‘Our database, Mum. Sylvester’s spent the best part of a year getting it together, doing the research, pressing the flesh. More than a thousand names. Tally all that wealth and you end up in the trillions.’

Tally. Another rogue verb.

‘Don’t Karl and his friends have these names already?’ I enquire.

‘Shit, no. That’s the whole point. That’s our USP. These are people who haven’t been near the ocean all their lives, and you know why? Because they’ve been so busy. Busy, busy, busy, Mum. Sylvester calls them virgins. They’re ours for the taking. None of them would dream of setting foot on one of these monster yachts. Not unless we can give them a very good reason.’

‘And that’s your role?’

‘Absolutely. We’re selling Doomsday. The end of the world. It’s either the bomb or global warming or maybe some pandemic or other. You take your choice. All three are on the schedule. If the Americans don’t blow the world up first, then you can rely on climate change or the demon virus, bet your life on it, or your kids’ lives, or their kids’. There’s a neat little pictogram Sylvester’s designed. It’s a graph line, basically, and by the time you get to the bottom of the page, we’re all dead. Scary stuff, Mum.’

‘Unless you have a super yacht.’

‘Exactly. And not just any old super yacht. We’re talking survival, as well as plunge pools and walk-round peninsula beds. Did I ever mention the cache plan? We pre-position supplies at remote locations around the globe. Access by membership only. Layer after layer of security. State-of-the-art cyber-coding. “A” list stuff. Believe me, Mum, only the rich will make it through.’

Only the rich will make it through. This, it occurs to me, is a rather bleak view of our collective future, but Malo’s sell thunders on, numbing my brain as well as my ear. I have no idea what a walk-round peninsula bed might be, but I realize it doesn’t make the slightest difference. Bill Penny is right. His clever son, like most of the world’s richer folk, is peddling a dream, or in this case a nightmare, and it’s taken no time at all for Malo to tune in.

At last, thanks to some decisions he’s got to make about the best junction to take him off the motorway, what passes for our conversation comes to an end. Malo promises to give me a ring tomorrow, once he’s got a deal to take back to his new friend, and we leave it at that.