I walk across St James’s Park to the east side of the lake. I’m a few minutes early, so I pass the time watching the pelicans. I’ve been obsessed with these monstrous birds, and a little afraid of them, ever since my grandparents would bring Clare and me here as children. Clare and I would be in between grandma and grandpa, each of us holding one of their hands. We would wear the matching powder-blue tailored woollen overcoats, run up by grandpa on his Singer sewing machine, that made us look as though we might have just walked out of the regal gaff down the road. I remember how we watched the park-keepers throw fish to the birds, which they swallowed whole, and the mixture of disgust and admiration I felt. Though mostly I would be fixating on the looming treat of a 99 cone from one of the ice cream vans.

Today I am wearing my navy blue three-quarter length Jean Paul Gaultier coat, perhaps my proudest sartorial possession, and an understated grey cashmere Dunhill scarf. The rain storm drove everyone out of the park and most are still sheltering indoors, so it isn’t hard to spot Jeremy hurrying breathlessly towards me from my right. He has the hood up on his North Face anorak, which has fogged his glasses so much I’m surprised he can recognise me.

He stops slightly further away than is normal, as if I’m contagious.

‘Would you mind if we walk and talk?’ he says, conspicuously nervous about us being seen together.

‘Surely there’s nothing sinister about the two of us meeting? We might be making arrangements for me to collect Clare’s personal effects,’ I say.

‘That’s already in hand,’ he tells me. ‘I had to go through it all myself, sorting out what’s confidential, what’s personal, what’s Treasury property.’ He gives a twitchy glance over his shoulder and starts walking. I quicken my pace and fall in step beside him. ‘It was horrible, brought home that she’s never coming back. Silly things, like her calculator. When I picked it up, all I could think of was that look on her face, how hard she concentrated when she was working.’ Inside the anorak hood, he looks despondent. ‘You probably think I’m pathetic.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ I might cringe at his naïvety, but we have a connection. When Clare bought her first scientific calculator at the start of her O levels, she showed the same kind of joy many boys have on owning their first old banger of a motor. I see her hunched over it at the table in her bedroom, acing pure maths. I know what Jeremy means. When Clare had a problem to solve, everything else was screened out.

‘You loved Clare, didn’t you,’ I say, too bluntly. Jeremy flushes.

‘She looked out for me. She took care of her team – especially those who were . . . vulnerable.’