‘But why would you bring me here? You can’t really think I did anything to Bernard. I told you, he’s the Creeper. He’s got to be. Maybe somebody did us all a favour.’

‘Maybe they did,’ Roman says, a little too cannily.

I wonder what he knows that I don’t, or whether he’s the bad cop after all and has just been messing me about. My head is starting to throb.

‘I’m going to make you some toast. Then I’ll need the recording of the dream. And any other dreams that might be connected with Bernard. Even if we can’t run the material, we may be able to identify his neural signature.’

The security system pings. There’s someone outside the flat. A smooth, bass voice comes through the intercom. ‘I’m here to represent my client, Charlotte Aaron. Please let me in. I’m a solicitor and she has a right to representation’

That voice is familiar, rich, silky like melted chocolate . . . Where have I heard it before . . . ?

Shandy elbows me. ‘Who’s that?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t have a solicitor,’ I whisper. I go to the camera feed. It’s an awkward angle, but I recognise him immediately all the same. ‘Oh, no! That’s bloody Martin Elstree. Please, make him go away!’

Shandy folds her arms and glares at Roman. ‘Let him in. You heard the man, he’s Charlie’s lawyer.’

I’m pulling at her sleeve like a toddler at playgroup. Hissing in her ear: ‘But I hate him, he’s horrible, and he’s only a patent—’

‘Let him in, Roman.’

Roman looks out of his depth. He buzzes Martin Elstree in, and the next thing I know we are all having coffee over the dead man’s coffee table, a heavy slab of glass in which are floating a collection of vintage Zelda game covers. Elstree shakes my hand and smiles as though we’ve never met. I must be making my frog face. I just know I am. He doesn’t seem to notice.

‘We need to put him in the Cone of Silence,’ Shandy says, and then has to explain the app all over again to Elstree.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ he says. ‘I have a professional tool for confidentiality. I’ll enshroud all of us here. It will block mics in the room, cameras, everything, as well as any watchware that you may be carrying without knowing it.’ He glances at me and I look away. I can’t stand him, and then for some stupid reason I feel guilty that I can’t stand him and maybe I should give him another chance just to be polite, and this is one of the many reasons I am an idiot. But it’s who I am, OK?