I’ve only got one client and selling to Tim doesn’t count, because I don’t make any money out of the odd upper or downer. I know Kerry’s the only one earning so she’s paying, indirectly. If he’s going to take pills, at least I can make sure they’re safe, and cheap. That feels like I’m helping, in my own way.

We have a regular bench, two blocks down from the hospital, overlooking the sea. Since I sold him a few pills on the day of Marilyn’s wedding, it’s become a routine. He texts me what he wants and I get hold of it from some OK guys I know who hang out on the Level. Not like I have much else to do.

‘All right?’ I say when he arrives with his polystyrene cup of hospital coffee and his home-made sandwich. Did Kerry make that for him?

‘Yeah. We’re sound. Especially my mum, she’s on some new medication that Kerry researched,’ he says. Tim seems to have forgotten what he saw at the wedding. He almost treats me like a mate.

But we’re not mates. Meeting him is like picking a scab: hearing about Kerry, staying involved in her life, means that wound never has a chance to heal . . . but if Tim’s got his bad habit, this is mine. I’m not ready to break it.

‘Listen, I don’t suppose you could get hold of Fentanyl?’

‘That’s a bit of a step up. Why do you need it?’

‘As a painkiller, nothing sinister . . . I was moving a patient and hurt my back.’

‘So go to the doctor,’ I suggest.

He shrugs. ‘I never get time. My back’s a bit weak from when I used to have to haul Mum in and out of the bath as a kid. I hadn’t finished growing.’

When I turn to look at him, I don’t see the weasel who condemned me to this crappy life; the idiot who lies to Kerry instead of facing his fears.

I see little Tim looking after his sick mother, trying to do his best.

I’m no soft touch, but that feeling of power is back. What’s the harm? Kerry wants him to become a doctor, so this would be helping her. ‘I’ll ask around.’

Happy, balanced people probably think that getting into drugs is a cliff-edge decision you make, a single choice to jump out of real life.

But it’s really not. Or at least, it wasn’t for me.