‘We have Sky TV so you can watch what you want in here. We have nearly as many English channels as our own. BBC, the news, Downton Abbey. I watch it all the time. That why my English so good. You like Made in Chelsea?’

‘No I fucking don’t.’

The chairs were all positioned in a C-shape around a fireplace so huge I could stand up in it and jump and I still wouldn’t have hit my head. On the wall above hung two crossed machetes – both with serrated edges – like the one on his massive chest tattoo – one of about fifty littering his body.

Tenoch clocked me looking. ‘They cut through bone. You – no touchy.’

At the other end was a fully stocked bar with stools dressed to look like saddles. It stank of cigars, and the back wall was covered with antlers.

‘Bar area.’

‘Mmm,’ I said, still gasping for anything wet in my mouth.

Next to the living room and bar was a small messy office and a large TV screen on a bracket split into six black-and-white images – the feed from six exterior cameras. He showed me an app on his phone where he could view the footage at any time. He had apps for everything. Apps to close and open the blinds, apps to turn the lights on, apps to adjust temperature.

‘There’s a camera in all the rooms, even yours. For security, I’m not a pervert.’

And I believed him. He had hands like Dad’s. Boxer’s hands. There was a punch bag in his home gym too – an old converted stable running along the side of the west wall. He said I could use it whenever he wasn’t.

‘I’m not into gyms,’ I said, folding my arms.

‘Use it for stress,’ he said, which pulled me up. I had used the gym a couple of times on the ship when I was stressed and it had helped me in a way I hadn’t expected. Maybe it helped Tenoch in the same way.

‘So do I have the run of the place?’

Tenoch shrugged. I took that as a yes.

There were pictures dotted all over that ranged from the mundane – family photos, a young Tenoch chewing a cigar and wearing a ten-gallon hat with one foot perched on a giant tortoise – to the bizarre – lying across a Ferrari, surrounded by topless women, pulling a giant bear along on a chain, brandishing a golden gun in one hand and a severed head in the other.

‘I’ll show you upstairs to your suite.’

Ooh, things were looking up, I thought, despite my dehydration light-headedness, and as if by magic he took the hint.

‘Oh, my manners. I haven’t offered you a drink. What would you—’

‘Cold soda,’ I said without thinking. ‘Would be great. Thanks.’