A few minutes later, I was crashing back to earth again, and this time because I’d reached my destination. Shame it wasn’t the church on the hill then.

That second tea deffo wasn’t as good, because I’d been slightly less floaty and slightly more sicky, and now I had a nice bruised arse to remember it by. But, because I’d drank all of it, I had passed unseen by the lookouts standing atop the balconies and spires of the impossibly ancient towers and abbeys that poked up over the houses as I went.

There was green lawn underneath me, which is a bloody good job because I’d have been knackered if I’d landed in another council playground. This was a proper park, with a street with big glass shops and the odd dark meeting hall stretching left and right, and behind me there were the bloody melted lumps of rubble by the car park. I was literally back to square one.

But at least I had a lead. Though the knock-off brew hadn’t got me quite that far, I’d seen a house lit up over the lawn before I gained bruiseable things again. It was made of stained red brick, and was set back from the road in the park itself with its own dear path and wall to hold all the discarded beer cans in. It was probably an old gamekeeper’s cottage, though I’d be damned if I was going in search of a sign because there was a man stood by the front door who was clearly waiting for someone.

That someone had to be me.

I approached via the gravel path across the park, giving those dark holes in the ruins a wide, wide berth. I found myself close by the car park, and when I looked over to see if anyone had broken through the Skoda’s back window to get at my emergency pie, I halted.

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There was a big, black post right by its rear bumper. A bollard, is that what they call them? It clearly hadn’t been there before because I’d have never got my car in that space. And it looked solid, too, a deep, deep black that you felt you could just step through and wheel off into a far spoke of the galaxy. Then I thought it moved slightly in my direction and I staggered back.

A man was quickly at my side. “Steady there, young man,” said a posh-looking knob with blond hair. “Some things do come as a surprise, don’t they? But with Clearway Insurance-”

“Fuck off, cunt,” I snarled. The man stepped away just in time as I marched on with nary a look back at his cheap prop. That was the trouble with everywhere seemingly other than Teesside. All these fancy ads and tricks and practical jokes everywhere. The one good thing about nobody having any money is that the twats know it’s a waste of time asking for it.

I had real problems, and I hoped this fella at the house was going to help. The magic chuckling Earl Grey had sent me here, so what could go wrong?

I opened my mouth as I jingled my way through the trash-heap of a garden, but the man by the door spoke first. “Mr. Johnson?”

I stopped in amazement. “Why yes, of course!” Didn’t even know a Johnson, but never mind that.

The man looked relieved. He was a mousy, whiskery young kid in a tie and hand-me-down trousers who looked like he’d seen a sitcom set in the sixties and decided that was the epitome of smart. “Oh good,” he said. “You’re early too. Well, I’m sure they won’t mind. We’ll go straight on in. There’s just the small case of payment.”

I tried my best to look shocked. “Haven’t I already paid?”

The poor kid gulped. “That was just for the psychoanalysis and expenses. The final instalment will cover equipment and my post-appointment counselling.”

“Ah.” Worth a shot. I started scrabbling around for a memory (I could still remember being asked, just not what I’d given, silly) that might at a push be described as ‘happy’, but luckily the lad just wanted a twenty. Good job, because I was straight up bankrupt emotionally.

He quickly pocketed the note and cast an eye about warily. There was the ominous sound of a naked man’s shout growing louder, but that was it. Just the usual twittering birds and someone throwing up against a tree behind us. “Well, let’s get in. I’ll be on hand with the invocations. Just remember we’re summoning the Doomlord Raxius III in there, so don’t go off script. Defibrillator’s in the kitchen.”

Before I could ask for a spare copy of that script which was surely just the usual health and safety gone mad, surely, please, he knocked and the door opened almost at once.