This is a story about modesty...

It took 12 days to be "discharged" from my section - that is to say, to be allowed to leave the secure psychiatric ward whenever I wanted. However, it took 21 days before I was actually discharged from hospital: no vulnerable adult can leave hospital without a discharge plan, although I could have discharged myself against the advice of the healthcare professionals who were taking care of me, because I was a free man.

I'd been assessed to see whether I needed to be detained under the Mental Health Act at least 5 times. 6th time lucky.

When you find out for the first time in your adult life, that you're about to be detained against your will, I would've thought that everybody would have a similar reaction: "oh my god, I'm now trapped somewhere I might not want to be, and I don't have any say in the matter" which is distressing.

It's not so much that I didn't want to be in hospital; it's that I couldn't leave even if I wanted to. Although I wanted to be in hospital - because I knew I was very sick and in a dreadful situation - there was still a moment where I thought "oh shit what have I done?".

To calmly accept your plight is not something that would be anybody's natural reaction. Under such stress and shock, it's hard to recognise immediately that any attempt to fight against the system will lead to further difficulties. I was least surprised out of anybody that I got sectioned, having been the one who actually phoned the police to come and get me. Of course, escape is not hard if you're determined enough. I was conflicted - I was safe, but the price I paid was my detention: I lost my liberty.

Running away from a psych ward will result in the police being called to look for you. Britain's most dangerous psychiatric patients are kept in facilities which are far more secure than anything I experienced. I could have escaped easily and the police wouldn't have tried very hard to find me - I was a danger to myself but not others.

Our natural reaction to detention is to panic and start yelling for anyone who can possibly get you out - a solicitor, a social worker, a family member - and to start demanding your rights. There's a process that's got to chew you up before it can spit you out, and once you've just started the rollercoaster ride there's no getting off until the end - scream if you want to go faster.

Despite my messed up state, I knew that I had the right to appeal my 'section' with a tribunal supposed to happen within 7 days. I knew that my dad had the right to request my release, with a decision having to be made within 72 hours. I didn't have much hope that my dad would be helpful, so I requested an appeal.

It's so damn hard to get any treatment for mental health problems, beyond some cheap patent-expired generic medications or a computer-based Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) thing. Inpatient hospital treatment, paid for by the NHS, is only given to very unwell people or exceptionally stubborn & determined people. However, when you have been admitted to hospital once as an inpatient under a section, you might struggle to ever escape the revolving doors.

Many of my fellow patients had the same story - they were released from hospital, stopped taking their medication, went mad and were brought back into hospital, where they were forced to start taking medication again... eventually being released and starting the whole process again.

Note, when I say "forced to start taking medication" I literally mean that they were held down by a whole gang of hospital staff members and forcibly injected against their will.

It would be stupid to argue that psychiatric medication is entirely unhelpful. However, one should be mindful that a perfectly sane person who had been taking powerful antipsychotic medication, would experience extremely powerful withdrawal symptoms if they stopped. Antipsychotic withdrawal symptoms are indistinguishable from the spontaneous psychosis that occurs in a person with a mental illness - how can one distinguish between a madman and somebody who's experiencing the perturbations of a brain that's readjusting to medication-free homeostasis?

As we move towards a world where the majority of us suffer near-debilitating levels of anxiety and depression, and psychiatric medications are dished out like candy from general doctors who have no specialist training in the treatment of mental health problems, are we diagnosing disease when we should be looking at what a person's life circumstances are like?

Ironically, I was diagnosed with adjustment disorder, which is to say that I simply couldn't cope with stressful life events - a clinical label for an intolerable clusterfuck of dreadful stuff which could happen to anybody. There isn't a pill for adjustment disorder, yet, although a bottle or two of wine each night is often chosen as self-medication.

The stress of living with 20+ mentally ill men in a locked psych ward is something that most people would not adjust to particularly easily. The 4 walls of my home were replaced with a curtain, which was opened every 15 minutes by a nurse or a support worker to observe what I was doing.

I think psych wards are necessary and I'd rather have the apparatus that treats mental health problems, than not have it at all. This is not an essay that criticises mental health treatment or the hardworking professionals who care for people with mental health problems. I write merely to reflect on my journey through the mental health system, which finally ejected me yesterday. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I was discharged from hospital, and today is the first time in weeks where I have woken up somewhere I can leave without having to ask permission.

Yes, I think that sums up yet another Earth-shattering overnight change to my life: I've gone from a flimsy curtain and a locked door, to 4 solid walls and I'm free.

Tags: #hospital #nhs #mentalhealth

This is a story about being inspected...

Today the psych ward is being inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the staff are so nervous that some of them feel physically sick. I try to reassure one nurse that they're doing their best, despite staff shortages and rampant drug use - the synthetic cannabinoid called Spice is ubiquitous throughout prisons and psych wards.

There's always somebody peering over your shoulder, sneeringly judging you. Is it any wonder that paranoia takes hold in a mind, destroying it? The United Kingdom has an exceptional ability to track the movement of its citizens, using simple conventional CCTV - no spy satellites even needed.

In the free West, we deride the Stasi and the KGB. We talk about China's vast number of people employed to snoop on their own citizens, but we don't acknowledge the work of GCHQ and the NSA. Have we forgotten Edward Snowden's revelations so quickly? The Government read your fucking emails and the police - the regular ordinary police - have a backdoor into Facebook to read all your private messages.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear. If you believe that, why do you feel stressed if a police car is following you when you're driving, and a sense of relief when the police overtake you and disappear over the horizon? You have insurance; you've had your car's roadworthiness tested; you've paid your road tax... nothing to worry about, right?

It was only a short time ago that I was deeply indoctrinated by my schooling, that had shaped me into a meek conformist - I was fearful of defying any of society's rules and regulations. A family friend wanted to go fishing with me, and I said we needed to obtain a permit. "Our prisons are full of people who got caught fishing without a license" this friend laughed. "What are you in here for? Murder. What are you in here for? Fishing without a license" he continued jovially.

The city centre is crammed with 50,000 protestors preparing to march. I walk past a police cordon and I can hear a police officer yelling at me that I can't go the way I'm going, but I know that he'll be busy dealing with my obedient friend who will have stopped per the instructions. I keep walking, pretending to be unable to hear the entreaties to return. The policeman lets my friend go and we walk to the head of the march.

I'm sure that anarchy would be a disaster for sick and vulnerable people. I have no desire to see civilised society crumble. We can't all do whatever the fuck we want, whenever the fuck we want. Perhaps if everybody acted like I did, it would be the end of the world as we know it.

"Don't walk" says the sign in the United States. I jaywalk with gay abandon. Even in Manchester people look at me like I'm mad and suicidal, for the way I cross the road. However, it's done with such confident aplomb that nobody challenges me. I notice that people who are surrounded by plenty of steel and glass and plastic, such that they would suffer no injury at all if they killed me to death with their motor vehicle, do not give a single fuck about whether I live or die. In London, a motorist will slow down or even brake, to avoid killing a pedestrian, but these provincial plebs treat human lives with no such sanctity.

To live in a crowded city is to be humbled by humanity. To be detained against your will on an underfunded psych ward is to humbled, also. In the city, you are forced to confront your pathetic meaningless existence, as an ant crawling in its nest would be, if it had the faculties to perceive itself and its surroundings. But an ant's nest is akin to a row of gleaming skyscrapers, insofar as being a testament to what can be achieved by a society working together. On the psych ward, you are forced to confront your powerlessness over forces greater than yourself - society will exclude its troublemakers.

Perhaps you think I would endorse heroin being sold in supermarkets and that babies' pacifiers should be replaced with crack pipes?

As six police officers pinned me to the ground and my bum was injected with lorazepam, in the Accident & Emergency department of a hospital, I noticed a cleaner and a security guard nearby - some of the lowest paid people in society are often completely unacknowledged for the role they play in maintaining the division between the peasants and the aristocracy. My face was inches from the floor, but the policeman's trousered knee on my head was clean and so was the linoleum. Circles of red and green blinked at me - the police bodycams, videotaping the whole gruesome specatcle. I'd fallen from grace, but I hadn't slipped anywhere near the bottom - it's a long way down.

A friend whose judgement I trust and respect, tells me that I should drop the bad boy image of "the guy who got fucked up in Manchester". She knows that people are watching and I'm misrepresenting myself. She knows that people are lazy and won't look any deeper than the superficial image that I present.

Is my life - and the way I document it - by accident or by design? Do you imagine that when I'm writing, I don't think at all about how things are going to be perceived? The joke's on you if you don't read what I write with the prerequisite pinch of salt.

