‘Just take them off. I feel terrible breaking in. Look how tidy everything is. Let’s at least keep it that way.’

‘Fine, I am taking off my shoes. Now just calm down and go to sleep. Look how droopy your eyes are already. Do you always fall asleep when you’re scared?’

‘Maybe.’ I yawn hugely. ‘How do we know Bernard’s asleep?’

‘We don’t.’

I yawn again. I’ve only gone along with this crazy scheme because I can’t bear going home to O and asking her how long Stack has been following me. And I don’t want to think about the very likely fact that the Creeper is trying to trick me into committing ‘suicide’ just like he did to Mel and all those other people Roman told me about. I can’t think about it. It’s too scary.

Anyway, the idea is for me to get into Bernard’s dreams and pursue him, to hunt the hunter, in other words. Shandy has used her connections at BigSky’s promotion department to lure the downstairs-flat Shojis out of their home for the evening with theatre tickets and a night at the Savoy that she convinces them they’ve won in a contest. She has settled me down on their immaculate sofa. It’s very comfortable, but it faces a wall completely covered with framed photographs of the Shoji family: baby pictures, graduations, picnics, holidays. They look like a well-ordered, sensible family. Wish they would adopt me.

Shandy is going to sit right here at my feet and make sure I don’t sleepwalk, just in case Bernard catches me sneaking around in his dream and tries to do away with me.

I’m petrified, and therefore barely conscious.

‘Imagine if Indiana Jones had narcolepsy,’ I murmur. ‘He’d be squashed flat by the big boulder in the first scene.’

She holds my hand. ‘You need to be more positive, Horse. Go and do your thing. Give Bernard hell. See if you can find out what he’s up to and how he does it. I’ll be right here beside you.’

‘No, you won’t,’ I moan. ‘You’ll be awake.’

And then I slip off because I’ve no choice.

Secret Diary of a Prawn Star

Entry #54

Codename: Chaplin

Date: 25 September 2027

Client: Bernard Zborowski

Payment in advance: He doesn’t know I’m doing this

Session Goal: Find proof he’s the Creeper

Location: Flat of Yayeko and Joji G. Shoji, downstairs

Narcolepsy status: Scared as a rabbit

Nutrition/stimulants: N/A

Start time: 12.01 a.m.

End time: 12.35 a.m.

We’re in my room. No . . . wait, that’s my frame. The walls and floors ripple and change as I adjust to Bernard’s frame of reference. We’re in his room. In his lovely flat that he owns because he has money and smarts and I do not.