The only one who had ever kept any real contact was his sister. Gabby had written to him at least three times a year, and he had appreciated that. In fact, sometimes he wished he had written back, but what could he tell her? That he was still on a lock down? Still in trouble? Still fighting everyone?

He had learned to play the game, though. Eventually it had occurred to him that he had to change to get out of that place and that is what he had done. He had acted the way they wanted him to act, and the psychiatrists had patted themselves on the back – look how well we’ve done with him, he can join the real world again, mix in society and blend in!

Fucking morons. He had gone from a group home to his own bedsit at sixteen. He was still classified as mentally ill, but not violent any more. It was in the bedsit he had first encountered heroin. He had not been able to believe it was illegal – it was the best thing he had ever experienced in his life! And he had been on more drugs than fucking Kurt Cobain! Anti-psychotics – you name them, he’d had them. He had spent most of his life higher than a jumbo jet. Now he knew what it was to be mellow, and he liked it. He still had violent fantasies, but the heroin helped to subdue them much better than those fucking pills they had shoved down his throat ever had.

So, finally, he was going to visit the family. He was going to see just how the land lay and, more important than anything else, where that skank of a mother of his lived.

As he walked towards his nana and granddad’s house, he saw Roy Brown, and nearly said hello. The cat incident had long been buried away in his mind, but now he remembered it and was sure his nana would remember it too; it wasn’t exactly something you forgot, he supposed.

It all came back to him – the look on his nana’s face when she had seen her bread knife, the precious antique bread knife she thought was so fucking marvellous. The memory made him laugh; she had looked so funny with that surprised look on her face.

Then he remembered the hammering his granddad had given him and suddenly he wasn’t smiling any more. He was scowling, brooding. He’d like to see the old bastard try that now; he’d wipe the floor with him, and laugh while he did it.

James took a few deep breaths; he had to calm himself down, he had to look like he was a nice lad now. It was like pretending to the shrinks and the social workers – as long as you told them what they wanted to hear, and acted like they wanted you to act, you were all right.