Elliott gives an offhand wave, noblesse oblige. Jess and I squeeze our chairs around the table. He proffers the Krug. ‘You know Patrick and Frankie, of course,’ says Elliott, nodding to his companions. Patrick is Patrick Munis, the young Times leader writer. He’s feted as the brightest young journalist of his generation – pass the sick bag. Frankie is Frankie Crowther, City Editor of the Daily Telegraph. My stamina for champagne and the white powder is highly developed, but I am an amateur compared with Crowther.

‘Sorry about Clare,’ says Munis. He’s bellowing, because at this time of the night the club is packed and everyone is shouting to be heard. I’m aware Munis’s sister was at Cambridge with Clare. If voters only knew the close social, educational and familial connections between politicians, media and the City, there’d be riots on the street. The people who end up in positions of power or influence come from the same schools, universities, and postcodes. Class and education trump ideology. The young Tory and Labour apparatchiks drink together across party lines, swap gossip about their bosses together, and sleep together. And because journalists, hacks, policy wonks and civil servants all know each other, usually from university – Oxford mostly, with diversity provided by Cambridge, occasionally Edinburgh – the ideological and sexual promiscuity runs across the establishment. Sleeping with the putative enemy is fine – almost a cliché – so long as it’s discrete.

‘I read about her in the Tel,’ Crowther joins in. ‘Hope you’re OK, mate.’ His accent is nasal estuary, a classic disguise assumed by alumni of the more expensive London fee-paying schools. He was one of the hacks who wrote up the story of Clare’s death and it rankles that he did.

‘I wish you hadn’t done the story,’ I say. ‘The publicity makes it harder for her husband to shield the boys. And the story must have tipped off some toerag thieves, because their home in Primrose Hill was burgled during the funeral.’

Crowther looks sheepish. ‘Fuck. Sorry. For what it’s worth, I didn’t put anything about the funeral in the copy.’

I am being a hypocrite, in that I’ve put my byline on too many stories that breach the line between the public and private. Even so, I ask, ‘Why did you write it?’

‘Mother of two tipped to be head of the Treasury dies in tragic bicycle accident? You know the form, Gil. That was always a story.’

‘Yes, I know that’. I am tetchy. ‘I mean where did the story come from? We didn’t tell anyone and the Treasury told me they were surprised when they started getting calls about it.’