I’m not a junkie-tourist anymore. I’ve gone native. What I did to Zoë proved what a waster I really am.

‘Oh Joel.’

For the first time she doesn’t sound angry, but I prefer rage to pity. ‘Have a good look and then go, all right?’

‘Do your parents know how you’re living?’

‘They’ve given up. How the hell did you find me?’

She looks shifty. ‘There are a few perks working for the ambulance service. Like having access to certain addresses we get called to a lot. This is the third shithole I’ve tried.’

‘I’m flattered.’

‘Don’t be. Tim’s failed his exams thanks to you.’

Typical of that wanker, to blame someone else. ‘You believe him?’

Doubt crosses her face, then disappears. But it’s enough to tell me she hasn’t only come to berate me. She also doesn’t know whether to trust Tim . . .

I could tell her my side of the story: that Tim started it. That if he hadn’t asked for that first favour, I’d never have met Zoë or the other junkies, would never have ended up like this. But that’s not really the truth. My fall into oblivion is all my own work.

The wound on my abdomen throbs where, during the worst trip of my life last week, I tried to gouge out the ICD. Two of the other squatters stopped me, but only just. I had wanted to die, but knew my defibrillator would fire over and over till the batteries ran out.

Kerry stares at me. ‘Of course I believe him: he’s my fiancé. You’ve screwed us both over, by the way. It was meant to be my turn next.’

‘For what?’

‘I always wanted to be a doctor, Joel, remember? But you dumped me and I failed my A levels. In another universe, where we’d never met, I’d be almost qualified by now, a long way from you, from Tim, from all of this . . . mess.’

She’s close to tears. I can’t bear it.

‘If I’d known how it would turn out, I’d never have sold him drugs.’

Kerry hesitates, but when she speaks, it’s quiet and bitter and certain. ‘And if I’d known how you’d turn out, I’d have left you on the grass to die on New Year’s Eve. I’d have walked away.’

After she’s gone, a hint of her perfume remains, a pocket of rose-scented air in the fetid stench of the squat, until that fades away too.

I suppose it’s the last time I will ever see Kerry Smith.

Someone is grabbing my hand.

‘Jesus Christ, mate, talk about in the nick of time. Come on. You’re not staying here.’