‘Well, I am, and I’m telling you that your earring is significant. There’s been oneiric crime ever since headware got started. It’s just not generally noticed, that’s all. It’s very hard to separate your own unconscious content from an intrusion by a dreamhacker. That’s why Mel’s case is of so much interest to us. If you hadn’t got involved, there would have been no question that her death was a suicide. But Donato and I think she could have been sleepwalking and acting out a dream.’

‘Whoa,’ Shandy interjects. ‘That’s messed-up.’

I kick her under the table.

‘I don’t believe for a moment that Mel’s death was suicide. She probably had no idea what she was doing. But Charlie, you’d be in the best position to tell us what she was dreaming. You were there.’

‘Charlie didn’t kill her, Roman,’ Shandy bristles. She leans across the table, glaring at Roman.

‘I never said that.’

‘You just bloody well implied it. You questioned her for hours. So let’s have it. I don’t even understand how you got referred to this case. What made you think there was dream crime?’

Roman answers patiently, or perhaps I should say condescendingly, ‘Antonio told the police at the scene that Mel had been receiving therapy for nightmares and sleepwalking. My colleague Yemisi – you met her at the crime scene – she tipped me off. She knows I’m studying sleepwalking deaths.’

‘It’s a thing?’ I blurt. ‘People sleepwalking and getting killed?’

‘Have you heard of Sleepwalkers Anonymous?’

Shandy stifles a laugh, but it’s obvious that Roman’s dead serious. I feel the blood drain from my face. One of the greyscale sleepers mentioned going to Sleepwalkers Anonymous, right before stepping into the Thames.

‘They meet online,’ Roman says. ‘I’ve traced most of them to Greater London. Donato went in undercover and found a whole community of lost souls. People with very similar experiences, all within the last year. We’ve been tracking sleep-related deaths for the last eight months, and they are on the rise throughout London. Oddly, though, the numbers are stable nationwide. Whatever is going on, London is the epicentre.’

And the international business domicile of BigSky.

‘What kinds of cases have you seen?’ Shandy’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed now. Leaning forward, bracelets jingling, all ears. Roman stays stiffly upright, avoiding eye contact with her. But he looks straight at me.