If you just dip in at random - like a care quality inspector - then you will get a random impression. On a good day you'll get a good impression. On a bad day you'll get a bad impression.

Do you think the graph above shows that things are improving? No. No it does not. Things are getting worse. Much, much worse. The data above shows conclusively that during the period under examination, there was a fourfold increase in the very metric that was supposed to be cut by 80%.

Do you remember blue tablet man? Well, anyway, he assaulted a nurse for giving him a yellow tablet (5mg of diazepam) instead of a blue tablet (10mg of diazepam).

A drugs dog sweeps the ward. The patients believe the dog can sniff out cigarette lighters. I ask the handler if the dog can sniff Spice and he confirms that it can. There's Spice everywhere on the ward, despite its deleterious effect on the mental health of susceptible individuals - prodromal schizophrenia can turn into fully-blown psychosis under the influence of the powerful synthetic cannabis, making it all the more concerning that it's so widespread on an acute psychiatric ward.

The patients here are the lucky ones and they know it. Everybody agrees it's better to be here with a warm dry bed and three hot meals a day. Everybody agrees it's better to be here, where the chances of being beaten up and/or robbed are minimal. With winter on its way, months of unimaginable suffering lie ahead of Manchester's homeless population, which has increased 1,100% in just 7 years - and a huge number of them smoke Spice.

Abandon hope all ye who entered the world from the mid-1990s onwards. What are the prospects for the youth of today, and the glut of graduates who were promised that indebting themselves and spending three or four years at university would be a good move?

Does it not seem like an obvious reaction to a decline in living standards, to retreat into drugged-up oblivion?

We're sifted and sorted and dissected by tests. We're examined, inspected and measured in every conceivable way. We never have any respite from the world's desire to label us, grade us and monitor us. The pressure to meet the expectations placed upon us is relentless. Some of us will crumble and have nervous breakdowns or be paralysed by anxiety disorders. Some of us will rebel and kick back at the suffocating environment that's desperate to eject and marginalise anybody who doesn't neatly fit in a box. Lots of subcultures have sprung into existence, with members exchanging knowing looks - these people are so much happier now that they have rejected the stereotype they were supposed to embody.

It saddens me that the hard-working staff on the ward are anxious and on best behaviour, when the other 364 days a year I know that they try their very hardest. This is just one of many psych wards, where the macro problems are greater than anything that can be influenced in the microcosms.

If you're going to randomly dip in, be careful to not make a lazy judgement based on a small sample size.

Tags: #nhs #hospital #mentalhealth #addiction #politics

This is a story about all-night fun and frolics...

I had an interview today. I mean yesterday. I made a new friend last Wednesday, or was it Thursday? Once you go past midnight, things get complicated.

I lead a follow-the-sun existence. During the morning, I'm saying good night to my friends in Australia and New Zealand. As the day wears on, it's bedtime for my friends in India and other parts of Asia. At around noon, I say good morning to my friends on the East Coast of North America, and at about 3pm I say good morning to my friends on the the West Coast - we chat all day, all evening, into the night. Then, my friends in the Czech Republic, Italy and France remind me that it's almost my own bedtime, but I skipped my medication: I'll sleep when I'm dead. By the time 5am comes around, those friends in Canada and the United States are starting to think about getting some sleep themselves... but for friends in New Zealand and Australia, it's a whole new day. It's only me who hasn't been to bed and is getting confused about whether it's today or tomorrow.

I keep skipping my medication, so that I can be alert and on top of my game for job interviews. Without a job, I'm going to be bankrupt in no time. I'm already being turfed out of my apartment without getting a penny of my deposit back. Where am I going to live? How am I supposed to feed myself?

This isn't supposed to happen. I have mood stabilisers. I have sleeping pills. I have strict instructions to keep to the same bedtime every night and not to over-sleep: 8 to 10 hours is plenty, which will make many parents grit their teeth with envy. Under normal circumstances, I live a heavily medicated existence where I shuffle around and speak frustratingly slowly. The hospital staff who visit me at home to check on me are happy to see me in that state: I should be no trouble to anybody, in that chemical straightjacket.

I did take my pills tonight, probably more than 12 hours late. I doubled up on the sleeping pills, but I practically wrote the book on sleep deprivation. I can tell you exactly what happens after 3 or 4 days, then 6 or 7 days without sleep. After 9 days of 24-hour consciousness and not so much as a snooze, I can give you an approximate description of what this state of sleeplessness is like. At the 10 day point, who knows if or when I'll regain consciousness - psychosis consumes anybody who didn't sleep for as long as 10 days. Calendars and days of the week become as alien to me as a smartphone would be to an Amazonian tribe who've remained completely undiscovered in the densest and most inaccessible jungle.

I've been packing up my stuff, and I found some headphones I really love and an amplifier for them. I used to dance at all-night raves and club nights. I might not have been writing my blog so much, but I was having important online conversations. I decided I did't want to die angry with the world, so I started writing more conciliatory words; I started writing to say "thanks" instead of "f**k you buddy". All this while, I'm listening to music that I hadn't been able to stand because none of it matched my mood; none of the lyrics spoke to me; there was nothing I could relate to.

The last happy thing I remember doing with her was watching the sequel to Trainspotting. We were both buzzing. Reading - the town - was a special place for us both and the music festival in 1996 is where I watched Trainspotting in the cinema tent, and then heard Underworld play Born Slippy in the dance tent. The soundtrack to the movie got us both listening to the classic tunes and their modern remixes, and speculating about the meaning of the lyrics.

Dirty numb angel boy

And tears boy

And all in your inner space boy

You had chemicals boy

I've grown so close to you

She said come over

She smiled at you boy.

I then decided to repurpose a song I liked into a poem for her.

The poem is a sad goodbye if you like. I got the job. I'm leaving the city where we currently live. I'm leaving all those reminders of a time when I thought we'd be together forever, and she'd look after me if I got sick, and vice-versa.

Summer Break-Up

A thousand words
captured in a photograph
of me and you
drinking prosecco on the grass
so hard to breathe
the way you made me laugh.

That summer dating
ended all right
seemed like you would be
the only one for me
and seemed like I was too
the only one for you.

Later when we were alone
we promised everything we owned
and every little bit of me
tingled excitedly
this thing was so right
was exactly what it felt like
how could it go wrong?
now it's all gone.

People told me all the time
that love is just a state of mind
but they don't know love's hard to find
and that's why I'm not changing mine.

Yesterday
I called you up
the hundredth try
and I'm still out of luck
your number changed
and I guess so did you.

But I'm not the same little
helpless dying flower
that you nurtured and saved
because now I do believe
that inside of me
you set me free.

When I see your picture, I smile
because I think of you happier
without my weight on your shoulders
I must take my wings and soar
but I've never felt afraid like this before

It's 7am now. I'm going to get a couple of hours of sleep. I've probably been writing complete drivel, and I don't want to upset her. I did promise her that we'd leave each other alone to move on with our lives, but I lied... I felt like I was going to die. I just had to hope she'd never find out I'd killed myself. Now, there's a chance that things could work out for me, and I could get a fresh start; a new challlenge to hurl myself into to forget all about love and heartbreak for a while.

Time is a great healer, and if you're awake 24 hours a day, you're living about 33% more than everybody else, but you don't get over a breakup any quicker.

Sleep is also a great healer, so to bed, I must.

Tags: #relationships

This is a story about getting old and fat...

Are you getting a belly? Does your tummy wobble? What about bingo wings? Trousers feeling a bit tight? Can't get into that old outfit you used to wear? Try The Supercrack Diet!

If you are already in the pro-athlete body fat range of 1 to 3% body fat, do not try The Supercrack Diet, because your muscles will be used to keep you alive, and the myoglobin contained in the muscles will be released into your bloodstream and cause your kidneys to fail. You will stop urinating and your heart will fail because of elevated potassium that can't be flushed from your body. Basically, you'll die.

Do you enjoy drinking the best part of two bottles of wine a night, eating runny camembert and other high-fat soft cheeses, cooking everything in butter and goose fat, having chips and other deep-fried delicacies to accompany every meal and believe that any meal can be improved with lashings of cream? Do you have cupboards full of crisps and biscuits where you go to for regular snacks in-between meals? Do you have a second stomach, for dessert, and a third stomach, for cheese?

