‘Yeah, I kind of got that impression.’

‘Can you help me?’

‘I’ll see what I can do. Come on. Let’s have lunch.’

‘Yeah, but not round here. It’s too …’ He shrugs, and we walk north, eventually finding a Greek restaurant on Charlotte Street that seems to be sufficiently off the beaten track to suit him.

‘So,’ he says, before we’ve even looked at the menu, ‘the money.’

I’ve said I’ll help him, and I will, even though a) I’m broke after the holiday and b) I know that lending money to Jonathan is tantamount to flushing it down the toilet, because you’ll never see it again. But if I ask for a sub on Monday, I’ll be able to give him what he needs and, incidentally, pay a few of those bills that I chucked into the ‘important but boring’ box.

‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll sort it out next week.’

He leans across the table and grabs my sweater. ‘Now! I need it now!’ He’s pale and slightly clammy, and the waiters are giving us suspicious glances. They must be used to druggies abusing their hospitality, and I don’t want to be thrown out.

‘Will you calm down, sit back, take your hoodie off and try to act like a human being,’ I say. Jonathan sits and sulks and looks at the menu.

‘There’s nothing here I can eat.’

‘What?’

‘You know perfectly well that I’m vegan.’

I know nothing of the sort, but I get the waiter’s attention and order a big lamb stew for myself and a plate of plain boiled rice for him.

‘It’s not organic,’ he says when it arrives.

‘So don’t eat it.’

We don’t exchange a word while I eat my stew and he pushes rice around his plate. He does manage to drink well over half the bottle of wine I’ve ordered, and I’m pretty sure that’s not organic either.

‘Let’s go,’ he says, as soon as my plate is clean. I pay the bill and the waiter glares at us as we leave.

We walk west in a big loop, and it suddenly occurs to me that we’re heading for Selfridges – I don’t think this is a conscious decision, Jonathan just has a sort of homing instinct. When I mention this he stops dead, looks at me as if I’ve just called his mother a whore, and bursts into tears.

There’s an anonymous looking pub on the corner so I bundle him in there and get a drink in front of him as quickly as possible.

Then it all comes pouring out. He’s been spending more and more time with Hadley and started working for him as a delivery-boy-come-debt-collector, flitting around the West End with a cycle courier’s bag full of padded envelopes, some containing ‘the goods’, others containing money. His payment for these services is an entrée to Hadley’s inner circles, and all the drugs you can eat, sniff, smoke or shove up your arse. Jonathan has developed a pronounced taste for crystal meth, and discovered that, with a little help from Tina, he has the confidence to ‘get boyfriends’.