him about the office. Not quite our type. Seems all wrong. Torquil. Somehow foisted on Hogg? How could that happen?… This had to stop, he realized, or he’d never sleep. Change of subject required. That was why he was here. What to think about. Sex? Or Gérard de Nerval? Sex. Sex it was. Dymphna, sturdy, broad-shouldered, small-breasted Dymphna and her candid invitation. Right out of nowhere, that. Never would have dreamt. Trying to imagine Dymphna naked, the two of them making love. Those silly shoes. Strong, shortish legs. As he felt himself slipping away, going under, another image replaced that of Dymphna – a sliding diorama on a taxi’s glossy door and above it a girl’s face, a girl’s wan, oval, perfect face, eager, hopeful, long-necked and wide-eyed –
Brutal knocking on the door, two harsh iron-knuckled raps, jerked him awake, alarmed. He sat upright, heart kicking, in impenetrable darkness, to the sound of notional waves breaking on a notional shore.
The lights went on and Alan came in, a resigned smile on his face, a printout in his hand.
‘Woah,’ he said, showing Lorimer a jagged mountain range. Almost broke a rib there.’
‘How long was I out for?’
‘Forty minutes. Was it the knock-on-the-door thing?’
‘Yep. Someone’s fist on that door. Bam-bam. Loud.’
Lorimer lay back, thinking that more and more often it was – for some unknown reason – the heavy noise of knocking, or of doorbells ringing or sounding that woke him these nights. Experience told him that this sort of awakening was a brusque portent of an end to sleep as well; he never seemed to drift off again, as if the shock of that rousing had so rattled and shaken his system that it required a full twenty-four hours to settle again.
‘Absolutely fascinating,’ Alan said. ‘Tremendous hypnopompic reveries. Love it. Two knocks, you said?’ ‘Yes. Glad to be of help.’
‘Were you dreaming?’ He gestured at the dream diary by the bed. All dreams were to be logged, however fragmentary.
‘No.’
‘We’ll keep on monitoring. Try and get back to sleep.’
‘Whatever you say, Doctor Kenbarry.’
The waves rolled in. The darkness resumed. Lorimer lay in his narrow cell and thought this time about Gérard de Nerval. It did not work.
Chapter 2
As he turned the corner into Lupus Crescent, Lorimer saw Detective Sergeant Dennis Rappaport spring agilely from his car and take up a studied, lounging position, his back against a lamp-post, as if to indicate that this was a casual encounter, with little of the official about it. The day was one of pronounced greyness and coldness, with a low sky and a dead light that made even Detective Rappaport’s unlikely Nordic looks appear drab and under attack. He was happy to be invited to come inside.
‘So, you didn’t come home last night,’ Rappaport observed genially, accepting a mug of steaming, well-sugared, instant coffee from Lorimer – who managed to suppress his quip about the detective’s uncanny powers of deduction.
‘That’s correct,’ he said. ‘I was participating in a research project, about sleep disorders. I’m a very light sleeper,’ he added, pre-empting the detective’s next observation. In vain.
‘So, you’re an insomniac,’ Rappaport said. Lorimer noticed he had dropped his obsequious use of ‘sir’ and he wondered whether this was a good or bad sign. Rappaport smiled at him, sympathetically. ‘Sleep like a top, I do. A spinning top. No problem. Out like a light. Head hits the pillow, out like a light. Sleep like a log.’
‘I envy you.’ Lorimer was sincere, Rappaport had no idea how sincere he was. Rappaport went on to enumerate some epic sleeps he had enjoyed, citing one sixteen-hour triumph on a white-water rafting holiday. He was a regular eight-hour-a-nighter, it transpired, so he claimed with some smugness. Lorimer had observed in the past how a confession of sleep dysfunctions often provoked this good-natured bragging. Few other ailments elicited a similar response. An admission of constipation did not engender proud boasts of regular bowel movements. A complaint about migraine, or acne, or piles, or a bad back generally produced sympathy, not a swaggering testimonial about the interlocutor’s own good health. Sleep disorders did this to people, he noticed. It was almost talismanic, this guileless braggadocio, as if it were a form of incantation, protection against a profound fear of sleeplessness that lurked in everyone’s lives, even the soundest of sleepers, such as the Rappaports of this world. The detective was now expounding on his ability to enjoy restorative catnaps if the demands of the job ever interrupted his restful, untroubled nights.
‘Is there