He had been dreaming of a horde of Egyptian mummies rising from their stony sarcophagi and pursuing him down the dingy London streets near where he lodged. Just as the greyish bindings unravelled from the skull of the leading mummy, revealing its gaping, dusty jaw, the scream reverberated in his brain. He sat up abruptly, his tangled shirt sticking uncomfortably to his sweaty torso. ‘Wh . . . aaat?’ His vocal cords were numbed, and he could hardly articulate his own cry of fear. He forced his eyes wide open, half-afraid that his nightmare might manifest itself in the grubby reality of his bedroom. Instead all he could discern in the darkness was a pair of pale, skinny buttocks poking towards him from across the room. He paused to admire them for a few minutes. The girl to whom the buttocks belonged then turned her pallid face towards him. ‘Here. There’s bones in this bag.’ ‘Come back to bed . . . Kitten.’ He recalled her name just at the last minute, though its ridiculousness stuck on his tongue.
