I can’t see the tree. I can’t see anyone. I’m in darkness. I can feel the horse-tree moving under me, I can feel the wind and the cold, but I don’t know which way is up. A gust of wind hits me and I feel myself start to lift . . .

I’m awake. I’m awake. Very cold, dark. Rain hitting my face. My fingers are curled around a metal stanchion, slippery and silvered with wet. I’m standing on the balls of my feet on a slim strip of horizontal steel.

I can see the north side of the Thames lit up in the distance. The horizon is moving slightly, back and forth, as the whole structure that I’m holding on to shifts in the wind.

I’m standing near the end of a crane arm, some twenty floors above the building site adjacent to Martin Elstree’s apartment.

Unfair to snakes

Unfair to snakes

Uncontrollable shaking? Check.

Elevated respiration? Check.

Muscle weakness? – Hah! – Check.

Getting dizzy? Of course.

I have broken into a building site in my sleep and I have climbed a crane wearing heels and now here I am. Hacked. Lured. About to fall. Oh, Melodie. I wonder if you woke up as you were falling. I wish I’d stayed asleep.

‘Horse!’

It’s Shandy. She’s down below, her voice faint and high-pitched.

‘Hold on! I called the police. Just don’t fall asleep again. Stay awake. Stay with me.’

I don’t know if I can. This right here has got to be the greatest stress I’ve ever experienced in my life. Narcolepsy factor turned up to eleven. How am I supposed to stay awake?

‘Listen to me!’ She’s screaming to make her voice carry. ‘He can’t do anything to you unless you let him. You can stay awake. Remember the time we stayed up all night for tickets to meet Felix in person? I fell asleep four times but you didn’t. You can do this.’

Felix aka PewDiePie. We were kids. That was before the drug trial. My teeth are chattering. Every muscle in my body hurts.

‘I need you to stay alive. You need you to stay alive. Somewhere in you there is a survival instinct, Horse. Stay the fuck awake. Donato is coming to get you.’

I must have heard her wrong.

Somebody is climbing up the scaffolding. At first I think it’s a bear, the way it moves. All burly and awkward. But it really is Donato.

I don’t believe it. Donato hates me.

He’s moving fast for a man of his size. He gets to the top of the crane and then prepares to tackle the arm, where I am. It will move if he climbs on.