So furiously, in fact, that I don’t hear the arrival of a figure next to me. Instead, I see to my right the glint of metal. A dark-haired boy of about my age is holding out a knife to me.

‘You left my dad’s dirk in a crocodile’s belly. It might be useful!’

It’s Susan who recognises him. ‘Uri?’ she says.

Uri? Kenneth McKinley’s son?

What’s he doing here?

Chapter 80

Susan is rolling with this dream world more easily than I am, and she smiles at Uri while I just stand there, mouth open.

‘You know my name?’ says Uri.

‘Yes!’ says Susan. ‘We knew your dad. I recognised you from the photograph on his table!’

The boy nods and smiles, shyly. Bewildered, I look between the two of them. ‘How?’

‘Does it matter?’ says Uri. ‘Some things just are!’

‘You’re not wrong there, son!’ says Kenneth, stepping out from behind a thick tree, his kilt ripped to shreds, exposing his legs, which are no longer skinny and old but young and muscled.

‘Kenneth!’ I gasp. ‘What … how … I mean, you were killed by the crocs … weren’t you?’

‘You’re forgetting, laddie: I was already dead. But the rather splendid thing about your Dreamland is that death doesn’t seem to matter. Wouldn’t you say, son?’

I splutter for a reply, until I realise he’s talking to Uri, not me.

The two of them look at each other with a love that seems to radiate heat and slow down time.

Uri steps forward, and Kenneth pulls him into a hug. They stay there for what feels like a long time, and I glance at Susan, who is wiping something from her eye.

‘We’re together forever now, son,’ says Kenneth. His hair is no longer white, but has the golden sheen of his photograph on the Dreaminator box. His deeply lined face seems to get smoother the closer he holds Uri.

‘Yes, Dad,’ says Uri, smiling.

Then Kenneth turns to me. ‘Use the dirk, laddie. It’s a lot easier. This is your Dreamland, remember?’

I nod, dumbfounded.

He faces his son again. ‘Come on, Uri, let’s go: we’re only in the way here. Wee Malky here’s got a job to do.’

‘Wait!’ I say. ‘Will … will I see you again?’

Kenneth looks at me over the top of his glasses. ‘Who knows, laddie? Some pals of mine once said, “Let it be,” and it just could be, you know?’

He holds out his hand to Uri, and the two step back behind the tree. Uri raises his hand in a shy goodbye, and then they’re gone.

Chapter 81

At this point, two things happen at the same time.

One is that I slice easily through the remaining strands of rope with the dirk.

The other is that, from a little distance away, comes a scream unlike any I have heard before.