Todd presses with his index finger on a knot in the shiny, yellowy wood of the kitchen table. ‘It turns out she was at Cambridge with Harry, my PPS.’ A PPS is a Parliamentary Private Secretary, an MP who is the eyes and ears of a minister or shadow minister in the House of Commons. ‘Harry had been in the transition meetings too. He got chatting with her on one of the coffee breaks. And then a couple of days later she rang Harry and said there was something sensitive she wanted to discuss with me. All hush hush, secret squirrel.’

It chimes with what I’d guessed, but I am as puzzled as ever by why she was so fired up that she would drive a coach and horse through Whitehall’s rules to have a secret meeting with the leader of the Opposition.

‘I was intrigued. At first, I assumed she was angling for a job if we won the election. But it was something else. She came here – exactly where you’re sitting, actually – and quite literally put five billion pounds on the table.’

‘She gave you the tax credit policy.’ I feel desperately sad she’d spoken to him not me. I try to hide it.

‘She did. She had a whole economic rationale for it too. The gist was that the current system short-changes British workers and damages the economy. Her argument was that because the government effectively subsidises dividend payments with the tax credits, pension funds put pressure on companies to pay bigger dividends, rather than investing more of their profits in new machinery, or plant or other kit. And that means companies in Britain are less productive than they would otherwise be, which means wages are lower. In other words, she argued that wages would actually rise if we took all that money away from pension funds. She was pretty persuasive.’

It’s an elegant analysis. Dad would be proud. Even so, I’m struggling to believe it was so compelling that it would motivate Clare to break every rule in the civil service book.

‘Was that the only reason she came to you?’

Todd hesitates. ‘There might have been more to it than that.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I didn’t know her well, obviously. But she seemed, well, pretty upset.’

‘Because the government dropped it?’

‘Because of how they dropped it.’

Again, I remember what Jeremy said. A blistering row with the Chancellor. ‘Did she explain?’