It’s the same set-up every time, ever since I started coming along to these pop-up drugstores with Oscar when we were both still in sixth form college. Back then, it had taken more persuasion on his part to get me through the doors. Thankfully, Oscar had proved such a good customer in those days – the days before his dad found out what he was up to and forced him to sign up to the police station where he was top dog, and where he could push his son through the ranks – that he’d convinced them to let him bring in his girlfriend; it helped that I had been in the year above Tariq’s younger brother at school, meaning the kind of trust and connection that money couldn’t buy.

Since then I’ve become a regular customer, and over the years have been increasingly impressed by the efficiency with which the operation is run. As a trusted client, you know that every few months or so the venue will change, and if you aren’t there at the right time to get the new address, it’s tough luck. The next time you try to ring, the phone line will be dead and the shop shut up, any trace of its existence gone for ever.

But it was more than weed that I’d managed to pick up over the ten years or so since my first visit. It was to this place, and so many others like it, that I had come for information which had led to a series of scoops involving rival drug dealers whom Tariq and his men had been only too happy to see wiped out.

I bite my lip, pushing away the memory, concentrating instead on the story ahead of me.

For fear of reprisals, I had written those past articles under a pseudonym; I didn’t need to find out what happened to journalists who were found to be helping police uncover dealers, in return for exclusive tip-offs. Though anyone who watched the doors of the office at the newspaper would notice I was the only woman who walked in and out with any regularity, other than the receptionist, Elaine. It wouldn’t take much of a dig to work out who was writing the stories. It isn’t like there’s a budget for freelancers these days.

The false name is helpful to sources like Tariq, though, who feel less exposed when talking to me, less concerned that a link will be made between him and his most unlikely customer.

What makes Tariq so appealing to me this morning, other than the lost hash that needs replacing, is that he grew up on the same estate that is now riddled with tensions assumed to be the root cause of the stabbing on the high street last night.