‘Much of the problem comes from our collective need to endow photographs with intentions – even though there are no people in the frame, including Fenton himself, who is conspicuously absent. The minute we start to conjecture about Fenton’s reasons, his intent – his psychological state – we are walking on unhallowed ground. Can we read Fenton’s intentions off of a photographic plate? Is there anything in the letters that tells us what he was really thinking and what really happened?’

47. Being stuck in a cab in New York rush hour traffic – “You don’t understand,… I have to be there by 4.00!” – “Hey, mac, it’s rush hour, we ain’t gettin’ there til five, so relax.” – “BUT I HAVE TO BE THERE BY FOUR!!!”

Shortly after Tony Blair and Robin Cook had been added to Fayed’s list of conspirators, Richard Horwell QC, a note of incredulity rising in his voice, said: “So that’s MI5, MI6, the CIA, the DGSE – the French intelligence service – Judge Stephan … the French ambulance service … Lord Condon, Lord Stevens … Mr Burgess, the Surrey coroner and Lady Sarah McCorquodale?” He could have added several more: two bodyguards; the French pathologists; a photographer called James Andanson, who was allegedly driving the white Fiat Uno that brushed against the Mercedes shortly before it crashed in the Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31 1997; Henri Paul, the chauffeur; a reception clerk at the Ritz hotel; Sir Michael Jay, the then British ambassador; Sir Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary, who was Diana’s brother-in-law; Lord Mishcon, her solicitor; and – of course – Prince Philip and Prince Charles. Time and again, Fayed answered: “Definitely.”

* Are you sad that Joseph died? Don't you care?

> Perhaps in your fantasies I am sad that Joseph died? Don't me care?

* I would like to think that you would be sad.

> We were discussing you, not me.

‘When Brent Pack talks about [Gilligan’s treatment] as being standard operating procedure, I find that a powerful and odd moment. He’s sincere, he’s not a bad guy, and yet he’s telling us something that is actually surreal and disturbing—even more so because he’s not a bad guy, because he’s being sincere. Or just seeing Lyndie England and how devastated she was by all of this. I’m moved by it. Call me crazy, but I am. She gives this final speech, which to me is so sad, about how maybe the whole world is just backstabbing and lying. You’ve got all of these players caught in this strange drama. The perversity of it all.’

The tangled history of Miracleman—from its origins as a British derivation of the 1940s Captain Marvel character to its current status as the source of a seemingly bottomless legal quagmire—is a Primer unto itself. Moore’s run on the title stretched from its 1982 revival as a feature in Warrior through 16 issues. It begins with the middle-aged Micky Moran remembering he has the ability to transform into a superhero with the use of a magic word, and it ends with Moran’s alter ego becoming a god on earth. In between, Moore teases out the troubling implications always present in the genre. What do these power fantasies mean, and, if left unchecked, where would they take us? Can the gulf between humanity and superhumanity ever be closed? “His emotions are so pure,” Moran tells his wife early in the run, “when he loves you it’s gigantic. His love is so strong and clean… When I love you it’s all tangled up with who’s not doing their share of the washing up and twisted neurotic things like that.” By the end of Moore’s story, the part of Moran that asks such questions is gone.

Many fans had come to like the character better dead than alive after he was disintegrated saving the universe.

“That’s the point of comics – they don’t have to die, because they’re fictional creations,” said Grant Morrison, one of the writers behind the comeback.

“We can do anything with them, and we can make them come back and make them defy death,” Morrison said. “And that’s why people read comics, to get away from the way life works, which is quite cruel and unheroic and ends in death.”