And they’re off. I watch this go on, along with an embarrassed doctor and a bewildered Uncle Pete and Mormor. I don’t even say anything. I just leave the room, closing the door behind me and managing to hold on to my tears until I’m in the car park, when they come like I’ve taken my finger off the end of a hose. I can’t even see Dad’s car, so I just sit on a wall and sob.

I cry for Seb, alone in a horrible dream land, getting worse by the hour. I cry for Kenneth McKinley as well, a sad old man dying alone and forgotten. And I cry for myself, wrongly accused of punching my brother when he’s sick. Most of all, though, I cry out of fear: for now I know there is only one thing left I can do.

Of course, the doctor is wrong. I know that much. You can analyse and examine something, and pull it apart as much as you like. But he and his stupid girlfriend didn’t ever use it, did they? They never lay underneath it and slept, and shared dreams, and sailed in Spanish galleons, and experienced the whole … the whole … magic of it. Did they?

One thing is for sure, though.

I have to act, and soon. I have to get into Becker’s funeral parlour, and steal the last remaining Dreaminator.

Chapter 65

Mam and Dad are staying overnight at the hospital in two rooms near the intensive care unit. Mormor and Uncle Pete are driving me home and staying at our house. We’re in Pete’s car, and neither of them has said a word to me for the past ten minutes. It convinces me that they think:

a) I punched Seb in the face while he was lying in a coma in hospital. Why would I do that?

b) If I could do that, then I’m probably responsible – somehow – for Seb’s current condition.

Well, they’re half right, at least.

As for me, I’m not keen on talking, anyhow. I have enough going on in my head without adding conversation.

I stare out of the car window as we turn left along the seafront towards home. It’s an overcast, muggy evening, and the usual breeze from the lilac-grey sea isn’t even bothering the leaves on the trees. People with drinks stand outside the Park Hotel, laughing; a small crowd of day-trippers with cool boxes and sandy feet wait at the bus stop; and, a little bit further along the front, a familiar figure walks alongside a slow black-and-ginger dog …

‘Stop!’ I shout. ‘Please stop!’

‘What’s wrong, pal?’ asks Uncle Pete, turning back to look at me and making the car swerve a little.

It is definitely her – Kez Becker – and walking alongside her is Dennis.