At the ripe old age of 37 and injured (foot/ankle and wrist) I've noticed that my eating and drinking habits combined with my complete lack of exercise, are now causing me to gain weight. Putting on the suit I wore for TechStars demo day in 2011, I noticed that I could barely do the button up. When I went to get a new suit - admittedly straight after Christmas - my waist had grown not one, but two sizes!

Obviously, I don't want to be a fattie, so I invented The Supercrack Diet.

The diet goes like this:

1. Obtain Supercrack

2. Take Supercrack

3. Repeat step 2 until desired weight loss has been achieved

4. Present yourself at your nearest hospital Accident & Emergency department if you are experiencing one of the many deadly side effects* of The Supercrack Diet

* Side effects requiring hospital treatment may include psychosis, heart damage or irregular rhythm, poor co-ordination, injuries resulting from poor co-ordination, injuries resulting from psychosis, tachycardia, panic attacks, hyperventilation, malignant hyperthermia, rhabdomyolysis, acute kidney failure.

You might notice the lack of any steps between 2 and 3. That's because you're not going to eat anything. You might drink a little, but often not. You're definitely not going to sleep. You may find yourself quite physically active, especially when psychosis sets in and 'they' are out to get you - this is the exercise that you should have been doing, except now you have the added motivation of people who are out to get you. You might find yourself climbing into attics without using a ladder, picking up heavy pieces of furniture and trying to balance them in improbable places and generally rearranging your environment - all of this burns a lot of calories.

Something that you should know about supercrack: it doesn't contain any calories so you can eat as much as you want!*

* If you eat more than half a gram, you may lose control of your motor cortex and be rendered immobile, or your heart may simply explode from a sudden blood pressure increase. Hospitalisation will be necessary. Do not eat more than half a gram at any one sitting. The recommended maximum daily dose is 0.005 grams. You will need laboratory grade scales.

So-called 'malignant' hyperthermia is where you are hot and sweating profusely, just like when you're at the gym. The Supercrack Diet will give you so-called 'malignant' hyperthermia, without you having to move a muscle, except your heart, which will be at 100% of your MHR (Maximum Heart Rate). Remember not to go to the gym while doing The Supercrack Diet, or your heart will be damaged irreparably. Don't worry about that 'malignant' thing... they'll explain that to you in hospital.

If you have high blood pressure, you might be surprised to learn that regularly doing The Supercrack Diet can cause your heart to enlarge (called athlete's heart) and arteries to grow. The net result is that your blood pressure and even your resting heart rate can be remarkably improved. My resting heart rate was 41 and I had "the lowest blood pressure I've ever seen in somebody who's conscious" according to a doctor who examined me. However, you could also damage your heart or die. Just concentrate on the upsides.

Other similar diets can cause teeth grinding and a tendency to pick at your own skin (called 'tweaking') but The Supercrack Diet does not have these undesirable side effects. Just the addiction. And the damage to your relationships, work and property. And all the time and money you'll lose while you're dieting.

Diets such as The Crack Diet, Diet Coke[aine] and The Meth Diet can be very expensive, costing £250 a day or more. You won't believe how cheap The Supercrack Diet is. 200 days of dieting can be purchased for less than £30. The price you pay is not for the supercrack though. The price you pay is in the damaging addiction. You may find that you want to diet more regularly than work, education, socialising and normal healthy activities permit.

Experienced dieters may find that vast quantities of tranquillisers are the only way to curtail a diet, several days after they had originally intended to stop. Also, a stock of isotonic fluids, amino acids, high protein and glucose drinks, is good to have on hand for the lengthy recovery period. Expect crying, severe depression and suicidal thoughts.

It's good to be thin though, right?

Tags: #drugs

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

30. Wish You Were Here

Leaving Exeter on a dual carriageway, Lara, Colin and Matthew zoomed along at 70 miles per hour. The countryside was fairly flat and uninteresting with roadside scenery flying past them at high speed until they turned off and joined the main road going East. The dual carriageway went North from that junction, towards Somerset and they were headed into the heart of rural Devonshire. The terrain grew hilly and their progress was slowed by trucks and tractors, crawling up the steep hills. There were few places to overtake.

The motorway journey to Bristol and down to Exeter had been bland and monotonous, with little to look at other than the bright blue signs displaying the distances to major towns and cities on the route. Now, the road they were driving on passed through small towns, villages and hamlets. There were pretty country houses and inviting pubs, fields full of cattle, rivers, as well as the exciting twists and turns of the road as it traced the contours of the hills and valleys. Lara found she was working through nearly all the gears in her gearbox and having to use her brakes as the car climbed, descended and tackled sharp corners.

Emerging from a thickly wooded area where the ancient trees leaned over the road from both sides - making it almost dark enough to require headlights - the woodland thinned out and a large flood plain opened up.

"We're not far away now" Matthew said.

A sign said they were crossing the River Harmyn as they went over a bridge. Soon, they started to gently climb out of the valley bottom, curving right in a long sweeping corner that they could not see around because of the slope of the hill. They drove past a petrol station and a few other buildings. There was a small shop that doubled as a post office, a pub and a small garage forecourt selling second hand cars. Beyond the roadside hamlet there was thick woodland and the road continued up for several miles before it plateaued at the top.

"OK, turn right here" said Matthew.

"Where?" asked Lara. She could see nothing but a ditch, thick hedgerow and trees beyond.

"Slow down."

She slowed the car.

"OK. Here."

A tiny single track lane revealed itself. Although it was tarmacked, it was in a poor state of repair. They reached a crossroads with some faded road markings indicating Lara had to give way. There were no signs.

"Straight over."

The road dipped down and all they could see was tall hedge on either side. Occasionally they would pass a gate into a field. There was no other traffic on this quiet country lane. They reached another crossroads.

"OK, go left."

The road dropped sharply and then started to climb gently. At the top of the hill the road forked.

"Stay left."

The road now traced the side of a valley, dropping away to their left and descending into murky darkness at the bottom. Across on the other side of the valley were fields and woodland. They drove through areas of thick trees where their view was obscured. There was a long right hand bend.

"OK. Take this right."

"Where?" Lara asked again.

"Up that track."

The road was slightly muddy with tyre marks and a gravel track forked off to the right. The track led up into a forest with two dark brown grooves worn deep by vehicles in the grey stone chippings. Weeds sprouted out of the middle of the track. Lara stopped on the tarmac for a moment, engaged first gear and drove into the forest.

Passing through a wooden gate that was open, the track went uphill and then plateaued in an area where huge piles of logs had been stacked up.

"OK, go right here."

"Up there?" Lara asked.

"Yep." said Matthew, pointing up a steep side track that was covered with dead leaves and twigs. It looked muddy and slippery.

"Will we make it in this car?"

"You'll be fine. Just try not to spin the wheels."

"Do you mind driving the last bit? I doubt you're going to get in trouble for driving without insurance here" Lara said.

Matthew drove them up to the end of the track. The forest and the tracks all looked the same. It was like a maze. A maze of trees.

"We're here" he said at last.

Colin got out of the back of the car and stretched his legs, looking around in all directions.

"We have to scramble up here. I did say to bring sensible footwear" said Matthew, leading the way up to the top of the ridge. Following him through the trees, Lara and Colin forced their way through the undergrowth and into the clearing.

"Why didn't you say it was a caravan?" Colin asked.

"Well, it's not like you can drive it anywhere. It hasn't got any wheels and you couldn't get a car up here."

"How do you think it got here?"

"I thought that the foresters might have craned it in from the track below. Neil reckoned that a farmer brought it through the fields the other side on an tractor trailer, when the forest was being planted up here."

"There are fields the other side?"

"Yeah, behind us. The other side of the hill from where we parked. Just rolling fields for miles and miles."

Colin went to open the caravan door.

"Hold up there a second" Matthew said, putting his hand out to stop him. "Look at that" he said, pointing to something above the door. Attempting to peel a square of dirt-covered duct tape off, he found that it was stuck fast. "That's funny" he said.

"What is?"

"Well, Neil and me used to stick duct tape over the door frame like that at the end of every winter so we'd know if anybody had been using the caravan, but it won't come off."

"Let's have a look" Colin said, pulling hard on the tape. The top part ripped off leaving two lines of the sticky underside on the door and the frame above. "It looks like somebody glued the tape on. Why would they do that?" he asked.

"Well, I guess the dirt makes it look like the tape has been there for a long time, but we have no way of knowing how long it's been glued there for."

Matthew opened the door and stepped inside.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed.

"What?"

"Come in. Have a look."

Matthew stood by the bedroom doorway. Lara and Colin stood by the dining room table.

"What? What is it?" Lara asked.

