“Yeeeaass . . .” said Barnabas, staring out the window and gulping his wine, and suddenly the full horror of what was actually happening struck Cormac forcibly.

Barnabas wasn’t getting help because he didn’t want it. A direct route into his body was actually fairly useful to feed his habit. The two men looked at each other, Cormac trying his best to hide his horror and disgust.

“And they still want to fuck me, can you believe it?” said Barnabas languidly.

The pain of it, Cormac thought. The amount of drugs he must need.

“I’ll need to clean it out,” he said, gulping.

“Yes, please,” said Barnabas. “I do pretty well, but it tends to make me faint.”

He slurped more of his wine, and Cormac got to work, glancing at the beautiful telescope and the great hanging works of art and out the vast floor-to-ceiling windows, the Thames in full flow, dredgers, commuting boats, sightseeing boats, and huge tugs full of slurry traversing up and down the great expanse underneath the bridges. It was a profound and extraordinary sight; the city lay at your feet, yours for the taking, everything you could possibly want. And what this beautiful dissipated young man had wanted was to stuff himself so full of drugs that he had created an entire hole in his body.

Cormac hadn’t really come up against money before—even the local laird was more or less skint, or certainly dressed as though he was. This hushed, thick-carpeted world was new to him.

He didn’t like it at all.

He refilled Barnabas’s glass at his request (Barnabas slugged it as if it were water), then he anesthetized the area—Barnabas laughed at the idea of that doing him any good at all—and cleaned and swabbed it, then filled it with packing and taped it together as best he could. It was nothing like enough.

“You need to be in hospital,” he said urgently. “If you get sepsis, it could kill you.”

“Certainly not,” said Barnabas. “I’m having far too good a time.” He waved his arm around. “You should join us tonight, there’s a Shoreditch restaurant opening. Some filthy fusion thing, but the champagne should be good.”

Cormac looked at him in amazement. “You’ve just met me!”

“I know!” said Barnabas. “It’ll be adorable! You’ll be like my pet nurse. I can pay you. Better than what you’re on, wouldn’t be hard. Look after me. Keep it clean. You wouldn’t even have to sleep with me!”

Cormac frowned. “Don’t talk to me like that. Don’t talk to anyone like that.”

Barnabas pouted. “Most people want to sleep with me.”

Cormac blinked. “Where’s your mum and dad?” he said quietly.