She lingered, taking in the scene, wandering over to tenderly stroke my hair. I let my eyes drift closed again. I’d been pals with Adzo since my first day working with her. The Core Four were wonderful, but they were also all very settled. Meeting Adzo had reminded me what it was like to feel motivated by the possibility in the everyday. She was good for me. Took me out of my own head.

‘Not being funny, doll,’ she said, in precisely the way somebody says ‘I’m not being funny’ when they are about to be exactly that, ‘but do you mind if we let some air in? It’s a bit ripe in here.’ She gave a little cough to illustrate her point.

I made eye contact and pursed my lips, then gave a small nod of agreement. She slipped off her shoes and navigated her way through the throw pillows strewn across the floor, picking them up and piling them beside the wardrobe. Then she flicked on the dressing table lamp and eventually reached the window, opening it and pushing back the curtains to make the gap wider.

‘I brought you a Lucozade, by the way.’ She stuck her hand into her vintage Chloé handbag and pulled out two orange bottles.

Lucozade was our private joke. At work, if I came in with a Lucozade, Adzo knew without me even needing to say it that I was hungover. It didn’t happen often, but that’s probably what made it worse. I was unpractised at having hangovers. Drinking made me lose control and rule number one when I was growing up is that I was never to lose control because it was unladylike. Adzo was well-practised when it came to hangovers. She was a machine, out at a party seemingly every night, always with a tale to tell the next morning about seeing Jude Law’s son here or one of the old X-Factor contestants there. And yet she was better at her job than all of us, able to navigate the top boss with ease and command a team naturally and with a sense of humour.