"Well, it's nothing like I remember it" Matthew replied.

The dark maroon carpet had been replaced with slate grey lino. The pink floral cushions had been re-upholstered in white fabric with a navy blue stripe. The dining room table and the kitchenette storage units had been painted a glossy duck-egg blue. The whole interior had been painted white and the walls and ceilings were smooth: the textured wallpaper was gone. Stepping into the bedroom, the bed was neatly made with bright bedclothes. Everything smelled clean and fresh.

Lara reached for the bathroom door handle.

"I'm not sure if you want to look in there" said Matthew.

Inside, the chemical toilet had been replaced by a comode. Underneath the wooden toilet seat, there was a clean empty bucket. Hanging from the ceiling in the shower was another bucket with holes in the bottom.

"A shower!" Matthew chuckled with surprise. "Well, a primitive one anyway."

"How do you heat the water?" Lara asked.

"You don't" Matthew replied.

There was a hiss as Colin turned one of the knobs on the two-ring gas cooker. "I guess you just heat it up on the stove?" he said, with a raised eyebrow.

"This is not like it used to be. It was a shithole. It used to keep us dry and that's about all".

The skylight and the windows on the side of the caravan opposite the door had been cleaned and it was bright inside, lit by daylight. Colin flicked a lightswitch and the lights came on.

"No way!"

Matthew was absolutely gobsmacked. Lara and Colin didn't know what to make of it, having no idea what it was like before.

Upon closer inspection, a gas bottle, a leisure battery, a small solar panel, rain collection and water filtration systems had been installed. The original gas and 12 volt electric installation of the caravan operated as normal.

The trio started opening cupboards and cubby holes. There were plates, mugs, glasses, cutlery, pots, pans and other kitchen utensils. In one cupboard there was some tinned food. There were no personal effects anywhere. Closing the exterior door, there was a cork-board behind it.

"What's this?" Colin asked.

"I don't know. Looks like... postcards" Matthew replied.

Pinned to the cork-board were bright glossy pictures of the Great Wall of China, Terracotta Army, Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Taking one down, Colin looked at the back.

"They're postcards all right" he said, handing the one he was holding to Lara.

She gasped.

Mr Romet Kukk

POSTE RESTANTE

Post Office, 12 High Street

Harminster

DEVON, EX27 9LR

UNITED KINGDOM

There was nothing else on the postcard except for the name and address.

THE END.

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

29. The Imposter

The doorbell rang and Neil went to greet some more guests. It was Russ and Katie.

"Hey guys. Come in, come in" Neil beckoned the couple inside. "We're all in the garden."

It was a beautifully warm Saturday in May: the first really good barbecue weather of the year. The garden was well maintained: bright pink and purple azalea, camelia and lilac flowers were in full bloom on mature shrubs that filled the borders. The freshly mown lawn smelt of grass cuttings. The extension at the back of the house didn't leave a lot of outside space, but it was still large enough for a social gathering. In one corner there was a patio which was filled with smoke as the charcoal had recently been lit and was getting up to temperature. The guests moved around trying to avoid the smoke as the wind changed direction.

"Red, white, beer, soft drink?" Neil asked.

"Can I have a white wine spritzer, please Neil?" asked Katie.

"Certainly. Anything for you my dear" Neil replied flirtily. "And for you, Russ?"

"I'll get a beer."

"Beers are in the bucket of ice right there. Opener's on the table. Katie, I'll be back with your drink in a minute" said Neil, disappearing into the kitchen.

There was a fine spread of food on a table set up in the garden. Potato salad had green flecks of chopped chives mixed through the buttery yellow new potatoes. Greek salad was full of bright white crumbled feta cheese, jet black olives and juicy red tomatoes. Mixed bean and pasta salad completed the vegetarian fare. There was enough salad to feed a small army and very little would actually get eaten. Everybody would take a few scoops of each dish to decorate their plate with, but copious amounts of bread and meat were about to be consumed.

"Here you go" said Neil, presenting Katie with her drink. "Barbecue's lit. I'll put the burgers on once the coals are hot" he said loudly to the group. A cheer went up from a couple of slightly tipsy men.

"What are you going to do about that shed, Neil? It's rickety as hell" asked Russ.

"I'm glad you asked that, thanks Russ" said Lara from the kitchen doorway with a smirk on her face.

"Oh you're back are you?" Neil said sarcastically.

From a plastic carrier bag, Lara deposited napkins, paper plates, paper cups and two bottles of Prosecco on the table.

"I've already had a go at trying to tackle that blasted shed. Problem is, a lot of those cheap sheds you get from garden centres come with big panels that we can't carry through the house easily" Neil explained to Russ.

"I heard you already knocked it down once."

"That's not exactly true. We just filled it up with a bit too much stuff" Neil replied, shooting a sideways glance at Lara. She was fiddling with a bottle cork. There was a pop and people cheered. Neil was grateful for the diversion as Lara filled paper cups with a thimbleful of fizzy wine.

"What's the occasion?" somebody asked.

"Oh, I don't know. First day of summer... almost" Lara replied, distributing the drinks.

Neil went to check on the barbecue. It was a shiny black enamelled one with a huge lid. The coals had stopped smoking and turned a little grey with ash. There was no flame but there was a lot of heat. He spread the coals out, put the grill over them and went into the kitchen. He returned with a large oval metal plate covered with plump home-made burger patties. The meat quickly started to drip juice and fat onto the coals, making them sizzle and delicious cooking smells filled the air.

Lara fetched out a serving dish piled high with burger buns and placed it next to a selection of assorted condiment bottles.

"Who wants cheese on their burger?" she asked.

Having tallied the numbers, Neil flipped the patties, which were now nicely char-grilled on one side. He placed sliced cheese on most of the burgers so that it would melt on the hot meat. Placing the lid back on the barbecue gave everything an authentic charcoal smoked taste.

Exchanging the subtlest of glances with Lara, Neil indicated that it was time to serve up the main event.

"Right, everybody grab a plate and a burger bun" Lara yelled.

The guests, who had enjoyed many such a gathering before, now swarmed around the table and passed ketchup, mayonnaise, salad leaves, relish and other things around amongst themselves, while some of the hungrier ones took their place eagerly at the barbecue. Neil deposited burgers into buns as people clustered around him and his giant stainless steel tongs.

With most people happily enjoying a burger, Neil now covered the grill with a variety of sausages. Pork and apple, leek, chilli and onion. Cumberland, Lincolnshire and chipolatas joined a smörgåsbord of traditional and flavoured sausages. Content that the best British barbecue sausages are burnt black on the outside, he could now relax and enjoy a bite to eat himself.

"You're still thin as a rake considering the way you eat, Neil" said his friend Adam.

"Mmmm" Neil responded with a mouthful of food, his hands dripping with burger juice.

"Still, you're looking a lot healthier than last time I saw you. You were wasting away."

"Mmmm mmmm" Neil nodded in agreement, chewing. He reached for a napkin. "How's work?" he asked, swallowing.

"Oh same as ever. Same shit, different day. You?"

"Pays the bills. Can't grumble" replied Neil.

"Last time we spoke you said you were thinking about trying something new. Retraining even. Changed your mind?" Adam asked.

"I was thinking about it. Been doing the same thing since I left college. I'm just grateful to have a job and be working at the moment. You read about a lot of layoffs, you know?"

"You can't worry about that too much though. Life's too short. The gaffer says you've been working every bit of overtime you can get. Make sure you look after yourself, right?"

"Right. It's hard though, isn't it? You get used to the extra money, then you don't want to give it up."

"Sure, but you've got a lovely house. Just don't over-stretch yourself. Don't wanna burn out." Adam cautioned light-heartedly.

"Yep. You're right. I've been feeling pretty down lately. Thought about going see the doctor for the first time in ages. So hard to get time off when your diary's full of client site visits."

The barbecue progressed from sausages to chicken and finally finished with bananas and chocolate wrapped in foil, baked in the hot ash of the coals. The nights were getting longer but it was still cold as soon as the sun was gone and some guests started to make their excuses and leave. A few of the men had moved to the lounge while the ladies were sipping wine in the dining room.

"I've completed this one" Neil was saying, flashing the box of a computer game.

"No way. That's supposed to be really hard."

"I know. I'm not really into computer games, but I really got into that one. Took me weeks."

"Weeks?"

"Well, I don't get to play that often."

"Nah, me either. Bit bored of computer games to be honest."

"I got this one. The sequel. It's impossible. Can't get into it at all" said Neil, showing round another box.

