‘He’s already denied that he’s carrying a gun.’

‘So am I. You’re imagining it. OK?’

She pushed brusquely away from me, past me, and went up the steps into my house. I followed her closely. At the far end, along the central corridor to the left, I could hear the sound of Jo playing music on the radio. The shower was running, but the door was still open. Frejah appeared to be about to set off in that direction.

I said, quickly, pointing towards my study: ‘If you want Jeksid, he’s this way.’

She walked ahead of me. I noticed she was limping. Jeksid limped too. I had a random thought: had Frejah sent two of her own goons to beat him up?

It was absurd. It was terrifying, but still absurd.

Two people old enough to know better, both becoming physically frail, both carrying loaded guns, heading for a confrontation in my house, on my patio, the place where I normally sat around in pursuit of doing nothing, and where Barmi liked to crawl on to my lap and fall warmly asleep. My house, my property – these people had no business here. My partner was in the house, unaware of what was going on.

I should take control of the situation, demand that they put down their weapons, tell them to get the hell out . . . but I felt ineffectual. I knew no more how to handle this real situation than I was able to write similar scenes convincingly in my fiction. People sometimes commended me for the cerebral nature of my plots, the internalizing, the insights into motives and feelings. What they did not know was that I shied away from the violent clichés that appeared in so many crime novels because I was hopeless at writing them. When details of criminal activities were needed I took some ideas from Spoder, wrote down what he told me, let him check the passage before I finalized the book.

‘Go through the door on your left,’ I said, like a realtor showing a client around a house. Frejah pushed it open with her free hand, the one that was bandaged.

I wanted these people out of my house. I glanced at my wristwatch. The hands were settled on midnight, or midday. The sweep second hand was not moving. I shook my wrist, trying uselessly to restart the watch.

We crossed my office. Had the desk moved even further towards the patio door? The room seemed disproportionate, wider, shorter, the ceiling was lower. The whole room looked and felt as if it were expanding. No, it was shrinking. Another mystery!

Ahead of me, Frejah stopped suddenly. She looked around the room, then turned back to where I was behind her.

‘This is familiar,’ she said. ‘What has been happening here?’