James was waiting for me by the lifts.

He'd loosened his tie. He looked tired.

“Did you set me up?” he said.

“No, James. I didn't know you'd applied until this morning. I wasn't even meant to be on the panel. Our chair's stuck in fog at Heathrow.”

He laughed bitterly.

“Of course he is.”

He looked at me for a long moment. Like he was trying to see something he'd missed. “Chief Executive,” he said. “Of a two-billion-pound project. How? How did you… You were so…”

“Ordinary?”

He had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I was going to say quiet.”

“You said ordinary, James. In the restaurant. You said I was happy with ordinary.”

He didn't answer.

“You were right,” I said. “I was. I am. I love ordinary. Ordinary people. Ordinary streets. Ordinary things, like a swimming pool kids can walk to, and a flat a bus driver can afford.”

I pressed the button for the lift.

“That's how I did it,” I said. “I went and listened to ordinary people. Two hundred meetings in church halls. And they told me exactly what to build.”