"I hate that whole Duty and Honour franchise" said Adam. "Stupid shoot-em-up. Let's play that go-karting game."

They set up a 4-player computer game while Neil fetched more beer from the kitchen.

"I don't know if it's going to happen again, but I just have to trust that it won't" Neil could hear Lara saying as he passed the dining room. The ladies cooed with sympathy. "Everybody has a blip at some stage in their life."

Back in the lounge, Adam was skinning up a joint. "Outside, yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah, please. No smoking inside the house" Neil replied.

"You coming?"

"Nah. You know I don't like weed."

"Just the white powder, eh?" Adam joked, poking his nose with a bent finger and sniffing.

"That was just that one time at Barry's and she doesn't know" replied Neil in a hushed tone, conspiratorially.

"Gave you the confidence to chat her up though, didn't it?" Adam winked.

"Enough said already. Fuck off and smoke your joint. And make sure the neighbours aren't in the garden before you spark up."

Some time after midnight the remaining house guests departed en masse. Lara and Neil spent a bit of time gathering glasses and bottles into the kitchen and putting the worst of the rubbish into big black plastic refuse sacks, before retiring to bed.

"Do you remember what we were like when we met?" Lara asked, lying next to him with the bedside light still on.

"Yeah. Why?"

"You were so... different."

"When? Then?"

"No, not really. Now. Things seem so different now."

"In a bad way?" Neil asked.

"No. I don't think so" Lara replied, turning off the light.

The room span slightly from the amount of alcohol he had consumed and he was tired. He fell asleep almost immediately. Lately, he'd been drinking more and more. Without going to bed drunk, he would lie awake feeling depressed. Suicidal thoughts were creeping in.

He really didn't want to trouble Lara with his worries. He was struggling to get up in the mornings, but he really needed his job to pay the mortgage and they thought highly of him at work. He'd barely taken a day off sick since he'd started and he knew his bosses were pleased with his performance.

Why was he so tired all the time? Sure, he enjoyed entertaining guests from time to time - especially when there was alcohol - but the rest of the time he struggled to find the motivation to do anything. It was so damn frustrating to not have his usual levels of energy and enthusiasm. He didn't seem to be enjoying life very much anymore.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

28. Anonymity

When Neil's work, the crisis team, the police and Colin first called Lara, she was shocked and worried. As time wore on, she became exhausted by the ups and downs of Neil's mental health. When Neil had disappeared, she compulsively checked her phone for any missed calls or messages, desperate for any news. Months later, the nervous energy dissipated and she became emotionally distant and withdrawn; numbed.

Lara had a voicemail and few missed calls on her mobile phone when she finished her shift. It was Neil's parents' home number. She listened to the message.

"Hi Lara, it's Colin here. I appreciate you're probably at work but phone me when you get a chance. Also, see if you can take the weekend off. You might want to come away on a trip."

Spying Anne going to her locker, Lara walked over to her.

"Can we swap shifts this weekend?" she asked, in a hushed tone.

"What the hell, Lara? You were supposed to be coming out with us on Saturday night."

"I know, but it sounds like something important's come up."

"Important how? Is this about Neil? You know how upset you were last time you got mixed up in trying to find him. You only had the memorial service a few weeks ago. Try to take your mind off everything for a while."

"It's not like that, Anne. Neil's dad sounded... different this time. I think he's made a big breakthrough."

"Well find out and let me know. It's going to take a lot to convince me though. I think it's a bad idea."

Sat in her car in the hospital car park, Lara phoned Neil's parents' house. His mum answered.

"Oh hello, dear. I expect you want to speak to Colin, don't you?"

"Yes. I'm returning his call. He left a message."

"The phone has been going crazy this week. Since the service, quite a few of Neil's old friends have been in contact. We met some of them at the service, but it seems there was something in the news and... well, I'll let Colin explain. Here he is."

"Hi, Lara?"

"Yes, Hi Colin."

"Great. Did you meet Neil's friend Anthony at the memorial service?"

"No, I don't remember meeting him, but there were a lot of people there."

"Well, he phoned us up a week later and said he'd seen something in a local newspaper. Said he didn't want to mention it because it was probably nothing."

"Umm, OK."

"Well, he posted us a newspaper clipping. It's a grainy black and white photograph of a man in a hospital bed, but I'll be damned if it isn't a dead ringer for Neil."

"But it isn't Neil?"

"Well, the newspaper says it's an Eastern European man who's lost his memory. He seems to have forgotten how to speak."

"How do they know he's from Eastern Europe?" Lara asked.

"He had an ID card in his wallet. He's from Estonia and he's called Romet Kukk. Did you speak to Matthew at the service?" Colin asked.

"No, why?"

"Well, Matthew knows Anthony. They were all at school together. Matthew phoned up and asked about Neil's disappearance. He reckons he knows somewhere Neil might have been staying."

"Staying?"

"Yeah, like a secret den from when they were kids."

"Where's this?"

"Well, the hospital is in Exeter in Devon. The den is in the same county."

"Sounds like we'd better go down there and see what we can find out."

"Good. That's exactly what I was thinking."

The memorial service had stirred up a lot of emotions and it had been very upsetting to finally let go of Neil. Friends, colleagues and family members had spoken about his life, which was moving. However, Lara had already been to the funeral of an ex-boyfriend. She was tough and she had emotionally shielded herself to some extent. Lara's parents and brothers had helped her move out when Neil was getting seriously unwell and she'd kept things at arms length as best as she could. She couldn't possibly imagine that this doppelganger would be her missing financée. She had no idea what use it would be, going to a place that Neil and Matthew used to visit years ago. It all seemed too co-incidental.

Leaving messages with the local newspaper and the hospital, nobody had been able to answer any of their queries. Lara left early on Saturday morning to pick Colin up, then the pair continued to Bristol to pick Matthew up. They drove straight to the hospital.

"Hi, we're here to see Romet Kukk. Can you tell us which ward he's on, please?" Lara asked.

"Friends or family?" the receptionist asked.

"We're family."

"Are you listed as next of kin."

"I don't think so."

"Does the patient know you're coming? Are they expecting a visit?"

"No."

The receptionist's expression was icy cold. Lara casually flashed her NHS security pass, pretending to rummage for something in her handbag.

"Let me just check where they are. Kukk was it? Mister or missus?"

"Mister." said Lara, relieved that the receptionist was going to help them.

"Oh. It says here they're not at the hospital anymore."

"Discharged? Transferred?"

"The system doesn't say."

"Which ward was he staying on?"

"The system doesn't say. I'm not allowed to see information like that. I'm sorry, that's all I know."

"That's alright. You've been really helpful, thanks." said Lara.

Spying an unmanned reception desk, Lara could see a phone number for the hospital's main switchboard on a piece of paper. She punched the number into her mobile phone but didn't dial it. Grabbing Colin, who was lingering nearby, they went back into the car park where Matthew was waiting with the car. Lara got inside and phoned the switchboard.

"Hi, can you page the bleep holder for psychiatric liaison, please?"

"Sure, no problem" the operator said.

After a few minutes wait, the operator came back.

"Connecting you now."

There was a click on the phone line.

"Psych liaison" a different voice said.

"Hi, my name's Doctor Sutton from UCLH. I was trying to find out who'd been dealing with a patient of ours at your hospital. Name of Romet Kukk" said Lara, lying.

"Yep, I was handling the case with a couple of my colleagues. Piers Cowley. How can I help?"

"Well, to be honest, we were wondering where he was. He doesn't seem to have been referred back to us."

"Yes, that's right. He wasn't discharged. He just disappeared."

"Disappeared? When?"

"About a week ago. Look, can I phone you back in about half an hour. What's your extension at the hospital?"

"Can I give you my mobile number?"

"I'd really rather phone you back on your extension if we're going to discuss the case notes in more detail. What was the number?"

"I'm in a bad signal area, we might get cut off. It's 1-3-5..." Lara hung up. "Shit."

"What's wrong?" Colin asked.

"I think he just rumbled me."

"Did you find anything out?"

"That patient isn't at the hospital anymore. Romet Kukk disappeared."

"OK, Matthew. You'd better show us where this den of yours is" Colin said.

