliced baguette – was a sermon on the perniciousness of the market economy and the wrongheadedness of monetary economists like Friedman. In a family of atheists, it was politics as religion. Being in the Peck family required adherence to a few simple tenets: all decent people are socialists; Tories are stupid or bad or both; belief in God is the superstition of the feeble-minded; and never (repeat never) smoke. Oh, and all true Pecks support Tottenham Hotspur. Most of my life has been the delicate business of bending, if not breaking, all these strictures. Apart from the one about supporting Spurs.

‘Have you ever read The Autobiography of John Stewart Mill?’ I ask. Todd gives me a quizzical look. I am oversharing. ‘It’s about how hard it is to have a father who wants you to follow in his intellectual footsteps.’ Dad insisted both Clare and I read it, as a teenage rite of passage. It was one of his ways of telling us what he expected of us. This memory is a trigger. I understand how terrible Clare’s death must be for Dad. But I kill the thought almost as soon as it enters my head. ‘Dad wanted us to change the world. I ran away.’ I look hard at Todd. ‘Clare tried her best.’

I fall silent. Todd tries to put me at ease. ‘As you know, Gil, I met Clare only recently. But I was bowled over by her. She would have been such an asset to a Labour government. She had given so much thought to the big question that we’ve just been discussing, how to increase resources for the state, without damaging the private sector’s capacity to create employment and generate taxable revenues.’

A nerd’s tribute to my nerdy sister. Despite himself, Dad would be proud. It is a struggle not to cry.

‘I’m sorry,’ Johnny says. ‘It’s still raw for you.’

I shrug, not trusting myself to speak.

‘So young and so promising,’ he adds. ‘Do you understand any more about what happened?’

I shoot Marilyn a warning look. As much as Johnny Todd wants me to trust him, this is neither the time nor place. I feel compelled to tell him only that it wasn’t her fault. ‘Clare was a brilliant cyclist. But among the things that simply don’t make sense is why she wasn’t wearing her damn helmet.’