‘Trapped in the Dreamspace?’ I asked, and Laura looked at me, then shrugged.

‘It’s never been explained how the mind can return from deep hibernation; some say that the personality goes elsewhere. To a Dreamstate somewhere outside the body, perhaps – absorbed into the walls and furniture and plants.’

‘A state of displaced consciousness,’ I said, repeating what I’d heard Don Hector say in my dream. He’d been dead for two years, yet I felt part of his personality in me, alive.

‘Ghosts could be explained this way,’ said Laura, ‘and Wintervolk. An orphaned consciousness returning periodically using the power of another sleeper’s thoughts.’

At any other time I would have dismissed this as utter nonsense.

‘Lloyd thought the Gronk might be somehow related to Ichabod’s murdered daughter,’ I said.

‘I heard that too. Want to see a picture of her?’

‘Sure.’

She pulled open a filing cabinet, rummaged for a moment and then drew out a file. She flicked through the contents, eventually showing me a family photograph. It was of Rhosilli beach in the Gower, the Argentinian Queen behind, recently wrecked. A man, thin and weaselly and with a sour, cruel face, a woman, bluff and optimistic. And Gretl, the daughter, holding a beach ball. I felt a cold chill run up my back. Yesterday – even this morning – I would have dismissed it all as a retrospective memory remapping, but now I wasn’t so sure. It was the same child as the one in the Birgitta dream, the child with the gurgle of laughter. The same gurgle of laughter I’d heard before Lucky Ned was taken.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Laura. ‘You look kind of  . . . ill.’

‘The Gronk’s real,’ I said.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Laura, ‘that’s why I gave you the camera. To take a picture of her. The wager was always sound; it was only the evidence that was going to be a problem.’

‘I think she’s in my mind,’ I said quietly. ‘I saw her in the Dreamstate.’

‘That could mean she’s either protecting or stalking you,’ said Laura. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but there are plenty more unworthy than you. She’ll pluck the ripest fruit first. You may want to whistle “Some Enchanted Evening” when she makes landfall, just to be safe.’

‘Good tip. Thanks,’ I said sarcastically.

‘You’re welcome.’

Laura tidied away the picture and made to leave as Fodder had said he’d take her around to look at some of the folded linen traps she’d set up. She gave me a cheery wave, told me to keep the Instamatic camera close by at all times, and departed.