"It's about an hour's drive from here" said Matthew.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

27. The Syringe

"FRL-V4" was an act of desperation. He had exhausted every prescription drug that he could buy from overseas. He then tried every research chemical that he could find. The Internet revealed a world of "psychonauts" conducting drug experimentation on themselves. He felt like a human guinea pig anyway, having had a cocktail of different medications prescribed to him by his doctors, all of which had terrible side effects. He was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

When he received his first delivery from Frog Eye Wares, he assumed they had accurately weighed out half a gram: 500 milligrams. He poured out the contents of a small plastic bag labelled "TOXIC: NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION" onto a dinner plate. Then he divided the pile of powder into two equal piles of 250 milligrams each. He divided one of those piles in two, which he assumed must approximately weigh 125 milligrams. Scooping up one small pile of powder, he transferred it to a second dinner plate. Then, he made five lines of powder, each of the same length and width. All of this was done by eye. By his estimation, a single line weighed 25 milligrams.

Taking a rolled up bank note, he snorted half a line up his right nostril. This was the first time he'd insufflated something since the one and only time he'd tried cocaine, at a house party 8 years earlier. The cocaine gave him a feeling of numbness in-between his eyes and down the back of his throat. He could taste a drip from his nasal cavity, but it was not unpleasant and the numbness spread around his mouth in his saliva a little. The "FRL-V4" powder made his eyes water with pain. There was an extremely bitter taste and the smell of solvents filled his nose.

His face flushed, his pulse raced, he needed a bowel movement. In the bathroom, dropping his trousers, he noticed his penis had shrunk as if it was freezing cold. Washing his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror. His pupils were gigantic and jet black; he was sweating. Panicking slightly that he had taken too much of the drug, he rinsed his nose out with some cold water and tried to spit out the residue that seemed to coat the back of his throat.

He'd spent the day feeling productive. He had cleaned the house and had then started playing a computer game until he noticed that it had got dark. Then, he started to feel a sense of panic. 9 hours had elapsed since he had taken the drug and he worried that the effects weren't wearing off. He looked at his watch; then he looked at his watch again. Time was passing incredibly slowly. He started to stare at the face of his watch; the second hand was barely moving. He could feel his heartbeat starting to race. He started to feel like he couldn't breathe; as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the air and he couldn't catch his breath.

That was when he decided to snort the other half of the line.

He'd done a lot of research on the Internet and he knew that some of the drugs he was likely to encounter were "fiendishly" addictive. Most of the negative things that he read seemed to be associated with people having long sleepless binges. It seemed logical to him that the thing to do was to avoid "re-dosing". He would limit himself to a fixed daily dose and that way he would avoid the dreadful binges and the path to addiction that he had read about. However, he hadn't been able to calm down and was feeling really awful. He half considered going to hospital, but instead, he decided to double down.

Snorting with his left nostril, the pain brought tears to his eyes again. Soon, he felt a lot better. The panic attack subsided.

He hadn't eaten all day and he thought he should try and force some food down. Making himself a sandwich, it seemed incredibly dry. He hardly had any saliva to swallow. Everything tasted really strange and unpalatable. He had absolutely no appetite. Realising he'd hardly drunk anything, he gulped down some orange juice, which was pleasant enough. His stomach hurt and he retched a little, but the nausea quickly passed.

The night passed with more computer games and he was surprised to see morning light. Trying to avoid looking at his watch for as long as possible, he knew that there was panic rising in him again. What was he going to do? He hadn't slept in 24 hours. This was quickly turning into a binge. He decided to snort another half a line, to get through the day and then sleep at his normal bedtime that night.

The passage of time was so much accelerated during the segments where he was under the influence of the drug that, whatever he was doing, he found that he was still doing it hours and hours later. He wasn't normally a big fan of computer games, but he had almost completed the one he had been playing. On the pretence of completing the game, he snorted another half a line.

Feeling a little sleepy in the small hours of the morning, he decided to doze. He slept and then suddenly awoke feeling hyper alert. He was acutely aware of the sound of his own breathing, his heart beating, every noise in and outside the house. He could hear the ticking of his watch and time had slowed almost to a crawl. His pulse raced and he was terrified that he was going to have a heart attack. He lay perfectly still on the sofa and tried to calm himself down, controlling his breathing. He fought rising panic for what felt like an agonisingly long period of time before deciding that he had to distract himself. He decided to go out for a walk.

It was a bright morning, still quiet before the commuter rush. He turned left out of his front door and walked 50 metres before deciding that there would be too many people on the main road. He headed the other way, past his house and got halfway down his road before he panicked that he was getting too far away from home if he needed to hide himself away or wait for an ambulance. He walked slowly back at first and then worried that his neighbours were probably watching his strange behaviour, so he hurried back home. Inside, he paced around downstairs, unable to settle himself.

Sitting down at the dining room table, he started to scribble a note explaining what he had done. Screwing up that piece of paper, he started to write down all the medications he had taken without a prescription: dates and dosages. Grabbing more sheets of paper, he wrote a whole set of notes, explaining every doctor's appointment, outpatient visit and inpatient admission that he could remember, along with diagnoses and medications he had been prescribed. On a final sheet of paper he explained that he had bought a research chemical called "FRL-V4" from the internet, but he didn't know what the active ingredient was. He wrote that he feared he had overdosed, damaged his heart or had some kind of allergic reaction. He wrote: "I've had an unplanned binge and I think I'm getting addicted."

Neil knew the idea that you could become addicted the first time you ever tried a drug was ridiculous. There was no such thing as something that was instantly addictive. However, he knew that he'd jettisoned his plan to only take a fixed known dosage and never to binge. He knew that he wanted to take more of the drug, but he also didn't want to take any more because it obviously caused him to have massive panic attacks.

At some point while he was writing, he had calmed down. He now felt quite good; he was flooded with a sense of relief. The feelings of dread and the near-certainty that he was going to die - or at the very least be rushed off to hospital - had dissipated and he spent the afternoon having a shower and eating a little. His appetite and tiredness returned that evening and he slept for nearly 14 uninterrupted hours. When he awoke he felt mostly normal, hungry and a little depressed. However, the drug played on his mind more than he was comfortable admitting to himself.

Having had such a scary experience with the panic attacks, he wanted to flush the remaining powder he had left. Strangely, the memories that stuck in his mind most clearly were how much relief he felt when the panic attacks were finally over, as well as the relief he felt from the panic when he snorted another half a line. Fatefully, he did not flush the powder.

He managed to delay almost a week before he took the drug again. Addiction did not become a daily habit. He seemed unable to snort half a line and then put up with the panic attacks. His binges would last two or three days, until the panic would be accompanied by enough sleep deprivation to bring sleep. As he got more and more tired, he would sleep through the worst of the comedown. In a way, he was functional, because he would eat and sleep to catch up in-between his binges. However, he knew that his life now revolved around taking drugs and addiction had taken hold.

Taking to the Internet to research the unknown chemical that had its hooks in him, he discovered a thread of discussion where people were speculating what the active ingredients in "FRL-V4" were. There seemed to be consensus that it had to contain one of the most feared and notorious 'designer' drugs. Searching online, there were no shortage of horror stories about this chemical, nicknamed "Peony". News stories reported one man had chewed off a tramp's face and a Dot Com billionaire had murdered his girlfriend, while under the influence.

Unwittingly, he was committing the names of these chemicals and where they came from - Chinese laboratories - to memory, while he struggled with addiction and also tried to find information about some less harmful substitute that would help him escape his predicament.

To obtain the pure chemical form of "Peony" would be incredibly dangerous, because it was so potent, but he could try to substitute it with similar drugs that were less addictive and caused fewer side effects. It would take a couple of weeks for deliveries from China to reach him. In the meantime, his addiction raged and he started to go on binges lasting four or five days.

When his weighing scales and the first of his Chinese orders were delivered, things did not improve. He was exhausted and sloppy with his measurements. He had become used to estimating his doses by eye. Snorting a big line of "FRL-V4" and a medium sized one did not make much difference. The difference between 5 milligrams and 10 milligrams of something that was 99% pure made a huge difference. His binges started to last for over a week, because he would be kept awake for days at a time when he snorted a single line of the potent chemicals.

Feeling his life was totally out of control and it would not be long before an overdose meant death or hospitalisation, Neil decided that he was a lost cause. The idea of running away to the caravan started to obsess him. He wanted to spare Lara and his family the distress of finding him dead from his addiction.

He had promised himself that he would never cross one line with his addiction: he would never inject drugs. It was a strange thing to have decided, but everything he'd read suggested that injecting drug users were generally in their death throes. However, he had taken a syringe with him to the caravan.

By dissolving chemicals in half a litre of water, he had an exactly one milligram of drug per millilitre of water. Sucking up the chemical solution into a syringe, he could measure a dose quite accurately without his weighing scales. He didn't even need a hypodermic needle: he could simply swallow the liquid. His stomach acid would destroy about 50% of the chemical, but half of it would reach his bloodstream.

