The Creeper told me to butt out of Mel’s dreams. Again and again. Why didn’t he want me there? What doesn’t he want me to see or do?

About here, I get stuck. Well, I can try to find out more about Antonio. I deactivate Cone of Silence and fire up Spacetime. A little flood of messages comes in, but I don’t look at them right away; I’m afraid I’ll lose my nerve. Instead, I Spacetime Antonio. I’ve little hope of actually speaking to him – O suggested he was forced to leave the country and I now feel sure she knows stuff I don’t about all this. So when he picks up I get flustered.

‘Charlie! So good to see you! I’m taking off for Australia tomorrow. I’ve been invited to teach at a retreat in the desert. How are you doing? Those kebab guys aren’t giving you trouble, are they?’

‘I’m good, it’s all fine,’ I lie, smiling. ‘Hey, Antonio, something’s been bugging me and I was just curious.’

‘Sure! Of course! Anything you want to know.’

‘When you contacted O to hire me, you called my business line.’

‘Yeah, well, I wanted to approach you as a professional.’

‘But how did you know about the business? I wasn’t advertising. We hadn’t spoken. Who told you I was a dreamhacker?’

‘Ah! Well, I guess somebody must have, but I can’t remember who. All I can tell you is that the night before I called you, I had a vivid dream about your business card – you know, the one that says “Dreamhacker”? – and how I was going to call you. So when I woke, I looked you up and there you were. Dream therapist, same thing, right?’

‘It actually said Dreamhacker on the card in your dream?’

‘Yeah, definitely. Why?’

‘It’s just that I didn’t start calling myself that until after Shandy ran the marketing numbers for me, which was after you called. I gave Mel a card when I met her. Maybe that’s what you remember.’

Or maybe you’re lying, Antonio.

‘That’s really strange. But I definitely dreamed it. I am always one to listen to the intuition, you know, Charlie? That’s why I reached out to you.’

Then he tells me he’ll send me a postcard from Australia. I end the conversation as quickly as I can. He’s either very clueless or a great actor, and if he were the latter I’m sure with his looks he would have a lot more money, so I’m going with clueless. Which means that someone tampered with his dream. I was brought in to work with Mel by someone other than Antonio, someone who already thought of me as a dreamhacker. Who?