There was nobody serving and Charlie had almost given up waiting when an obese guy with an Indian accent stepped out of a little room behind. He wore a Christmas hat and the shirt under his hoodie read, Killer-T wiped out my family and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

‘You want a bobble head for your boy?’ he asked. ‘You can have three for a hundred dollars.’

‘Friend of mine bought a one-one-seven here,’ Charlie said, glancing around awkwardly.

‘I don’t think so,’ the guy said stiffly.

Charlie snorted, drunkenly. ‘Be hard to make a living selling this crap.’

‘My mother told me never talk to strangers,’ the guy smiled. ‘You have a good Christmas.’

Charlie was frustrated. Maybe you had to get an introduction or something. But she’d picked up some cash at the coffee shop and she opened the flap on her bag to show a wad of thousand- and five-thousand-dollar bills. The Indian raised one eyebrow, looked left and right, then tutted.

‘A one-one-seven costs three hundred thousand. You’ll need needles and stuff to inject, which is another five, but since it’s Christmas they’re on the house.’

‘What about auto-immune drugs?’

The guy shook his head. ‘You might get sick for a few days, but it’s not a big deal.’

‘What are you buying?’ Patrick asked loudly, and Charlie shushed him.

This is scary, but I can’t go on feeling like crap all the time.

‘I’m in,’ Charlie said.

As Charlie counted money, the guy opened a drawer under the counter. He came up with a watch box, which he opened to show three glass vials inside. From another drawer came a clear bag containing two dozen sterile injection packs. Charlie always paid extra for quality syringes when she ran her modding business, because she’d heard horror stories about needles breaking under the skin.

‘Do you have anything better than those?’ she asked.

‘These are excellent,’ the guy said. ‘No problems, ever.’

Charlie felt sure this was a lie and her suspicion turned to the vials themselves. I can buy a test kit online that will tell me if the mod is genuine and probably find some better needles and auto-immune pills. But this is a lot of cash. Do I really want to make this decision when I’m drunk?

‘Can we please go home,’ Patrick begged, yanking Charlie’s arm.

At the same moment, the guy behind the counter snapped. ‘I can’t leave this stuff on show. Do you want it or not?’

I can’t stand the thought of another day waking up missing Harry and feeling like the whole world is crushing me. But …

Patrick tugged her arm. ‘Cooooome on …’

‘OK,’ Charlie said sharply, pulling a wodge of dollars out of her bag.