‘No one is accusing me. This poor woman just wants answers. She’s come all the way from Canada. It would look worse if I refused to talk to her.’ I shudder.

‘But you have a booking.’

‘Can’t you just cancel tonight? I don’t know if I have it in me.’

‘Of course, darling. But you know what they say about getting back on the horse. It would be good for you. You need to take control. Look at yourself. Every way the wind blows. What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t even know.’ But I do know. O’s right. I’ve been struggling to build this business, it’s been basically a disaster, and now despite the terrible thing that happened to Melodie, I have an opportunity here. Enquiries are flooding in. If I blow this, another chance isn’t going to come along. I’ll have to move to my mum’s place in Stourbridge and work in the Co-op. She’d love that, bless her. But I can’t just give up; it’d be going backwards.

‘I just want to be a bit careful with new clients.’

‘In case one of them turns out to be the Creeper? I am vetting everyone carefully. There’s one rather famous person who wants to consult you, but I won’t book until I’m certain it’s safe for you.’

‘I can’t do a famous person tonight, O. I’m not up to it.’

‘Not tonight. It’s only Emile from downstairs. He feels he’s making progress and he wants another session.’

‘That gives me time to pre-sleep, then.’

Because I find that I have a plan. I’ll get back on the horse; I’ll help Emile. But after that . . . I have a cunning plan. Remember how I said when I first go into someone else’s dream and say they are in their house, I dream it as though it’s happening in my house? And then it slowly changes until I can see and feel what they can feel?

Well, now that I’m watching out for the Creeper, I reckon I can turn that to my advantage. Because if the Creeper is a person hacking into my dream, there will be moments in the beginning when they are acclimating to my reference frame. And if I’m quick and smart and daring, maybe I can get a glimpse of who they really are. Where they are in their dreamspace. What the inside of their head looks like.

At least, that’s the plan I have when I start.

What really happens is that I fall asleep in my own bed and wake up in a hospital bed beside a corpse.

Secret Diary of a Prawn Star

Entry #52

Codename: Chaplin

Date: 23 September 2027

Client: Me

Payment in advance: N/A

Session Goal: Identify Creeper by reverse-hacking it

Location: My bed

Narcolepsy status: Fair