‘Definitely,’ she said. But she didn’t know when, precisely, she’d lost it. She certainly didn’t have it when she reached Mortimer’s Mill. I asked her what had brought her there and she said that it had been a light, only like a light in her brain.

‘More telepathy?’ I asked.

‘I guess so,’ said Zoe. ‘I think of it being like the guide beam like they use at airports to bring in aircraft in poor visibility.’

I bet Call Me Al would have liked that explanation.

There was a path from the Mill that followed the bank of the Lugg all the way up to Pokehouse Wood, which wasn’t much of a wood back in the summer of 2002, being a bit deficient in the tree department.

‘It had just been cleared,’ said Zoe. ‘There were stacks of trunks by the logging track – it looked really strange in the moonlight – like it was all made of ghosts.’

She’d walked up the logging track, the same one which me, Beverley and Dominic had run down pursued by unicorns, and it was there that she encountered her alien. Pretty much where we’d found Hannah and Nicole.

There was a bright light, like really intense moonlight.

‘Only now I think about it,’ said Zoe, ‘I think that was in my mind as well.’

She was certain that the alien was real, though.

‘It was like when you meet someone famous,’ said Zoe. ‘And I don’t mean like Big Brother famous. I mean Marilyn Manson famous, proper famous, and it’s like a shock when you see them and you think, “Oh my god”. And no matter how cool you want to play it, you just talk rubbish. You know?’

I said I did, even though the only time I’d met a celebrity of any stature I’d almost arrested him, and Lesley had to pin his minder to the pavement. It’s amazing how fast the famous become just another customer when there’s constabulary duty to be done. The joke amongst police being, Do you know who I am? Yes, sir – you’re nicked.

Zoe described her alien as tall, human-looking, only with eyes that slanted downwards and had purple irises. She wore a cloak and carried a long staff almost as tall as she was.

‘How did you know it was a she?’ I asked.

‘She had tits all right,’ said Zoe. ‘Or at least she stuck out in the chest department. And there was the way she moved . . . but you’re right – why should aliens even have the same sexes as us? They could have a hundred different sexes, couldn’t they?’

‘What was she wearing?’ I asked.

‘A sort of spacesuit,’ said Zoe.

‘Describe it to me?’

‘Like a spacesuit,’ she said. ‘You know.’

‘What colour was it?’ I asked.

Zoe had to think about that. ‘Silver,’ she said. ‘Definitely silver.’