‘It’s legal enough.’ Karl’s fingers were flexing as if around an imaginary wad of banknotes. ‘They don’t even, I said it wrong, they don’t even sign up to give the information away. They just don’t read the terms and conditions. No one does. The first time they sign up for the app, they’re trying to get a ride quickly, they’re late for something, they tick whatever boxes you ask them to tick. We’ve all done it. The amount of forms you sign online. It could say “I understand you get to take my dog away” and you’d tick it.’ He took a breath, gently topped up James’s glass.

‘The point is. I’ve got a lot of data, a lot of contacts. Come back to Cruiz: you’d basically be working for me. Raymond’s heart isn’t in it and Hugo can’t work any more than he does because, in all fairness to the guy, he spends about seventy-five per cent of his time scratching himself. I tell you what. Hamish Elton wants an exclusive driver, like one of those VIP things where he’s got you on call. Remember Hamish? You could do that and then whatever else you wanted on top.’

James was looking at his hands, the way he sometimes did when there was something he probably wouldn’t be able to say. Karl put his arm around those large shoulders again, and this time he felt James’s whole body go slack with relief.

*

It hadn’t been quite like old times. They hadn’t ended up living together again, nor had they ended up hanging out quite as reliably as they used to. Karl was dating, now, or more accurately having lively but unrepeated sex with people he met using his phone. And he was more and more consumed by the monster he’d built, the artificial intelligence that people didn’t recognize as such yet because they thought it was a term from fiction. James was also busy, because Hamish Elton was the sort of person who’d order a taxi to his en suite and back if he could get one. Still, they texted when they could; they went for curries, sometimes, now that James was resigned to letting the weight pile back on. It was a real, working friendship again. Not even a year before James’s text, it had seemed to be well on track.