So James and Karl’s job had been to write code for a sort of web encyclopaedia which could also use algorithms to predict the sort of facts you probably wanted to search for. Other people in their office and flat-share were responsible for building other parts of this internet planet. A Taiwanese man called Yan – who never spoke a word of English to them – was creating a messaging service. Katarina, the only woman in the set-up, was coding a personal organizer which would allow your computer’s diary to sync with your mobile. There were twelve people employed by the company, and all of them were working on good ideas, ideas that would become very popular. But the overall conceit – that people would one day pay for what was currently free – proved a disastrous one. The consumer testing went badly. And even as Facebook’s share value was darting upwards like a spider climbing a wall, Jacob’s funders, whichever rich Californians were bankrolling his experiment, pulled out overnight. James was grumbling to himself over a line of code, something he’d wrestled with for three hours already, when Karl shuffled into the office, late as usual. He began a good-natured reproach – Karl averaged around half as much time actually working as James did – but Karl cut him off with an unusual edge to the humour in his tone.

‘I wouldn’t be sweating over that too much, Jamie, my man. I don’t think Jacob’s going to show up for the meeting.’

‘And what makes you say that?’

‘It’s a hunch,’ said Karl, ‘based on a couple of clues in the voicemail he’s just left me, which said he was about to get on a plane, our company didn’t exist any more as of this morning, he’d already got a job lined up for the Federal Reserve back home, and he was sorry but he didn’t think we’d ever meet again.’