I tell Jess what I know, that it was my sister who devised the scheme she wrote about, that the Chancellor dropped it and she was livid. She stops tapping her pen.

‘Wow. I wonder if my piece spooked them.’

‘I’m not sure.’ I close my eyes and press my fingers to my temples. Jeremy’s voice plays in my head.

There’s something not right about how Clare died.

This is mad. One pager message has made me as loopy as Jeremy.

I open my eyes to see Jess’s concerned face staring at me. ‘Are you OK, boss?’

It’s embarrassing to say it out loud, but perhaps that’s the best way to exorcise the demon. ‘Clare’s PA is convinced there’s something funny about . . . about the accident. He thinks – at least, I think he thinks – it’s connected to the policy she’d been working on.’ I laugh. ‘That’s mad, right? No one dies because of pensions tax. Unless they lose the will to live from boredom.’

I’m waiting for Jess’s scorn. Instead she tilts her head and starts rhythmically clicking her ballpoint. Christ, she’s thinking.

‘The pensions industry is worth about a trillion quid. It’s the backbone of the stock market. If the government does something that affects the money going into those funds, that is a big deal.’

I feel confused – which may have something to do with the seven glasses of white Burgundy I glugged in The Groucho last night.

‘Are you saying it is plausible Clare was killed to stop pension funds losing money?’

‘No, of course not. That’s mad. I am just saying when you change the regulation or taxation of pension funds, there are winners and losers. The sums involved can be massive. Someone would have wanted it stopped.’

I drum my fingers on the edge of the computer keyboard. ‘It would be helpful to know precisely what it was Clare was working on.’ We might even get a decent story out of it. I wince. I should not be thinking about a byline.

‘How do we find out?’

‘Scott knows, I reckon. She was going to send him a document or something about it. But that sanctimonious wanker won’t tell us.’

‘So that was why you were being such a prat with him. I honestly don’t think you’d have handed over the story, if the roles were reversed?’

She’s right. ‘Who do we ask?’

I’m still contemplating this when the door bangs open and a bald man with a bristle of moustache sticks his head in. ‘Ah, Peck. Surprised to see you back.’

‘Couldn’t keep away. You know what it’s like. The drug of news, and all that.’