For the moment, Toccata’s opinion didn’t really matter. It would later – big time – but not right now. I had only one question.

‘What day is it?’

‘Slumberdown plus twenty-seven.’

‘What?’

‘Plus twenty-seven. You’ve been out four weeks.’

It took a moment or two for me to digest this fact. I looked at my alarm clock, which had stopped not long after I’d gone to sleep. Without it, I’d inadvertently tumbled down the slope into hibernation. It was embarrassing. Falling asleep on your first overwintering gig was strictly for amateurs.

‘So,’ said Jonesy, ‘let’s start again: what are you doing here?’

I explained about as quickly and truthfully as I could. That Aurora had saved me from Logan; that I’d spoken to Laura and Fodder in the Consulate; that I’d been marooned; had met up again with Aurora; was going to drive myself out; was allocated this room.

‘The next thing I know, you’re waking me up.’

‘Oversleep, did you?’ she said with a smile. ‘That’s not a good start.’

‘No,’ I agreed, ‘not a good start at all. But why wake me now,’ I added, ‘why not four weeks ago?’

‘Your office in Cardiff,’ she said, ‘they called several times asking where you were as they need confirmation of Aurora’s account of what happened to Logan. We’d told them you’d departed on the last train, but when they insisted we look further four weeks later, that dope Treacle said he’d walked with you and Aurora in this direction. We did a sweep of the Domitoria, and there you were. You were lucky.’

She was right. If I’d only been carrying two weeks’ contingency instead of four I’d likely be dead right now.

‘Now,’ said Jonesy, ‘you need to explain everything to Toccata. She’s busy until one o’clock. Do you want breakfast?’

I nodded. She told me to keep stretching and then went back into the kitchen area. I moved to the end of the bed, grasped the bedstead and heaved myself to my feet. I paused, took a few steps, stumbled, regained my balance then walked unsteadily to the bathroom, where I relieved myself of something that smelled of overripe silage, looked like yacht varnish and felt as though it were burning a new way out.

This done, I stepped into the shower to wash the gammy night-crust from my wintercoat, and while I did so, I thought about the painter. Oddly, the dream had not been a faint jumble of broken images softened into broad ambiguity by the fog of sleep, but as strong and as real as anything that actually had happened: the trip up here, Logan’s death, Foulnap – even the flailing nightwalker on the operating table at HiberTech and the shiny wetness of the cobbles where Hooke had whacked Moody.