‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘You have a natural talent for dreaming; it took me years to do what you’re doing.’

Aurora then lifted her head and spoke. Inter-dream operatives like her worked in pairs, I guessed – one in the Dreamstate and a monitor to listen to their sleeptalkings. I imagined Aurora on a bed somewhere close to me at HiberTech, mumbling in her sleep.

‘Don Hector’s contact was Webster after all,’ she said. ‘Find out where he lived and get someone over there.’

I wriggled out of her hold; with the pain gone I could concentrate, and in an instant the small naked hands started to flood in through the open door, tossing, squirming and falling over one another in their haste to gain entry. They rushed towards Aurora but she took one look at them and they all melted into dry autumn leaves.

‘What’s this? Amateur hour? Now, before I start to bring all manner of horrors to bear: where – did – Webster – hide – the – cylinder?’

‘Don’t go there, Wonky,’ said Charles, but try as I might, I couldn’t help myself. I was suddenly in the lobby of the Cambrensis, sitting on the sofa, opposite Zsazsa, who looked at me suspiciously.

‘We know of a remote farm in Lincolnshire,’ she began, ‘where Mrs Buckley lives—’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said, ‘and in July, peas grow there.’

I heard the front door opening. It was Webster again. Different clothes, same face. It was all the dreams I’d had, jumbling into one another.

‘Don’t let Aurora find the cylinder,’ he said, looking around nervously, ‘don’t even think about it. In fact, don’t even think about thinking about it. Think Bonanza.’

‘Bonanza?’

‘Or Rawhide. It doesn’t matter. A brick wall, a prawn, Ed Reardon, Mott the Hoople, Green Rye, Yorkminster. Anything to block her out.’

Aurora walked into the lobby, talking to her unseen monitor: ‘It’s the Cambrensis. The twisty-headed frostwit is leading us straight to it. This is my twenty-seven-hundredth incursion,’ she added, marching up to me. ‘You get to spot the runaways, the misdirectors, the randomisers, even the world-builders, shape-shifters and tangential digressers. You’re none of those. You’re just bouncing around, leaving a trail so broad an amateur could follow. Now: where’s the cylinder?’

‘The laundry room.’

‘You gave that up way too easily. Again: where’s the cylinder?’

It’s hard not to think of the thing you’re trying hard not to think about. I tried to take us elsewhere – back to the Gower, the Wincarnis, the Ponderosa ranch, the last Fat Thursday at the Pool, but it wasn’t easy, and a moment later we were inside Charlie Webster’s old room.