‘I can’t say I’m looking forward to it,’ said Hunter, ‘except for seeing you and the great schedule you’ve lined up. I spent twelve years on those damp islands, until I managed to graduate from Westminster to Princeton. Returning to the States was like going to a Super Bowl game after visiting your grandmother in her twilight home. We moved to London when I was six. When my father gave me my first five-pound note, I thought they’d named the currency after my family – five pounds Sterling. Shrinks always love that: early signs of narcissistic grandiosity.’

‘You’ve still got a little bit of that in you,’ said Lucy, tentatively exploring the boundaries of a new relationship.

Now that he was on the call, Hunter could hear the coke speaking through him, but there was nothing he could do to stop it.

‘You know, Lucy,’ he said, ‘the world is divided between the mediocrity of committees, the paralysis of checks and balances, and the merciful megalomania of the rich. Everybody else is just shouting in a bell jar while the air gets sucked out – however close you lean in you can’t make out what they’re saying: “I’m sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you!” Historical “process” is for human debris, drifting on the tides of fashion and fate. I believe in extraordinary individuals, Lucy; I believe in game-changers and I hope you’re one of them, because that’s the only type of individual I want working on my team. So, what have you got for me?’

‘I’ve set up all the meetings you were interested in,’ said Lucy, ‘with the heads of most of the Oxford science departments. The Psychiatry department have a promising psychotherapeutic virtual reality program called Avatar, which apparently is helping people with schizophrenia—’

‘I’m not interested in schizophrenia,’ Hunter interrupted her. ‘It only affects one per cent of the population and most of them are poor.’

‘Most of any population is poor.’

‘You should see my address book!’ said Hunter.

‘I can’t wait,’ said Lucy impatiently.

‘The higher your socio-economic status,’ said Hunter, ‘the more likely you are to be diagnosed with “bipolar disorder” than with “schizophrenia”, while exhibiting the exact same psychotic symptoms. Not that I’m hostile to Avatar and a human-machine synthesis: internet contact lenses, the world’s knowledge in just one blink. Forget verbal dictation, what about thought dictation? Straight from the synapses on to the screen, we’ve got a sensational start-up that’s making real progress with that, we’re calling it SignApps – patent pending. Anyway, your schizophrenia thing is too specialised, but if it works for bipolarity, we could look into it.’