A YEAR ago, this was enemy territory for Alex Salmond, who was darting around in his helicopter battling “the three amigos” of what he called “Team Westminster”: David Cameron, George Osborne and Ed Miliband. But now, here he is in the Central Lobby of the Palace of Westminster, and it’s as if it is Salmond’s gaff.
We make our way to the Pugin Room, the grand, chandeliered cafe where Salmond first met Sir John Chilcot, chair of the much-delayed report into the Iraq war. “I’m just hoping the reason is that there’s something in it. You never know. Maybe the old boy will astonish me,” he says. “But I shouldn’t call him an old boy when I’m limping around the corridors.”
He takes his shoes off under the table to ease the pain of a leg injury caused by a bad golf swing. Though fellow SNP MP Dr Philippa Whitford has advised painkillers, he hasn’t taken any. When the injury happened, he just played on – which seems about right. Salmond never stops playing, though he confesses he did “enough moaning” about the golf injury to “Mrs Salmond”, Moira, his wife. 
He suggests we have a round of brandy and soda. I suspect Salmond likes to amuse a journalist with an entertaining drinks choice. For The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson it was, famously, pink champagne. For the Sunday Herald it is brandy, drink of tweedy old men. And also fruitcake and profiteroles, oozing with chocolate cream. 
One of the likeable things about Salmond is he remembers people and makes it known. He has a long, attentive discussion with the waitress, who he knows by name. Though we’ve only met a couple of times before, he greets me with a lip-kiss, which is slightly disconcerting but also very human. He reminds me that last time we drank together was in Methlick during the General Election campaign, when we toured his northern territories: the Westminster and Holyrood constituencies (Gordon and Aberdeenshire East, respectively), his home (a converted mill in Strichen), a favourite pub, and the back of his office manager’s car where we sat crammed between copies of his new book. 
Now, it’s like he’s welcoming me to his other home. The building itself is one he’d like to see “turned into a museum” rather than refurbished to the tune of £6 billion as planned. So, what is he doing down here? “Revenge,” he jokes in a French accent, as in revanche. More seriously,  he adds: “I’m here to see the delivery of the promises, the commitment, the vow that was made to Scotland a year ago. And to do whatever I can to help other causes while I’m around.” 
Westminster is, of course, a different experience for him now, as one of 56 SNP MPs; when he arrived in 1987, he was one of three. Once, the SNP were like a small family. Now, he likens it to “an extended family gathering when all the distant relatives turn up for drinks and things”. 
Salmond has had to adjust to no longer 
being First Minister and SNP leader, to being one of many MPs, while Nicola Sturgeon, a star in ascendant, has taken control up north. “I’ve had to hold my tongue a bit,” he says. “I liked being First Minister. I could spout about anything.”
In the first period of this Government, Salmond delivered the most Commons speeches after the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Leader of the House. “I was top of the pops,” he says. As the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, his tongue gets plenty of airtime.
He’s had to pipe down at Holyrood, however. “It never works if the former prime minister or former first minister in Parliament talks,” he says. “Anything you say will be cast up to your successor. So you hang back.” 
Until the 2016 Holyrood election, he will divide his time between Westminster (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday), Holyrood (Thursday) and his constituencies. While in London, currently he stays in hotels and has no plan to rent a flat. Mrs Salmond isn’t coming down much just yet, though not because she doesn’t like staying in a hotel. “She would rather a hotel room than any of the flats I had. I think she got quite impatient with my flat-keeping skills.” 
These days, Salmond is rarely without a copy of his book, and a print-out of the email from a Treasury official to the BBC through which the story about RBS’ intentions regarding the location of their headquarters was leaked. He thinks the document represents “as clear-cut a breach of confidence in respect of potentially market-sensitive information as you will find”. I’ve seen him whip this out at an Edinburgh International Book Festival event, and he had it to hand during last week’s EU referendum debate, as part of his illustration of the need for strong purdah rules restricting civil servants’ activities.
These are grievances that still rankle: the Treasury leak to the BBC; the Nick Robinson encounter; his feeling that television, or rather the BBC, the medium which had once worked best for him, had been tilted against him.
Salmond likes the fact his office overlooks the white stone edifice of HM Treasury. “I can now look down on the Treasury,” he says.  In fact, he seems rather thrilled with his “stupendous” office, which is far bigger than the poky rooms he’s had before at Westminster – though, of course, nothing on Bute House. “I knew there was a reason for becoming First Minister of Scotland,” he quips. “So you can get a decent office in this place.” 
As yet, there’s not much in this office, save for a shelf of hardback editions of his book, which tells the story of the referendum seen through his eyes. By polling day, he says now, the Yes campaign were heading for 52 per cent. Mid-evening, he was dining with Moira, feeling that “we are home”; a few hours later, he had seen the Clackmannan results and was writing his concession speech. One of the entries he likes to read at book events concerns the journey back north after giving his resignation speech. Star of the anecdote is the satirical Twitter account Angry Salmond, who tweeted: “I never lost. I have simply repositioned the location of victory.” 
“I’m pretty certain that’s true,” he says, “the place of victory has just been repositioned.” So where is it? “That’s a matter for Nicola Sturgeon and Angry Salmond.” 
The fact that it had to be repositioned doesn’t seem to bother Salmond, who’s always had a handle on the bigger picture. “I spent a whole career arguing for incremental advance in Scotland. I wanted to have a devo-max question on the ballot. I always wanted an each-way bet. And just because you place a bet on a horse to win or be placed, doesn’t mean you don’t want it to win. Of course you do. But if it’s placed you get your money back a bit more. So that’s what happened to Scotland in the referendum. We were placed rather than we won.” 
When I ask if there are things Salmond is still processing from 2014, he says he went through all that “long ago” when he was writing his book. It was “very therapeutic”, he says. “I’ve now got everything into its context.”
The paperback edition of The Dream Shall Never Die is published next week, with additional 2015 General Election and Westminster diaries. Among events included is the welfare vote, when the SNP occupied the Labour benches when they abstained. “I said at the time,” Salmond recalls, “look, this will put petrol in Corbyn’s engine. More than any other event, the abstention on the welfare bill made the election for our Jeremy.” As we speak, we don’t yet know the Labour leadership results. Will he be pleased if Corbyn wins? “Well,” he says, “I’ve got a bet on Corbyn. So if he wins I’ll be celebrating that ...” 
Salmond picks out the final lines from this edition and reads them to me. “The people, the real guardians of Scotland, spoke in the referendum and again by a majority in the election. They will not be prevented from speaking again. Scotland’s future is in Scotland’s hands.” 
The people have spoken. But that does not mean Salmond himself is not still speaking. Though no longer leader, he’s still there, his part in crafting the story he very much created, far from over. He is, he tells me, in a positive place. “Given what’s happened since. Given the election, given the change in political temperature, given the galvanisation of the nation politically, it seems it has been a success. So the glass is half full.”
He points to our brandy glasses. “Well your glass is half full, mine is empty.”
“There’s a bit to do,” he says, “but things look quite propitious. Certainly a lot more propitious than when I first came into this room in 1987.”