‘Thanks. It was hard. Afterwards, I had killer insomnia.’

‘Yeah, tell me about it,’ moaned Santino.

‘I thought if I didn’t get some sleep, I’d go crazy.’

‘I know that feeling,’ he said. ‘All the shit in your head whirling round and fucking round. What’s your fix for that? Valium?’

‘Wasn’t strong enough for me.’

‘So what else?’

‘Well, because I’m a doctor, I have access to serious drugs. Oxycontin, Vicodin.’

‘Handy.’

‘Hmm, yes but no. I got addicted—well, dangerously close. In the end, I hauled myself off the opioids entirely. All good.’

Santino nodded, but then he squinted at Paula. He obviously fancied himself as an astute reader of people. ‘But what’s going on now?’

‘Oh …’ Paula sighed, reluctant, as if he was drawing this out of her. ‘A few months ago, my best friend died and I kind of lost the plot. In my bag, right now, I’ve got a syringe loaded up with Dilaudid.’

‘Which is?’

‘It’s hydromorphone.’

‘Sounds intense.’

‘Yeah, it’s a Schedule 8 painkiller. The thing is, I know if I use it, I’ll feel mighty good for a while …’

‘Like, you’re saying it’s an excellent high?’

‘Ooh yeah,’ Paula said with a sly smile. ‘Especially if you inject it. You feel so fucking wonderful and then you have the best sleep.’

‘Ah.’

‘But I don’t want to slide back into that. If I go home now, I can’t trust myself not to use it. That’s why I’m staying out, so I’m not tempted. Hoping I can talk some sense into myself.’

‘Right. Right. I get you.’ Santino’s gaze flicked to Paula’s handbag, like a hungry child envisaging a cupcake.

‘Excuse me a sec,’ said Paula, dabbing at her eyes as if she were on the verge of tears. ‘I need to go to the ladies.’

‘Sure. I’ll be right here,’ he said. ‘Let’s keep talking.’

Paula took her handbag with her as she hurried to the toilets. She hoped her clumsy rushed manner would be explained by the sad tale of loss and addiction she’d just told Santino. It brought her a perverse kind of satisfaction that she was using the truth of her life to draw this man in.

The ladies room of Protozoa was as putrid as you would expect—cramped, with grimy broken tiling, a pervasive smell made up of mildew, urine and acrid cleaning products, rustcoloured leaks down the walls and mysterious puddles on the floor.