‘Have you seen Jess?’ I ask, focusing on the smudge of dye that has leaked from his newly chestnut locks into the peak of his receding hairline. Christ, if I’m still rolling around in shit-holes like this when I’m his age I only hope someone slits my throat. With that fleeting image, I remember the spate of stabbings in Somers Town I’m planning to dig into next week, focusing on the circulation of weapons across our part of the city. If I can pitch it around the ongoing tensions in Camden, I’m pretty sure I can spin a legitimate local interest angle.

‘Yeah but what’s the angle?’ I picture my news editor, Ben, pre-empting the words of the editor, tucked away in his cheap glass box at the back of the room. ‘We’re a local paper, Isobel, not the New York fucking Times.’

Hugh’s face contorts, as if he is trying to place Jess’s name – the name of the woman who has been his assistant for the past six years … Assistant Producer, actually, I can hear her voice correcting me in my head.

‘Sit down,’ he slurs. ‘Want a line?’

He returns his attention to the table, haphazardly scraping and crushing white powder with his card.

‘Have you seen her?’ I repeat and he looks up again.

‘Who?’

‘I’m all right for shit K, thanks, Hugh,’ I say, not bothering to answer, and he puckers his face into a grin, attempting a South American drawl.

‘Issy, darling, this is pure cocaine straight from the streets of Ecuador!’

Is it fuck. ‘Can I use your phone?’ I ask and he slides it across to me before returning his attention to the pile of powder.

Jess’s number goes straight to voicemail.

‘Where are you?’ I whisper into the handset before tossing the receiver back at him.

‘Go on then,’ I say, snatching the rolled £20 from his fingers, hoovering up both lines, wincing as the chemical hits the back of my throat.

Grateful for the instant burst of energy, I stand.

‘Wait, where are you going?’ I hear his voice fade into the distance as I move across the kitchen, through the doorway and towards the stairs, without looking back.

Walking out onto the street, my whole body seems to move as if by remote control. Sunglasses on, though autumn has long set in, I drift along Chalk Farm Road. Ordinarily I’d have walked through Camden Lock, past the tube station and onto the high street where my shoebox of a flat awaits me above the newsagent’s. But this morning, the coke rushing through my veins, I need a horizon – the prospect of main roads, of roaring traffic, of crackheads and knowing shopkeepers making my chest tighten.