‘That might be a good idea.’ And before I can ask if he’s serious, he rings off.

Wednesday, 23 April – 8 days until Election Day

Just occasionally, my job feels like a scene from a movie. I’d like to think it was a high quality 1950s film noir, though at times it’s more like the sort of spoof thriller you’d get from the creators of Airplane! I’m standing on the corner where Eldon Street becomes Broad Street Place, where the old City of London tries its hardest to look like techno-modern Wall Street. In spite of my voluminous dark navy Yamamoto overcoat, I am hugging myself to keep out the chill, while waiting for a man I’ve never met, who may only be able to identify me by the rolled-up copy of today’s FC that is tucked under my left arm. The stakes feel high. I mustn’t fuck this up, mustn’t fuck this up, mustn’t fuck this up.

I’ve been waiting for fifteen minutes. It’s Wednesday night and the City is a ghost town. Apart from a few trainees and juniors at the assorted law and banking firms, who’ve been coerced into proofreading prospectuses and offer documents into the small hours, most workers have gone home. Any minute now, London Underground staff will draw the iron grille across the entrance to the station. I feel exposed, vulnerable.

Am I being played? Is Bob chortling at his prank, while wallowing on a fat sofa with a single malt and a Cohiba Esplendido?

A black cab comes rattling down the street and I decide that’s a sign for me to give up. It noses to the kerb only a few yards away and, although its light is off, I wander over to see if he’ll drive me home.

A slim man in an immaculately cut black overcoat with a chocolate velvet collar opens the door and carefully dismounts. He has boxy black spectacles, hair that is Brylcreemed back with short back and sides, and – like me – a copy of the FC under his arm.

‘Gilbert.’ He shakes my hand. ‘Hugo.’

We’ve never met, but I know who he is. Hugo Rep, dealing partner of Palatine and Co., the Queen’s stockbrokers. Palatine is the only one of the City’s eminent and ancient stockbrokers that has remained a partnership and has not sold itself for a fabulous sum to an American or Swiss bank. That’s not because their partners are uninterested in wealth. It’s because for two hundred years Palatine partners have made so much money from doing things in their own supremely arrogant style, they won’t lightly give it up. What these days would be called their ‘franchise’ – what they would call their inheritance – must always be preserved and passed on to the next generation of partners.