‘I’m sorry, there’s no photographs in here,’ said the boy behind the reception desk, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen, and whose chiselled features and blistering blue eyes guaranteed that he would not be stationed there for long.

‘I’m not taking a picture,’ she lied. ‘I’m just checking my make-up.’

The boy raised one perfect eyebrow, unconvinced, but returned to his own phone while she took a snap of the scene that was playing out before her and posted it under her @TruthIsASword identity.

@TruthIsASword Fake boobs Sofiii looking for panto work this Christmas? #desperate #gorgeous #slut #lipfiller #tragic #sisters #talentless #freakshow #heroinaddict #dearfriend #nohateplease #whore #girlpower

This quick burst of nastiness did for her temper what a glass of fresh orange juice might do for a diabetic whose blood sugar had run dangerously low. Still, she resented being kept waiting and tapped her foot on the ground impatiently, incurring the irritated stare of the receptionist.

‘Problem?’ she asked.

‘It’s hard to concentrate when you’re tapping your foot like that.’

‘Do you really need to concentrate when you’re playing Candy Crush?’

The boy laughed and shook his head. ‘Candy Crush?’ he asked disdainfully. ‘I’m sorry, did 2017 call? Does it want its games back?’

Elizabeth’s face grew red at the slight. It was one thing to ask her to quieten down, but another entirely to accuse her of being off-trend.

‘Do you always speak to your clients in such a rude fashion?’ she asked.

‘You’re not a client.’

‘I used to be.’

He smiled. ‘Ah, the worst words in the English language,’ he said. ‘I used to be. We get a lot of used-to-bes showing up here, hoping to reclaim their relevance.’

‘It was my choice to move on,’ she said, cut to the quick. ‘Trevé is a dear, but he wasn’t doing all that I needed.’

‘And yet here you are. Back again.’

‘Yes, but … but …’ She scrambled to think of something cutting to say, but nothing sprang to mind.

‘What did you say your name was again?’

‘Elizabeth Cleverley,’ she said. ‘She/her,’ she added, hoping this might win her a few points in his eyes.

‘Oh, please,’ he said, laughing contemptuously. ‘Seriously, that’s beyond cringe.’

‘I was being ironic,’ she said, chastened.

‘No you weren’t,’ he replied, tapping something into his phone and snorting. ‘Fuck me,’ he said.

‘I’d rather not, thanks.’

‘You’ve got less than 7,000 followers.’

‘Have I?’ she asked, feigning ignorance. ‘I never look, to be honest. I have a blue tick,’ she added, sitting upright.

‘Six thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, to be precise. No, wait, you just lost two – 6,865. And yet you’ve tweeted almost 70,000 times. That’s an NTR of …’ He tapped something quickly into his phone. ‘About 10.2. You’re literally a Negative 10.2. No wonder you’re here. You hear about people with high NTRs, but you don’t ever expect to meet one in real life.’