‘Are you sure that’s a good idea on your own? Shouldn’t I meet you there?’

‘It’ll be fine. But keep your phone on.’

There’s stale cigarette smoke in the air. Right now I’d kill for a fag. I don’t need to smoke, I don’t need to smoke, I don’t need to smoke. Wilkinson strides purposefully back, grinning ear to ear at the prospect of tonight’s hunt. ‘We’re on.’

We say goodnight and good luck to Crowther. ‘I fear we’ll all be joining you on the dark side before too long,’ Wilkinson says to him.

I grimace. ‘We’ll grab lunch once your feet are under the table,’ I say, just to be polite. Then I wave at Alex Elliott, whose hand is around the waist of the showbiz editor, and we leave. We are a decidedly odd couple, and I wonder what speculation we’ve prompted about what we’re up to.

*

The ratio of black-cab supply and demand on a Thursday night on London Wall is decidedly in favour of the customer. Within a couple of minutes, we are ploughing down Moorgate and towards London Bridge. I’m on the foldaway seat, back to the driver, facing Wilkinson. Exhaustion is knocking on my door and I am struggling to keep it at bay.

Wilkinson is relaxed, in his element. ‘For a posh broadsheet journo, you’ve got a nose for a story. You should come and work for a proper newspaper.’

‘Very funny.’

‘Truthfully, I think Crowther has taken leave of his senses,’ he says. ‘PRs are the enemy. I can’t stand the younger generation coming into our trade who think we’re all on the same side. We can’t ever be on the same side as PRs. It’s a constant war against the forces of darkness.’

I don’t say what I am thinking, that he’s always doing seedy deals with dark forces to land the stories he wants. As am I. But at least his heart is in the right place. We’re all fucking hypocrites, but it’s better to be a hypocrite than to aspire to PR.

‘You know I am part of that younger generation,’ I say.

‘Yeah, but you seem to have come into the trade for the right reasons.’

‘And what would they be?’

‘To cause trouble. Not to stick your tongue up the backsides of the rich and famous.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ And I do, because for all that I loathe Wilkinson’s politics and ethics, he is a pro who has broken more stories over the past thirty years than many newspapers achieve in their history. If the Globe ever stopped selling itself on its daily menu of tits and bums and bile, its journalism might be noticed.

*