The weather was biblical as Lord Levy prepared for his great moment yesterday. It was noon and the silver-haired fox was holed up with his lawyers in their offices in gritty old Gray’s Inn Road. The rain was coming down in sheets. I felt that somewhere out there, a man named Noah was building an ark.

It was a day of extreme extremes and the weather was playing its part. How Lord Levy must have been tempted to make the media wait outside, so he could actually see us dripping in the gutters that were now flowing like rivers. For the past 16 months, we have been his very own vultures, endlessly circling. There was no fresh meat yesterday but we were still there, a fact of life for one more day.

But what a day! Lord Levy had been told to say nothing when he left his home in Mill Hill in North London in the morning but he just could not stop himself.

He emerged from his chauffer-driven Jag, his face cracking with happiness. Had he had a glass of champagne with breakfast? “Did you say one?” he shot back.

Then he shook hands with every photographer, reporter and cameraman there. It was an extraordinary gesture and the magnanimous spirit continued at his lawyers’ offices. Lord Levy was to speak after the Crown Prosecution Service had made its announcement but the timing (and all of London by now) was fluid. Thus, the press was ushered into a basement room to wait. On such days reality can be so slow to catch up with the news.

As ever, when you are in the centre of a story, it is hard to know what is going on. There was no television but someone rustled up an old radio-cassette player. At 12.40pm the precise voice of the CPS’s Carmen Dowd filled the room, which by now felt like a bunker.

She sounded defensive. Occasionally the radio would stop and a hack would whack it. Upstairs, if Lord Levy were watching on television, he would feel no need to hit it today.

Moments later an ebullient lord, accompanied by his lawyer, burst through the door. “Good afternoon everyone!” cried Lord Levy. He looked like a human exclamation mark, perpetually on the brink of joyous explosion. His smile was bigger than his face, his teeth as gleaming white as his shirt, his dark suit impeccably tailored, his small black shoes gleaming.

He read his statement without a trace of triumphalism. He has a vaudeville face, always on the brink of slapstick, but he kept it under control yesterday. His goal must have been to speak from the heart but in a measured way. Not for him a repeat of Alastair Campbell’s am-dram blame-fest after the Hutton report.

His short speech was full of thanks for family and friends. He steered clear of attacking the police. He said that he had been “disappointed” by the constant leaks to the media. I imagine that it took some time to find such a dull word for the fury that he must feel. The leaks had been “misleading, factually inaccurate and personally damaging”.

It was over in minutes. A question was shouted about the leaks, which he ignored.

But then came a question of a different sort. “Are you going to have a party?” Lord Levy’s eyes lit up. He headed towards the journalists, looking dangerously friendly.

“Michael!” warned his lawyer. “I’m thinking about it!” cried Lord Levy. Then he was bundled out of the bunker and back into a world in which, against all odds, the sun was shining once again.

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