‘I like my journalists to ask challenging questions. It’s why my newspapers are so successful. But I don’t expect my people to make fools of themselves by talking rubbish.’

‘Mr Breitner never met your sister,’ says Streatham.

‘You hired a hitman named Henryk Deyna to knock her off her bike. You paid him five thousand pounds in cash, from the Globe’s newsroom safe.’

‘I have never heard of anyone called Henryk Deyna.’

There’s the hint of a grin as he says it – because he doesn’t have to demean himself by issuing an explicit order to get what he wants. His modus operandi would be to talk out loud about his ambitions, needs and frustrations with his courtiers and retainers. Like a pharaoh, he would simply assume that his revealed will would become deed, without the bother of issuing an instruction. When the Globe remorselessly destroyed the credibility of the previous leader of the Labour Party, Roy Parker, everyone knew it was following Breitner’s agenda, though he never told the editor how to execute the devastating character assassination. In an agenda-setting pre-election speech, Parker broached the social imperative of breaking up press giants, like Media Corp. This was the warrant for his execution. Within days the Globe was digging up and publishing story after story about Parker’s student links with the IRA and the PLO, anything that showed him unfit to be prime minister and have his finger on the nuclear button. He never recovered.

Clare was more deft. But Breitner knew she posed more of a threat to him than Parker had ever done. She had to be silenced. His lieutenants knew their duty. An accident was arranged. Nothing could ever be traced back to Breitner. Not even a nod or a wink. But I don’t have to pin the murder on him to hurt him.

‘You’ve heard of Clare. She devised the plan, adopted by Kendall, to raise substantial sums, billions a year, from pension funds. It would have allowed desperately needed money to go to schools and hospitals. It would have helped most of us, especially those with the least, while hurting almost no one. Except for a billionaire whose fortune turns out to be a fraud, a lie. You. So Robin Muller was despatched to put the squeeze on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And you armed Muller with what the Globe had found out about Kendall’s preference for young men. You blackmailed Kendall.’

Breitner says nothing.

‘Clare guessed what Muller had on Kendall because she was counselling Kendall’s lover. What she couldn’t understand was why Schon cared. So she went digging. And she was smart, smarter than me. And just as persistent.’

My voice starts to rasp. I am not going to give Breitner the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I swallow and blink to fight the tears.