Desperate for something to drink, Neil now reached for a glass bottle that he had dissolved drugs into. The water had reacted with the chemical and seemed to have destroyed it. He took a couple of big glugs from the bottle.

Without any means of measuring the weight of his doses accurately, Neil had been playing Russian Roulette with his life. A small dose could have no effect at all and a large dose would leave him with stimulant psychosis for days, as well as putting incredible strain on his heart. It was miraculous that he had survived so long.

In a state of drug-induced insanity, every bit of powder in the caravan had been consumed, accidentally spilled or destroyed. Neil had been clean for a few days, but he was in such a damaged state that he hadn't had the energy to limp to his van or to the country lane where he might be discovered by a passing driver.

Now, he felt a sharpness return to his mind. His injuries hurt less. His back and joints didn't seem to ache so badly. He felt his limbs start to get lighter. The water had reduced the potency of the drug, but it hadn't destroyed it altogether. Neil was able to sit up and move around. He felt like he could get to the van.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

26. Descent

She could hear the car crawl to a slow and follow her at walking pace. She had grown accustomed to the sensation of being stalked, stared at. She could feel a pair of eyes burning a hole in the back of her head. With the subtlest of movements she looked out of the corner of her eye at the road. She didn't recognise the vehicle or the driver. There seemed to be somebody in the passenger seat too. The car drew level with her and the passenger wound down their window. She glimpsed short hair full of styling gel, a white tracksuit and prepared herself for unwelcome sexual advances from a dimwitted numbskull.

"Hey!" came a surprisingly hushed call.

"Psst!"

This was not how things usually went. Normally lecherous creeps would lead with their best line, full of false flattery and often beer-induced bravado.

"Hey you!"

It was irritating, but a different and more measured approach from what she was used to. She was sure that as soon as she even acknowledged their existence, they would launch their full chat-up offensive. This was just the preamble.

"Hey!"

She was sure that their patience would quickly evaporate and she would be loudly cursed as a "stuck up bitch" and the car would roar off into the distance with its loud exhaust and bass-heavy music thumping out from their souped-up boy-racer chariot.

"Nah, she doesn't want to know" said the passenger. It looked as though he was addressing somebody in the back seat. Lara risked another glance backwards and sure enough, there was another passenger, slumped low with their coat pulled up high around their face as if they were trying to hide.

"He says he knows you" the passenger tried again.

"Who?" asked Lara, now looking in through the car window and surveying the scene, while keeping walking.

"Sam" said the passenger, pointing his thumb at the back seat. "He's sick. He needs some help getting into his flat."

"Why can't you do it?"

"We're just giving him a lift home. We've got to be somewhere else, pronto. We ain't got time."

"Some friends, you are." Lara mocked.

"Look, just help make sure he gets in OK, can you? We could just dump him nearby, but there's no telling if he'll get into his place on his own in the state he's in."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's just had too much to drink."

"That's a really shitty thing to do to your friend. To just dump him like that."

"He's not exactly a friend. We hang out, but it's not like that. We're doing him a big favour driving him home."

"Yeah, BIG favour" said Lara sarcastically.

She couldn't help herself peering in the back windows at Sam. He was very dimly aware of what was going on. His head drooped and his eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep. He didn't look boisterously drunk or like he was going to throw up. He was just intoxicated.

"Alright how far away is it?"

"Just down in the town centre. Jump in."

Sam was reasonably well co-ordinated and not slurring his words. He didn't even smell of alcohol. He could walk and talk without staggering, but he kept slipping into a catatonic state. His sentences would tail off and he would be half-asleep on his feet. As long as she kept repeatedly reminding him where they were and what they were doing, she could coax him towards his front door.

"Come on, Sam. Nearly home!"

"What? Eh? Oh" he said, as he seemed to remember what he was doing and take a few more steps, opening his eyes a fraction. He leant on the front door, dozing.

"Get your keys out, Sam. We're at your flat. This is where you live, right?"

"Yeah, uh. Right" he fumbled in his pockets and unsteadily directed his key at the lock.

With the door flung wide open, Sam made a bee line for his day bed and collapsed on it face down, before rolling into a slightly more comfortable position. Lara was still stood at the threshold, gazing into the large loft apartment, taking it all in.

"OK, I'm going to close this door and go home now."

"Don't go. I need you" Sam said, holding up a hand and beckoning her in.

Lara took a few steps towards the day bed.

"What do you need me here for? You're home now."

Sam patted the bed next to him. Lara didn't get the sense that he was trying to get her to sleep with him, but that he wanted her to sit. She sat awkwardly on the edge of the futon.

"You're home safe now. You can go to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up."

Sam now opened his eyes much wider and tried to look at her. There was a kind of fear that played across his face.

"You can't let me sleep. I'll die" he said.

"What are you talking about."

"If I fall asleep, I'll stop breathing."

"If that's true it sounds like you need an ambulance."

"No!"

"Why not? What's wrong?"

"Overdose." he said, with the effort of his honest admission seemingly causing him to slump. He relaxed. His face was tranquil. Lara leant over him. He was breathing, but very shallow.

"I'm going to go phone 999. You need to go to hospital" Lara stood up and walked towards the door.

"Nooo! Stay with me" Sam called out, reaching towards her from where he lay. She hesitated at the door and looked back. "I'll be OK soon. Just stay with me a little while."

Babysitting him while he fought through a near-fatal overdose, Lara was torn. She could see his lips getting slightly purple as she fought to keep him conscious enough to keep breathing. In waves, he would get so relaxed and comatose that he would sleep peacefully and could barely be roused. She would be close to running for help. Then, he would come round a little, gasping for air and she would plead for him to stay alert and keep breathing. She knew instinctively that in the time it took her to go away, find a phone and give the address, he could very easily slip away. It took little more than an hour before he started to come round, but it felt far longer.

The experience shook them both and Sam said that he never wanted to risk dying like that again. At first, he was resolute that he needed to quit heroin and that the close call was the wake-up call he needed. He was so grateful to Lara for keeping him alive and for avoiding a hospitalisation. Then, he explained that his body would start to go into a painful withdrawal and he would feel like he "needed" his next fix. Quitting wasn't so easy and he'd need to wean himself off. Would she help him?

He genuinely meant everything he said.

In reality, Lara became his regular babysitter, so that Sam could shoot up big doses of heroin, knowing that there was somebody there to keep him safe if he overdosed. At first, Lara didn't know it. She felt that she was helping him to get cleaned up and off the dope, but after months going round to his apartment almost daily, it was clear he wasn't giving up any time soon.

She adored his tortured soul and his fascinating life. She loved their asexual relationship, which still had a kind of comfortable intimacy. Sam's first love was heroin, but Lara didn't mind being his mistress. She felt like she could make a difference.

Eventually they quarrelled. He had no intention of ever quitting, she said. He did, but it was hard, he explained. He said he'd try harder, but he started to be more secretive. He hid his habit and Lara knew it.

"You'll always keep using if I stay with you" were the last words she ever said to him. He didn't even reply. His eyes were filled with tears, but he knew the truth. Perhaps he would quit one day, but that wasn't the path that their relationship had followed. He used and she was there to keep him safe. That was the way it had been since day one and that was the way it was always going to stay.

She'd gone back to the apartment on the pretence of picking up some things she'd left there, but really she was checking up on him. Making sure that he was OK. He was so alone. His mum had left when he was little and his dad had died leaving him the inheritance that paid for his apartment and his drug habit, but he had no real friends: only drug dealers and addicts hoping to mooch off him. He was no fool, so he didn't indulge the parasites. He had nobody.

Lara knew right away that it was different from the other overdoses that she'd witnessed. There was no life left in his body. He'd been dead for some time.

Poor little rich boy. He had a kind of infamy amongst the local drug users, with many plotting to rob and cheat him out of money. He was even known to the police as a tragic addict: a dead man walking.

By the time she had left him, she was prepared for the worst. Or at least, she thought she was. Of course his death was more traumatic than she could ever have imagined, but she knew that the burden of his life was more responsibility than she should ever have been asked to shoulder. She could forgive herself, but always wondered if things could have turned out differently.

Neil's behaviour was completely different. He seemed in control, even though he was unhappy. It was Neil's desperate wish to be happy and productive again that made him so different from Sam. The addiction that she'd known had no end to it. Without a doubt, Sam would take heroin forever, given an unlimited supply and no consequences. Neil was different. He only ever took his pills begrudgingly and always talked about "recovery". His mental health problems were just a blip, in his eyes. Medication was a means to an end: like a plaster cast on a broken limb, helping it heal.

