But there was something, as there was when I was Birgitta’s husband. Vague, nebulous, but there, crouching in the back of my mind like a perching osprey: on a kid’s trike when I was very young, going as fast as I could on the carpeted corridor of a large country house, trying to escape something – grief, I think.

‘I was on a trike,’ I said. ‘It’s a week past Springrise, and I can recall a sense of maternal absence. I can feel the loss.’

And I could, an angry lump of emptiness that wouldn’t leave my chest. The same sort of lump I felt at the Pool when prospective parents passed unblinking on their hurried way to the other kids, the ones not made distinctly and beautifully unique by a touch of asymmetry.

‘Good – you’re in. Now listen carefully. Is there a cylinder anywhere close by?’

‘What sort of cylinder?’

‘A wax cylinder.’

‘With music on it? There’s lots in the apartment.’

‘No; in the dream. We need the cylinder – and you need to find it. Explore the recesses of Don Hector’s mind.’

I looked around. The only thing in sight other than the oak tree and the picnic and the car was the Morpheleum, sitting on the horizon.

‘There’s a temple to Morpheus. About half a mile away.’

‘Good. Try and get there. Using the Buick offers the best chance, we’ve learned.’

‘You’ve tried it?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

I looked at the empty space between myself and the car. It was barely ten paces away, but as I watched, a hand surfaced momentarily between myself and the Buick, then sank out of sight.

‘I can’t,’ I said.

‘The hands?’

‘Yes, the hands. They’ll get me.’

‘They’ll always get you, Charlie. Trying to drive to the temple, not being able to. Anything to stop you finding the cylinder, stop you reaching the Morpheleum. But the cylinder is in there somewhere. The temple is a good start. The clock is running – I suggest you start driving, and fast.’

I elected to do as she said, but then noticed with a feeling of dread that the hands were not simply severed hands, but small hand-like creatures, the wrist domed over with skin like a healed stump, and not looking like part of a human at all. I put my own hand in my pocket, pulled out a rabbit’s-foot key ring and made a dash for the Buick.