She shakes her head. ‘No. I love my work. I’ve sacrificed so much to get to this point. I want this career with my heart and soul, Charlie.’

I’m nodding, making sympathetic noises.

‘Antonio says you’ve been sleepwalking. I have to tell you, I don’t know how to help you with that and you might want to see an actual doctor. I only deal with the stories that are happening in your dreams. What I do is enter your dreams and rearrange things to make them turn out better. You could think of it like me planting suggestions so that you’ll dream different things, you’ll be able to wake up in your dreams and take control of them. And from what you’re telling me, I think this might help you.’

‘See, I was afraid you’d say this Creeper guy is just some complex in my head and then we’d be all into stirring up my childhood looking for causes and I don’t have time for that—’

I cut her off with a hand gesture. ‘I’m not an analyst. The way I work, it doesn’t really matter what kind of complex the Creeper is. What matters is how you deal with it. Maybe we’ll try transforming it into something less upsetting.’

‘Ooh, could we turn him into a potted plant or a really ugly shoe?’

‘That’s the spirit,’ I tell her.

There’s a knock at the door. I’m not surprised to see Antonio. I force myself to look at him, even though I’m well aware it would be better not to make eye contact. His eyes are just as dark and knowing as before, and his eyelashes are just as long, and his mouth is just as curved. I bite the inside of my cheek so that I won’t lean into his faux-European kiss-on-both-cheeks greeting.

‘I hope I don’t intrude,’ he says, with a half-bow towards each of us. ‘I just wanted to make sure everything is going OK and you don’t need anything.’

I watch their body language. He looks at her like she’s a goddess and there’s a field of sexual intensity between them even though they barely touch. On any other occasion I’d probably be withering into a dry heap of despair at everything they’re getting that I’m not, but I’m still wondering whether Mel could really have found the Dream City. Because if she did, then the greyscale people aren’t just manifestations of my subconscious, they are other dreamers who are blundering around the Dream City blind. Users of Sweet Dreams, maybe – after all, I use my earring to make my recordings.

Mel wasn’t masked, though. She could see where she was going in the Dream City. And so could the Creeper. What does it mean?

‘I am going to sleep here on the sofa if this is OK,’ Antonio is saying. ‘I stay out of the way unless you need me.’

I must have startled or something, because Mel glances apologetically at me.

‘Let me just catch up,’ I say. ‘You want to start . . . now?’