I remembered Heather’s instruction to look at the other mosaic, the one from my past life, and see if I could make a match. I turned and there it was on the wall opposite. I went over to study it. It seemed to be shrouded in mist but, as I peered through, it began to get clearer, like a photo image emerging in developing chemicals; first a blur of grey, then I could make out figures, tiny but becoming more distinct. I knew I needed to find one that matched someone’s colours in the first mosaic. I turned and looked back at the first one, then returned to the second one. I need to find Billy, I thought within the dream. I looked for him and there he was in blues, silvers and grey. Not Graham then, he was brown and maroon, I thought, nor Joe in red. Blues and grey; I must find the man in the same shades of blues and grey in my present life. I turned back and scanned the first mosaic, looking for the right colours. Blues … blues … There, someone was coming clearer … I leant closer to see whose face it was when I became aware of a shrill sound, persistent; it was annoying, distracting me. I realized that it was my phone bringing me back to my sitting room. Nooooooo, I thought as I awoke and reached out for the mobile.

‘Miss Brooks?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how are you today?’

‘I … I … who is this?’

‘We believe that you may have been mis-sold some PPI—’

‘Arghhh.’ I switched the phone off and nuzzled back into the cushions on the sofa, desperate to get back to my dream and what it had been about to reveal. I’d been about to see who my mystery man was, who Billy was now. I had been so close, so close. But, as is the way of dreams, once you’ve woken from them, they disappear so fast, gone, gone, and it’s impossible to recall where you’d been or who with.

*

When I saw Heather the next day in the shop, I told her what had happened.

‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘The mosaics didn’t appear in your last hypnosis session but came up in a dream. What does that tell us?’

‘What we’ve said all along, that the subconscious often interprets whatever’s been on your mind or what you’ve been thinking about that day. I’d been looking at Jed’s paintings on his website so that probably sparked it off, but then I was back to the mosaics and, in the middle of the dream, I remembered you telling me to look for Billy. I almost had him, almost, until those blooming people called, wanting me to claim for being mis-sold PPI.’

‘But you did learn something valuable. You learnt that the man we’re all looking for isn’t Graham or Joe?’