Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘Smoke and mirrors, Wonk. Nothing is what it seems in the Douzey. Does Lloyd know about Baggy? Put it this way: has he tried to blackmail you?’

‘No.’

‘Then we’ll assume not. Anyone else know about her?’

I shook my head.

‘We keep it that way. Feed her these so she stays quiet, and say and do nothing while I have a look around.’

She handed me two Tunnock’s Tea Cakes from her jacket pocket and I fed Birgitta while Jonesy searched the room. She took a half-hour to do so, and was beyond thorough. If Birgitta was smart, she wouldn’t have left any evidence connecting her to Webster. She was smart, but like Charles, she couldn’t bring herself to dispose of the only picture of them together. Jonesy found it inside the hem of a curtain, the stitching unpicked and replaced by Velcro.

‘Bingo,’ she said, and showed it to me. It was the Polaroid, the same as the one from my dream, the one the photographer had taken all those years ago, the one that Birgitta had admonished Charles for keeping, the one she’d said she’d destroy. I stared at the picture stupidly, trying once again to reconcile the real with the imagined.

‘It’s Rhosilli beach on the Gower,’ I said, swallowing down a sense of rising confusion. ‘The picture was taken when Birgitta and Charles spent a weekend together, cocooned in the flat above the garage at her mother’s in Oxwich. They fed heartily upon the love they felt for one another, and on the way home they stopped for cockles and laver bread at Mumbles Pier, the wireless playing “Groove Me” as a lifeboat was retrieved. They said they loved one another, and they meant it: A tightening in the chest; a sense of euphoric oneness.’

‘How can you know all that?’ asked Jonesy.

I held my head as the frustration welled up inside me.

‘I don’t know how I know it,’ I said, ‘don’t know if I dreamt the Polaroid, or if I’m placing it in my memory now, or… dreaming about something I couldn’t know about. Look over there.’

I pointed to Birgitta’s painting on the wall, the one of the beach in the Gower, with the wreck, and the orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour, below which were the two figures.

‘I dreamt I was there as Charles, with Birgitta, just as you see in that painting. But then details in the dream come true, and I can’t tell if I can see stuff that happened to other people or if I’m patching holes in my memories with whatever is to hand.’

I could feel myself shaking and wanted all this to be over – in whatever fashion it could. Roscoe Smalls had taken the Cold Way Out when the blue Buick came calling. He hadn’t been supremely brave or a miserable coward. He’d just wanted out of it, in any way he could.

She asked me to outline the dreams, which I did as quickly as I could.

‘So let me get this straight,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘You met Don Hector in the blue Buick dream?’

‘I was him in the blue Buick. He had a rattle in his chest, his vision felt faded, and there was a sense of a numbness down his left-hand side. He spoke French more naturally than he spoke English, and he found solace in a place he used to go with the Buick: an oak tree with the trunk piled high with stones. When they came to take him he told them they’d get nothing even if they tried to get into his dreams. He’d relinquish only the blue Buick moment and said he’d leave a night terror – hundreds of disembodied hands – to put anyone off trying to read him.’

‘Nasty. Anything else?’

‘Yes – Don Hector gave the cylinder to Webster.’

‘The cylinder ? Webster was given the cylinder ?’

I nodded.

‘And you know this because—?’

‘Of my dream, yes.’

‘Daughter of a dog,’ she said, leaning against the door frame, ‘we thought the Buick was just another Sub-beta recurring night terror. Not actually active . And you said that there was a Mrs Nesbit dream-avatar with The Notable Goodnight’s voice demanding you find the cylinder?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘what does it mean?’

‘It means,’ she murmured, ‘they don’t yet have it.’

She looked at me and thought for a second or two. ‘What room you in?’

I pointed to the other side of the Dormitorium. ‘901.’

‘Who lives next door to you?’

‘On one side, Moody – until he got thumped. The other side is unused.’

‘It won’t be. There’ll be a large box, a flight case or a—’

‘—steamer trunk?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘a steamer trunk would do it. This is what we’re doing: you’re telling no one what you just told me, no one except Toccata . Understand?’

‘I don’t understand at all, but yes, I agree.’

‘Good.’

She pocketed the Polaroid of Birgitta and Charles, then picked up the phone, speed-dialled the Consulate and asked to be put through to the Chief.

‘It’s Jonesy,’ she said after a pause. ‘The Buick dream was active, Wonky has been third-person Don Hector and get this: Webster was given the cylinder – and the nasties over at HiberTech don’t have it yet.’

She listened for a moment, then stared at me.

‘Because Wonky dreamt it – and much else besides.’

There was a pause. Jonesy said we’d be back in half an hour, put the phone down and then turned to me with some urgency.

‘We’re leaving now.’

‘And Birgitta?’

‘I know a safe place she can go; we’ll drop her off on the way. Congratulations: you’ve just been promoted from liability to asset.’

‘Because I harboured Birgitta?’

‘Because you’re dreaming the right dream. Because you’ve been in the Dreamspace, because Aurora thinks she owns you, because you’re going to continue to make her think that. But you’re not, because you’re on our side now.’

‘Which side is that?’

‘The right side. Once we get back to the office, we’ll tell you everything.’

‘You’ll tell me why I’ve been having these dreams?’

‘Everything.’

We came down by way of the stairs, a circular descending journey that ran around the interior wall of the central heat-well like a helix. Lloyd was in the lobby with two of the winsomniacs, still standing by with blankets and hot drinks in case another of their compatriots made it through – an act of kindness liberally laced with deluded hope. I’d seen the blizzard, and doubted anyone could navigate the three changes on the fixed line to get here, even if it was less than two miles. Others would have either sought refuge in other Kipshops en route, got lost, or just given up. Winsomniacs had few energy reserves. Even blinking was an effort.

‘What in—’ began Lloyd when he saw me leading Birgitta by the hand.

‘Harbouring,’ said Jonesy. ‘Worthing is so under arrest right now.’

The front door opened. But it wasn’t a confused and very cold yet navigationally astute winsomniac, it was someone considerably less welcome – Mr Hooke. He was accompanied by Lucy Knapp, wrapped up tight in a duvet jacket and large woolly hat. She smiled when she saw me, but looked nervous, too.

‘Safe Haven?’ asked Hooke, the traditional request for unconditional shelter in the Winter. ‘Staff transfer between facilities and we got lost.’