‘I don’t know – maybe none of them has the space,’ Maisie said then. ‘You know what it’s like at that age, all hutched up together in those dreadful tiny hovels.’

Rich said something indistinguishable back, and Maisie hushed him then, and started talking about the recycling.

He turned over and hoped he wouldn’t hear any more. It was thirty minutes before his alarm was supposed to go off, and he hoped he’d get a little more sleep, though the couch was very uncomfortable – even if Maisie had got a new cushion since Jack last slept on it. In fact, he wondered if the cushion was the problem. It was square and its padding rather insubstantial. It was blank on one side and decorated with a beaded pattern on the other. It did not match the fold-out green sofa. The morning after the first night he’d stayed, Jack had left the cushion on the floor when he’d reassembled the sofa into sofa form. Maisie had pointedly fluffed it and returned the cushion to pride of place when he’d gone to make a cup of tea.

On Friday afternoon, Flora and the other intern, Kamal – who was working on the marketing team – were sent to Tesco with the company card to buy beers. There was a sense of celebration in the air. Green Genie had launched its first television advertisement: a ninety-second spot that had aired last night and had gone – very modestly – viral on Twitter straight afterwards. (Though Jack noted that he hadn’t seen any reality-television stars tweeting about the advert.) As a result of this success, Bryan had mandated that they all ‘down tools’ early that afternoon and have drinks to celebrate.

There was a general hubbub of conversation, although Jack didn’t really have anyone to talk to, because Flora was out and he didn’t know where Deepti was, but he could see Cody, asleep in his bed under her desk, wrapped around the carrot. So Jack just kept his headphones on and continued going through the customer-service inbox, answering queries methodically.

He was lost in some query about a box that had arrived containing four butternut squashes but not a single apple (‘What am I supposed to do with four butternut squashes in the course of a week?’ the customer had asked, and Jack didn’t really have an answer to that), when Deepti came and tapped him on the shoulder, making him jump. She was saying something to him, except he still had his headphones on so he couldn’t hear her.

She stretched out her hands and removed them for him. ‘Let’s start that again, shall we?’ Deepti said, rolling her eyes. She lowered her voice and leaned in towards him. ‘Bryan. Wants to see you.’ She winked.

He stared at her, stricken.

‘Now,’ she added.