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towards it and shouts out, “Have a good one.”
    I just stand there watching her go. I can feel myself getting a woody. I’m just standing there smiling stupidly.
*****
    I’ve been pacing the kitchen floor, watching mum ring round my friends. She hasn’t seen me for a day and a half. She knows it’s not like me to leave her hanging with no phone call or text. At first she wasn’t all that bothered when I didn’t come home from my night of revelling. Mum knows I’m a young man in my prime and I need to sow my oats. She knows I’ll come home when I surface from my alcohol and drug haze. She doesn't approve, but there’s not much she can do really. And anyway, she still thinks I’m a good boy. And if anyone tries to dispute this fact she’ll help them remember the truth.
    Raj hasn’t helped to ease mum’s worries. He’s still really spaced out since he scored a megawatt cube of hash off a Moroccan dude we met at the club. Selfish bastard didn’t even tell me about his score. Just kept it to himself. When mum talks to him on the phone he can’t even remember me leaving the club. He rabbits on about seeing my killer moves on the dance floor. Mum reaches for her inhaler cause anxiety makes her asthma flare up. I can hear the wheeze rattle deep down in her chest. How come I never heard that before?
    I told the boys I was heading for the toilet. But I felt like I needed to be outside, get some fresh air. They’d come and find me or I could get in again a bit later. I’m tight with Jordan, the bouncer on the door.
    When the fresh air hits me I come over all weird. Sort of see my life flashing before my eyes. Doesn’t really take that long. I feel this disappointment, you know, that I’m not going to be able to do much with my life. I can’t help feeling I’ve wasted the bit of it I’ve had. Don’t really know where this feeling is coming from. I mean, I’ve done way more with my life than any other fucker I know. I wonder if it’s the Es I’ve taken before I went into the club. Strange Es. I’ve never had that feeling off Es before. Shame I think. Shame it all has to end so soon. Why does it have to end?
    I tuck myself into that little dead end alleyway alongside the club. The one where we all go for a quick pee before heading off to get a kebab. Usually there are about two or three junkies down here sharing a needle. But tonight it’s just me. I’m glad, because if I’m going to be sick I don’t really want an audience. The brickwork snags against my top as I slide down the wall and slump on the ground. In the dim security light I see crumpled crisp packets and chocolate bar wrappers, used condoms, someone’s shit and needles everywhere. I even think I see a rat, but I’m not sure. I feel the damp from the gutter’s dribble beginning to soak through my jeans. How on earth did I let myself get in such a state?
    Back home I’m shadowing mum when the doorbell rings. I’m dogging her footsteps, trying to make her see me, hear me. But she’s got one ear clamped to the phone as she rattles off questions to my mates and the other peeled, listening for the sound of my key in the latch. Her free hand is clutching at her inhaler. When the bell goes she opens the door, thinking it’s me and I’ve managed to lose my keys again and she sees the heavily padded policeman’s shoulders blocking out the light in her doorway. I scream at the pig but he’s paying me no attention at all. And mum, she’s crumbling right before my eyes and I try to hold her up but I’m nothingness as she slumps to the floor.

Chapter 4
    Madie was trying not to hyperventilate in the toilets of the McDonalds closest to the police station. She pressed her back hard against the cubicle door and deliberately closed her mouth so she’d be forced to breathe through her nose. When her breathing had calmed, her heart returned to a more or less regular rhythm and the trembling in her hands eased enough she turned slowly and pushed the