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‘Do you believe that?’

‘I saw you in my dream.’

She wished she hadn’t said it. ‘What dream?’ he said sharply, coming towards her. Did he still have the knife? Where was it? ‘Molly, what dream did you have?’

The torrent of words stayed trapped in her throat. She quivered in the chair, the muscles of her hands cramping against the wood.

All of a sudden he was shaking her by the shoulders, violently, so that her head was snapping back and forth. ‘Tell me!’ he roared, and she squealed, her hands trying to come up between them to push him away. ‘Tell me!’

Just as suddenly he had let her go, and in the pale light from outside Molly caught a glimpse of his face, lined with anger and something else. It was the expression her father had worn whenever he had hit her mother. Surprise and bitterness.

‘It was you. It was you. I dreamed the colour of your shirt and I dreamed your face. I saw you looking at me. That’s why, when you brought Cristián back, I just, I just freaked. I already knew you, I already knew who you were. You were in my dream. And. You turned into a monster,’ she said. ‘And that was jingle‐jangle.’

‘Jingle‐jangle?’ His voice was a disembodied insistence, prowling about the room. ‘How did I turn into a monster?’

‘There was you and the feather thing,’ she said, groping for a description. ‘And then there wasn’t. It was like, there were two of you and then there was one. Like you were really the same person.’

‘The feather thing,’ said the Doctor. ‘Can you describe it?’

‘Like a man,’ said Molly, ‘but with feathers. And a big smile, an advertising smile. He was eating people’s hearts, eating them, like he was selling hamburgers.’

‘And that’s why you came for me with the knife,’ concluded the Doctor. ‘To stop me turning into the monster.’

‘Aren’t you the Devil?’

He went to the window. The venetian blinds made weird slits of light across his face, as though he were half there and half invisible. ‘No, Molly. I’m not the Devil.’

‘How come you were in my dream, then?’

‘Who does Cristián think I am?’

Molly got out of the chair. The Doctor didn’t turn around; he was watching something in the street. ‘Cristián doesn’t think much of anything these days,’ she said. ‘His head’s sort of screwed up. He has all these bad trips. At first he was interested in Lizzie’s books and stuff, but then he just started dropping acid all the time, like he would have trips that went for three days.’

Suddenly he shouted at her, a sound that exploded in her head and made her ears ring. It took her several seconds to realize the room had been silent, that the yell was entirely between her ears. ‘Mmm,’ said the Doctor. ‘It attracts psychics like moths to the flame.’

She inched across the floor, like an animal trying not to catch the attention of a predator. ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ she said. ‘It’s like you’ve all got some deal going, some big trip which I can’t grok. I don’t know what to do.’

‘That’s your lieutenant’s car out the front. Come to save you from yourself, I expect.’

‘So what is going on? Are you really turning into a monster?’

‘Yes, Molly,’ he said, without turning around. ‘I rather think I am.’

He reached up to his head. With a sudden movement, he pulled something out of his hair and let it fall to the floor.

Molly stared at what was lying on the slash of moonlit carpet. It was a handful of feathers.

Like speeding. You decide what to do, and then you just go out and do it.

She picked up the knife off the trolley and came at him with it held over her head.

He turned at the last moment. His face was a zebra crossing, alternate stripes of black and white, his eyes appraising her without emotion.

The door slammed open behind her. Someone shot her.

There was no sound, just a muffled whoosh. The air vibrated and was still. Molly dropped the knife, spinning with the impact of the bullet. She did not see who had shot her. She followed the blade to the floor, mouth gaping in surprise.

‘I’m sorry,’ she told the Doctor, who was suddenly kneeling beside her. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’ He brushed his finger lightly