Later, Johnny Todd and Jimmy Breitner are in Breitner’s Sun King drawing room. Their pact is sealed. A mutual support agreement. A mogul rescued, the price of a pretender’s ascent to the highest office. Todd stands. He adjusts the knot of his turquoise tie, fixes his green eyes on Breitner’s. There is one other thing. There is a Treasury official who can make life uncomfortable, for both of us. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Clare Peck. And that was that.

Clare had to act fast. I was the only person she could have trusted, because only I would have understood and forgiven everything. That’s why she rang. But I was fucking Marilyn and missed the call. I failed her, and there is no point in trying to forgive myself.

‘I would have saved you, Clare,’ I whisper to myself. ‘As you always saved me.’

Standing on the balcony, I look down on smiling, happy faces waiting for Todd to appear. I no longer want to be inside: I want to be out there. Just another face in the crowd.

On the stage, a well-known comedian has stepped up to the microphone and begins the familiar call and response.

‘Modern Labour,’ he shouts.

‘Modern Britain,’ the crowd bellows back.

‘Modern Labour.’

‘Modern Britain.’

I look back through the windows to the theatre lobby. Marilyn is trying to lead Todd out to the podium, but it’s hard going. The crowd don’t want to let him through. Todd is promiscuously shaking hands and hugging everyone. There’s Alex Elliott beaming; Cameron Fisher in rapt conversation with Nigel Sands, no long spoon anywhere in sight. For a moment I think I even glimpse Robin Muller.

I try to lock eyes with Marilyn, hoping she’ll register me, feel my despair, rescue me and rescue herself. I look for a sign that she harbours doubts. She doesn’t. She is a believer.

With every cell of my being I want to complete Clare’s mission, to bring Todd’s world crashing down. But what can I prove? What do I have that cannot be denied? Clare’s Filofax confession is in code. There’s no proof that the child was Todd’s, and after the cremation there never can be. If I somehow manage to get a newspaper to print my insinuations, all that will happen is that there will be a war of innuendo, probably for years. Breitner and Todd will unite to paint Clare as a fantasist, a hysteric, a Treasury official driven by left-wing ideological hate to breach the Official Secrets Act. Kendall will probably roll in behind them. They will besmirch her reputation, humiliate her husband, destroy my parents, turn her innocent boys into a laughing stock. Is that a price Clare would want paid? Is that justice, when Todd and Breitner will most likely never face justice themselves?