Despite appearances to the contrary, my wife is not dead, and is still trapped deep inside herself. It would be too much to hope you will look after her, but I would be grateful if she were neither parted out, nor redeployed.

‘It’s a fairly common belief,’ said Logan, retrieving the letter, ‘but understandable given the strong emotions at stake.’

‘Will you do as he suggests and retire her?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Logan, deep in thought, ‘I’m going to take her to Sector Twelve to be redeployed. It’s a good excuse to look in on Toccata and see what she wants.’

Logan told me to consult Bradshaw’s Railway Guide and I found it was possible to get to Sector Twelve and out again before Network Winter shutdown.

‘What do you want me to do while you’re away?’ I asked.

‘You’re coming too, Worthing. It will be good for your training.’

‘It will?’ I said somewhat doubtfully.

My reluctance was easily explained: Talgarth, the principal town of Sector Twelve, was the largest centre of population in an area otherwise noted for its emptiness, and high proportion of womads and Villains. Roads were impassable during the Winter and food resupply impossible. Not a place you’d want to get stranded. Not a place you’d actually want to be.

*   *   *

The rehousing of the Beryl Cook’s residents was completed by the time we had to head off on the train, five hours later. HiberTech don’t take all Tricksy nightwalkers, so I’d filled in the paperwork and faxed off the request, and had a reply within ten minutes: deliver her to Sector Twelve in all haste.

‘May I ask a question?’ I said as we sat waiting for the train at Cardiff Central. Mrs Tiffen was sitting next to us, playing the increasingly ironic ‘Help Yourself’. Nightwalker transportation wasn’t rocket science: just keep them well fed. They only get troublesome when they get hungry; and when they get really hungry, they get really troublesome.

‘Go ahead.’

‘What does Toccata want you to help her with, and who’s Aurora?’

‘That’s two questions.’

‘I’m thinking perhaps they’re both part of the same one.’

He looked at me and smiled.

‘Very  . . . astute. Here it is: that call from Toccata was about a viral dream that’s been sweeping around Sector Twelve. Ordinary, level-headed people are seemingly having a dream about a blue Buick, then going nuts. Psychotic episodes, trying to kill people, screaming about severed hands and oak trees, being buried alive, stuff like that. She wanted my opinion.’

‘Buicks, severed hands, oak trees and being buried alive?’

‘It’s a dream, Charlie, it’s not meant to make sense. Did you cover viral dreams when you were at the Academy?’

‘We only covered dreams as part of Module 6A: “The Physiology of non-Morphenox slumber”.’