It is the only payphone that still works on this stretch of Camden High Street and as I pull open the door with the full weight of my body, I am met by the overwhelming stench of urine. Dialling Oscar’s number by heart, the same number I dialled night after night for so long, my eyes flit over the usual collage of calling cards layered one over another in a surreal tapestry of swollen nipples and painted talons. Holding one hand over my mouth, I suppress the urge to vomit.

There are three rings before the answer machine kicks in, and I hear my money being swallowed by the machine. Out of habit, my mind stumbles as it pictures him asleep in someone else’s bed, and then the image is gone.

The voice at the end of the line is mechanical and unusually polite.

‘This is Sergeant Morley, I’m away from my desk. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll call you back. If your call is urgent, please try the Kentish Town police main office …’

At those words, I throw the handset back onto the cold metal receiver. For a moment my fingers hover over the nine button but there is no way I can talk to the real police, not now. Despite his artificially elevated position in the force, in my mind Oscar Morley will never be that. Admittedly, a number of the officers around here have dubious social lives of their own, as I’ve inferred from conversations overheard in the hours I’ve spent shadowing PCs for various pieces on community policing, or waiting in the station for press office-approved updates on a case, but that doesn’t make it acceptable for me to turn up with pupils like the inside of a well to report something I’d seen happen in a bush on the Heath on my way back from a squat party.

In any case, what would I say? What had I actually seen?

Go home. The voice in my head is adamant, any doubt confirmed when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass door, my jaw swinging as though only partially hinged.

Before turning back towards the flat, I insert two more coins and dial Jess’s number. When her answer machine kicks in, I clench my fist, kicking the base of the booth with my sore foot, and letting out a cry.

Back home, just before I collapse on my bed, I reach into the drawer, pulling out a box of fluoxetine and popping one of the capsules in my mouth. Reaching in further for a bag of Xanax, I crack one in half and swallow it without water before letting my body sink back, a smudge of glow-in-the-dark stars staring back at me from the ceiling.