I got the Pid demo. It was awesome! I finished it, then bought the full version. I got reasonably far — the last significant thing I remember was fetching door lady's limbs back.

In the interim my PC bricked and had to be wiped. Now I'm afraid to say I honestly can't face going through the beginning all over again. Is there any way to skip levels?

I don't know of any way to skip levels. I just wanted to say that your memory might be doing tricks for you, because it doesn't take all that long to get to the door lady. It took me about 1.5 hours.