It seemed unthinkable to Lara, the idea that Neil had lost control and was slumped somewhere, dead from an overdose. She'd known so many years of him being steady and dependable. She'd seen him go through depression and psychotic episodes. However, he didn't seem to be hiding a drug habit and it seemed unimaginable that he could have been consumed by an addiction so quickly that she would never have seen it creeping up. The evidence suggested that somebody flicked a switch and her fiancée went insane. It was impossible to know somebody so well and for them to hide a whole other side of their personality. She knew what addicts were like when they hid their habits.

She confronted Colin.

"You're not telling me everything."

He sighed. "What you don't know can't hurt you."

"If there's stuff you've found out, I want to know."

"I think we just need to let Neil go and keep our best memories of him intact."

"What do you know?" asked Lara, now looking horrified.

"It's a lot worse than we thought" replied Colin with a grim expression.

"I really do want to know absolutely everything."

"He was taking some highly addictive drugs. I'm sure he's gone now. We should probably talk about some kind of memorial service."

"I guessed as much. I've been reading about those legal highs and they're nasty. Not many deaths though."

"Yes, but he was getting some really dangerous ones direct from China at 99% purity. I'm almost certain he overdosed."

"How do you know?"

"I found some traces at the house. I'm so sorry, Lara. I've been waiting and hoping that the body will be found, so we can grieve properly, you know?" said Colin, his eyes pricking with tears.

"You're a good man, Colin. I don't blame you for not telling me" replied Lara, hugging him.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

25. The Scales

The crisis team - part of the community mental health team - social services and the police had all been quite helpful when Neil had originally gone missing. The police had quickly discovered that Neil had left his phone, wallet and passport behind. All the services were very concerned about Neil's welfare and had attempted to establish his last known movements as well as searching for him. Because Neil was considered a vulnerable person at risk of suicide, there had been a lot of initial effort, focus and attention on helping Lara, Colin and the family to make sure he was found safe and well.

With all avenues exhausted, there was little more that any of the services could do unless new information emerged. Lara and Colin were main points of contact, liaising with a police detective who was in charge of the ongoing - but parked - investigation.

Frustrated with a lack of progress, two highly regarded private investigators were contacted by Colin. After initial discussions they decided that there was insufficient evidence for them to be able to pursue the case. The truth was that nobody really wanted to touch the case, because of the number of government bodies already involved: National Health Service, mental health services, the police and social services.

Colin had eventually taken matters in to his own hands and gone to the house to look for more clues, when he found the transactions that had led him to the ongoing prosecution of the businesswoman and her associates. Once he'd found the names of the defendants, it was a simple case of searching the register of directors and finding the trading address of their company in the public records.

Now, he was back at the house once again. He regretted involving Lara so closely, but she wanted to play an active role and had discovered vital information that he himself - a grey-haired man in his sixties - would have been unlikely to have been able to extract from anybody embroiled in the court case.

Colin had sounded out friends - retired police officers, solicitors and even a judge - about bringing their own case to court. "Not a hope in hell" were the exact words of one former Justice of the Peace. His sentiments were pretty much echoed by everybody else Colin consulted informally.

"Imagine if a person was selling rat poison as heroin" said Bill, the retired judge. "Now, if that person was to sell rat poison in place of sugar, they might be convicted of murder or manslaughter. But as soon as they sell it as heroin, they'll be convicted for supply of a controlled substance, even though rat poison is not illegal to sell per se."

"But that's insane! Surely the charge of murder should take precedence over the charge of supplying a controlled substance" protested Colin.

"Well, it's about the buyer. If the buyer thought they were buying heroin, then nobody really cares whether that junkie dies. The seller will be convicted as a drug dealer, not a murderer."

"So the law really doesn't care whether you sell a junkie sugar, caffeine, heroin or rat poison?" asked Colin.

"Yep."

"What if the buyer didn't know what they were getting?"

"What did they actually buy?" Bill asked.

"A controlled substance."

"What was it sold as?"

"A chemical for laboratory research."

"There's no chance it could have been confused for a foodstuff? Was it marked as hazardous? Unfit for human consumption?"

"Yeah. It's not like it was sold as sugar or anything" Colin replied.

"Well then, the only conviction you could possibly get would be for supply of a controlled substance."

To make matters worse, everybody advised Colin not to mention the drug use to the police. One whiff of drug abuse and the case would be filed in a dustbin marked 'lost cause junkie'.

Back at the house searching for more clues, he looked high and low before finally he decided to search the attic. Boxes of Christmas decorations and long-neglected exercise equipment, the attic contained very little else except for a disused hot water cylinder and a galvanised metal cold water tank. There was a chipboard lid on the tank and Colin noticed that it was an inch or so out of place, overhanging on one corner. Lifting the lid, there was a green plastic box floating inside with a black plastic handle.

In the kitchen, Colin towelled off the green box so it was clean and dry and took it through to the dining room. Unclasping the two black plastic latches, the lid was stuck tight until the airtight and dust proof seal released the pressure. Inside the box was grey foam to protect the delicate instrument contained within: a laboratory-grade weighing scale.

Normal kitchen scales might tell you the weight of something in grams, but not very accurately. If you needed to weigh 10 grams - approximately the same as a one pound coin - then your kitchen scales would be woefully inadequate. Even fine balance scales with small weights would struggle to weigh anything lighter than a gram. Some digital scales could weigh one tenth of a gram with reasonable accuracy: 0.1g. The scales that Colin had found could weigh at a sub-milligram accuracy. Less than 0.001 grams. Even breathing on the instrument or standing too near the table on a wooden floor would cause measurement fluctuations, so there was a special stand, cover and calibration weights to ensure the readings were accurate. The "quick reference" instruction manual inside the case was a hefty pamphlet.

There were some spatulas and a metal dish inside the green box. A tiny amount of light brownish powder residue was visible on the foam that held the dish and the spatulas. There was also a very small plastic resealable bag which was almost empty except for the tiniest residue of powder in the corners.

Colin spent the whole next day searching the Internet and phoning testing facilities, before he finally located a laboratory that would be able to swab and test the tiny traces of drugs that he had found. Using gas chromatography mass spectrometry, the lab was able to then search the 'signature' of the chemical compounds and to find a match in their database.

After sending the scales by courier to the lab in the Netherlands, it took 3 weeks before he got the results emailed to him. There was no conclusive match, but there were several compounds that were 97% similar to chemicals that were held in their database. He had been warned that a 99% match was the highest that he could expect anyway, so it was a good start.

Searching the Internet, he found detailed online encyclopedia entries for two chemicals, as well as a brief summary of a third. The compounds were stimulants from three different families of drugs. Two had been developed and patented in the 1950's and 1960's, but had never been marketed to the public because of serious side effects. Colin found a shorter acronym form of the full chemical name of each of the three compounds and started to search the Internet for more information.

Quickly, Colin was immersed in a world of online discussion forums. Thousands of Internet users from around the globe were talking about their experiences of self-experimentation with chemical compounds that had been abandoned by pharmaceutical companies or not even patented. Some of the chemicals had only been thought of as theoretically possible, but a laboratory somewhere in the world was cooking up these drugs for people to buy and try on themselves.

He couldn't read any more. What he saw was immediately horrifying. Hundreds of stories of addiction and horrible psychotic episodes, health damage and hospitalisations. Internet users were swapping stories about how awful these chemicals were and that they were the most addictive drugs they'd ever tried. Many lamented the day they ever first experimented. One message stood out as clearly as the obvious warning to never take these substances: accurate measurement was the difference between desired effects and overdose.

Perhaps Neil had two sets of scales, but one set alone was worth almost £1,000. If he had overdosed at home, surely he would have been found there along with his scales?

From what Colin had read, a powerful dose of those drugs was just 0.005 grams. If Neil had half a gram delivered from China, that would be 100 doses. The effects would last well over 12 hours. That meant Neil would have been on a nonstop drug binge for 50 days with just one free sample, assuming he was measuring accurately.

He felt sick. His son had got mixed up with something so dangerous that it had overwhelmed him and taken his life in the blink of an eye. There was no way to sugar coat this. Was there even any point in telling Lara and the family that Neil had been completely consumed by addiction and stimulant psychosis? In less than 6 weeks these powerful Chinese drugs caused him to flee his home to his final resting place.

Next chapter...