Ensuring his surgical facemask and sunglasses cover enough of him to render his identity unrecognisable, Chris crosses the road to the dark frontage of Patel’s Stores and slides into the corner recess.

Wearing sunglasses and a mask at night might attract attention, except this is Pond Street W1, where the twenty per cent who aren’t are asking, “Would sir like to see the wine menu?”

His PR consultant boss, Gordon Price, is in the restaurant opposite. The bastard is wining and dining Clarissa Vroom, daughter of the recently ennobled Frank Vroom, a former car-salesperson, who is drinking buddies with the Minister for Greasing Palms. While as juiced as a fiddler at a barn dance, the Minister bemoaned the lack of cheap PPE to Frank.