I exit the juddering wood-panelled lift on to a tiny landing, next to a cafeteria that has been selling the same plain cheese sandwiches on white bread for forty years. Now, at 10.30 a.m. the place is half-empty. Parliament doesn’t really get going until nearer lunchtime. The few hacks who are at their desks already aren’t engaging in the day job. They’re mostly writing tedious ‘lineage’ pieces, freelance work paid per line, for trade publications – on likely new building regulations for Housebuilding Weekly, or rail privatisation for Railway News – to help with the mortgage. Some glance up as I wander past, offering the obligatory words of sympathy.

I acknowledge the condolences, but am distracted. For a day and a half almost all I have been able to think about is the message on the pager.

I need your help. Clare.

Five words, seen too late. I rage at her for not calling me directly, or not paging me earlier. But of course she couldn’t ring me, because I never gave her either of the Nokia numbers, and she was probably too embarrassed to ask Mum and Dad for them. I rage at my own pig-headed failure to mend with her, and the obsessive thought that everything is my fault. If I hadn’t been with Marilyn, if I hadn’t lost the pager, if I had called Clare back, she would have been on the phone to me rather than on her bicycle.

What did she need? Why, after being estranged so long, did she decide to contact me? In the last day I’ve rung everyone to see if they have the faintest idea what she might have wanted. Mum and Dad were coldly dismissive of the idea that my sister would share anything important with me. Charles was in America and didn’t have a clue; he used their short chats on the phone to receive news about the boys. Jeremy, her assistant, said he’d already told me everything. I am out of ideas.

Before I turn left into the FC’s room, I nod at Alan Scott, political correspondent of the Sentinel, who is at his desk on the Burma Road’s right bank. I brace myself for the platitudinous condolences. He and I have a grudging mutual respect. Actually, I may be flattering myself. I see him as a diligent and effective political reporter, though tediously worthy. He probably despises me as a glory boy and a chancer. Which is fair enough. I play the odds when writing an exclusive and there is always an element of controlled risk that I might have got it wrong. I am addicted to the adrenaline rush of never being quite certain whether the latest scoop will be the career-ending one that is comprehensively trashed. Until now, at least, and whether by luck or judgement, I’ve never screwed up – or at least, not disastrously.