‘I’ll try not to,’ I said, wondering how I could do anything but fail – and surely, this was actually his intention. Aurora stared at me with her one eye for a moment, then sat down at the counter next to me.

‘Don’t fail any of us,’ she said in a kindly tone, while placing her warm hand on mine. ‘HiberTech and I will be grateful if you succeed, and the gratitude of either would be in itself a valuable commodity. Oh, and listen, I didn’t mean it when I called you “thicko” and “fifth rate”. It was only theatre. Kind of in the moment – and it pissed off that ballbag Logan. Good luck.’

‘Oh – right,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

I grabbed my bag and the bouzouki and ran to Platform Three, where clouds of vapour were billowing from the locomotive as the driver vented excess steam into the chill air. I found the freightmaster in the second carriage, fast asleep.

Moody’s eyes flickered inside his closed lids while he murmured: ‘Mrs Nesbit, please, leave me alone.’ It was a little unnerving: asleep in public was okay, asleep and dreaming in public was not really socially acceptable. I like to think of myself as fairly broad-minded, but even I felt a little uncomfortable.

‘Hey,’ I said, shaking his shoulder. His eyes opened wide and he suddenly looked terrified.

‘You don’t want to leave the rocks!’ he yelled, grasping me by the arm so hard I almost yelped with pain.

‘What rocks?’

‘Leave the rocks and the hands will get you,’ he said in something of a panic, his eyes swivelling to the left and right faster than I thought possible. ‘You don’t want to be buried alive and  . . . I am Don Hector!’

‘Everything’s fine,’ I said, ‘and believe me, you’re not Don Hector.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You look nothing like him – and he died two years ago.’

‘He only died in the real world,’ said Moody, ‘not in here.’

He touched his temple with his fingertip.

‘Eh?’

‘Damn,’ he said, suddenly recovering his composure. ‘I’m sorry. Fatigue. We’ve had some losses recently, and, well, I’m running treble shifts.’

‘What was that about being buried alive?’

‘Nothing. Blue Buick.’

‘What?’

‘What do you mean: “what”?’

‘You said blue Buick.’

‘I did? What if I did?’ he replied defensively. ‘Who are you anyway, to cast aspersions on my sleeping habits?’

Logan had mentioned blue Buicks when he told me about the viral dream. If Moody was organising freight this late in the season, he would certainly have come from Sector Twelve.

‘Anyway,’ he said, clapping his hands together, ‘ready to go?’

‘No,’ I replied, making a mental note to report all this to Logan, ‘I have to repo a nightwalker and I need you to hold this train for me.’

Moody stared at me with a half-smile. Punctuality was the guiding principle to which RailTecs pledged their lives. Often, quite literally.