‘It was only the two times. You thought I was a man! That was me! I was trying to find you in dreamspace, but I didn’t want you to recognise me so I disguised myself as a man. I think I’d have made a good man, you know. We didn’t have the options in my day, not like the young people do now.’

‘I thought you were a dead body! Were you trying to scare me?’

‘Not at all, darling, not at all. I was trying to warn you. This is a much larger plot that we are both a part of, you know. We aren’t allowed to know everything, for our own protection.’

‘But I was nearly killed the other day. I rode my bike into fast-moving traffic because I thought it was all a dream. I was nearly killed. Were you trying to kill me?’

‘Oh dear, oh my, no, of course that wasn’t me. I wish I knew who had targeted you. I told you – I’ve been trying to protect you.’

There’s a beat, then she adds: ‘If I had been trying to kill you, you wouldn’t be here now.’

She pats my hand reassuringly, and completely without irony. This is a dream. It has to be. I’ll prove it. I begin to pinch various parts of my body. I try to levitate, but I can’t. It’s not a dream.

‘But . . . but . . . what if the police find out?’

Daphne is watching my face. Suddenly she throws her head back and laughs wildly.

‘The police! How you make me laugh. What are they going to do to me or anyone else my age? Throw us in jail? We’re gaga, all of us. That’s how we dreamhackers ended up in the situation in the first place – we all took the treatment.’

Question: What’s more dangerous than a single psychopath killing people in their sleep?

Answer: A team of mentally impaired dementia patients who think they are on a mission for some mysterious ‘Agency’.

What the ever-loving fuck?

‘You see, I am sensible and take my responsibilities to the Agency seriously, but I’m afraid one can’t say the same for everyone I know,’ Daphne says. ‘Some of my colleagues wander around the Dream City in a daze. They’re unpredictable and disorganized, and they do silly things. I have to cover for the inept all the time. When I heard about the musician who walked off the hotel roof, I did feel that it had all gone far enough, and yes, I did blame Doctor Zborowski for running off to a new job instead of staying to deal with the consequences of his work. He blamed himself, too. He had a number of guilt dreams about it.’

‘What do you mean, running off to a new job? I thought the funding was pulled and he had no choice.’