‘Just out of interest,’ I said, following her down a hallway covered in photos of Snazz wearing assorted masks and posing with every celebrity you could think of, from A-list movie stars to at least four different heads of state. ‘How did the two of you meet?’

‘Me and Snazz?’ She pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and knocked one loose into her hand. ‘He’s my godson. His mum’s my best mate.’

I thought she couldn’t shock me any more than she already had. I was wrong.

‘I’m more or less his second mum. Sharon has her ups and downs, not for me to go into, but yeah, I’ve known him since he was born. The boy’s a nightmare but he’s my nightmare,’ she said as we stopped in front of a black lacquered door. ‘Anyway, enjoy your chat. Snazz, get your hand out your pants, Ros is here to see you.’

She threw the door open, a cloud of Lynx body spray, Wotsits and feet blasting onto the landing.

‘I’ll see you back downstairs in two minutes,’ Veronica said. ‘I’ll have a bottle open.’

‘Thanks but I drove,’ I replied, steeling my senses.

‘Didn’t say it was for you,’ she said, sparking up as she went. ‘Oh, and don’t touch anything that looks sticky.’

Words to live by.

‘Knock knock,’ I said as I entered the room. People always say women turn into their mothers but my default setting was definitely more embarrassing dad.

I was expecting some sort of Las Vegas hotel suite crossed with the Playboy Mansion, meets the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but Snazz’s bedroom was just that. A bedroom. Slightly larger than the usual teenage boy’s den but, compared to the rest of the house, peculiar only in how average it was. The curtains were almost entirely closed, parted just enough for a slender crack of sunshine to slice the room in two with a full company of dust particles dancing in the shaft of light. I stepped carefully, trying to avoid treading on abandoned Funko Pop boxes, takeaway containers and carton after carton after carton of Ribena. The boy had a problem and it was blackcurrant flavoured.

‘Hi Snazz, it’s Ros from PodPad. I’m here to talk about the podcast.’

He had his back to me as he sat in the far corner of the room in an enormous black chair. An oversized head, complete with pair of pointed ears, was silhouetted against three different active screens. Was I meeting a teenager or a cat-human hybrid Bond villain? It was impossible to say. Over his bed was a built-in cabinet that stretched all the way to the ceiling, full of different animal heads. Not disconcerting at all.