The last time Dominique had seen Dr Madden she had been about to turn twenty, but in the intervening years the décor of the waiting room had remained the same soothing colours. It was sleek, clean, calming and all so fresh and spotlessly clean.

Dominique hadn’t told anyone but Fiona about her two p.m. appointment. After the drama of Ruby that morning, she had thought about cancelling. Instead, she had told Ruby she was nipping out, not informing her where she was going or when she would be back, so that the teen would have no clue how long she would be left alone. If she had told Benjamin, he probably would have expected her to cancel, given the circumstances – there was no way he would have trusted their teenage daughter to be left home alone with Mouse. But he also wouldn’t have changed his own work schedule to help Dom out.

She sat with her handbag resting on her lap. Every now and again she adjusted it slightly so it sat perfectly square, an even amount of thigh showing either side.

She had been so nervous the first time she had come here, aged nineteen, her mum sitting one side and Fiona on the other; Fiona insisting on coming despite Dom’s shame at what she had done.

She hadn’t meant it, though. She never would have hurt anyone when awake. It had been the screams that woke her, and there had been so much blood…

‘Dominique Thomas?’ The receptionist’s call shocked her from her memories, and she hurried into Dr Madden’s room.

His hair was a uniform snow white now, even though he must only have been in his early sixties, but his friendly face was surprisingly wrinkle free. Life must have been good for the doctor in the intervening years.

‘Take a seat. How are you?’ he smiled.

Now there was a loaded question. Dom knew better than to keep her mask on with Dr Madden. Instead, she offloaded everything. How she had discovered her husband was having an affair, how her daughter was causing her huge stress, and how Dom herself was struggling to cope. They discussed the dreams she had been having, and how the sleepwalking had now reared its ugly head once more.

‘After what happened before, I’m scared,’ explained Dom. ‘What if I hurt my family? If anything happened to my kids because of me, I couldn’t live with myself. I’d end it there and then.’

The doctor pressed his fingers together. ‘Only one per cent of the adult population sleepwalk, and among them, those who have a violent episode are exceptionally rare.’

‘Rare, but not unheard of,’ she interrupted.

‘True… Of course, you have already suffered such an episode, so you are at risk – which is why I’ve made time to speak with you now. But don’t worry, this is extremely treatable; after all, you’ve been through it once with great success. We’ll get back on top of things in no time.

‘First things first: I’ll contact the London Sleep Centre. They will book you in for a polysomnography – a series of tests to measure functions including brainwaves, muscle activity and breathing activity. You know the score.’

She did indeed. She remembered the centre of expertise well. Walking to the north end of Harley Street, as a teenager, to undergo a raft of tests, she’d been nervous as a kitten. After weeks of tests, where she had even had to sleep at the centre so she could be monitored, her sleepwalking had been confirmed. It had been terrifying to have it confirmed that she had had absolutely no control over her own body. When she got the news, she had walked around Regent’s Park in a daze, trying to get her head around everything, because even to her the truth sounded crazy.

Like someone possessed, Dominique had indeed been sleepwalking at the time of the attack she had committed, in a state called automatism. With the help of the sleep experts, she had been found not guilty of the charges against her, due to non-insane automatism.

‘I’m just so scared, doctor. I hate losing control. What if I hurt someone again? What if I kill them this time?’ she asked now.

‘Dominique, your stress is going to make your symptoms much worse. There have only been about sixty-eight recorded cases worldwide of murder in sleepwalking. See how rare it is? You have nothing to worry about.’

Nothing to worry about?

‘Surely you could give me some sleeping tablets to knock me out, or some kind of medication?’

‘Unfortunately, drug treatments for nightmares and sleepwalking are not helpful. In fact, they are more likely to make them worse. But there are steps we can take to lessen the frequency of your nightmares, and the effect they are having on your life.’

‘Such as?’

‘While we’re waiting for the appointment to come through with the London Sleep Centre, you and I can look at you making some behavioural changes.’

‘What if that’s not enough?’

He gave a small but reassuring smile. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Imagery rehearsal treatment works something like seventy per cent of the time. We know it’s worked on you once, so we have no reason at all to fear it won’t this time.’

She sighed. Rearranged her handbag on her lap, knowing he was right but unwilling to concede the point.

‘Talk me through the worst incident you’ve had so far this time.’

Dominique described holding a bloody Ruby in her arms. She vividly relived the feeling of knowing her daughter was dead, the gut-wrenching horror that had overwhelmed her. She trembled as she spoke.

‘Okay, now imagine what changes you would make if you could. Run the dream through your head as if it were a film and you are the director. You rearrange the action, Dominique. You are in control.’

‘There’s a noise outside my bedroom door. A gurgling noise. It’s… laughter. I open it, and lying on the hallway floor is… is…’ Her voice faded. She forced herself to carry on. ‘Is Ruby, and she’s…’ Not covered in blood. Not struggling to breath. Not clinging onto life by a thread. ‘She’s wearing a red dress, it’s just a red dress, that’s why she is red, it’s not blood.’

Crying a river of tears that joined the scarlet puddle. Blood making her hands sticky, turned her fingernails into talons. Holding her daughter to her. Clinging to her rag doll body and holding it tight against her chest.

‘And we hug. We put our arms around each other and we hug.’

It sounded so simple, but tears flowed unchecked down Dom’s cheeks as she tried to manipulate the memory of the dream and work on inserting the new images into it.

She and Dr Madden went over and over it, talking through every sight and sound of the dream, every feeling she’d had. They then converted it to something related but positive. The rest of the session flew by as they practised the imagery rehearsal treatment.

If she drilled it enough, she would be able to take control of the dream and make those tweaks while asleep. It sounded crazy, but she knew from her own experience that it worked.

She simply had to calm down, trust in the process, and practice her imagery rehearsal therapy. And hope it worked really, really quickly – though in her experience it was a slow process getting a handle on changing dreams. Practice made perfect.