Dark Winter

by Andy McNab

Genres: Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Outside of Pakistan, the world's highest concentration of al-Qaeda lurks in Southeast Asia and there, Nick Stone's bosses get wind of an act of terror that will dwarf even the nightmare of 9/11.

When Stone is dispatched to Malaysia by the CIA to assassinate a biochemist, he expects his mission to be a straightforward part of the fight against Bin Laden. But there are complications, not least because he is working alongside an attractive woman whose motives he doesn't fully understand.

Target neutralized, Stone returns to the USA and a maelstrom of personal problems. Kelly, the 14-year-old orphan to whom he is joint guardian, cannot escape the ghosts of her traumatic past; she has a prescription drug habit that's spiralling out of control, and Stone knows he is the only one who can help her. He takes her to recuperate in England, but the terrible consequences of what happened in Penang are never far behind.

Realizing he cannot escape them, Stone unearths a doomsday threat against the populations of New York, London, and Berlin and finds himself facing an unspeakable trade-off: the life of someone he loves, against those of millions he doesn't even know...

Release date: January 1, 2003

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 496

Sample

2



I was with her here in Penang on George’s instructions. As he kept on saying, ‘If someone hits you and they threaten to hit you some more, you’ve got to stop them. Period.’ But as always, of course, I was also here because I needed the money.

Suzy and I didn’t know the whole story, and that was fine by me. Too much information gave me a headache, and Suzy probably felt the same. We were just small cogs in a big machine. I’d learnt the hard way that it’s better to be just clever enough to plan and carry out the task you’re given, and not to ask the reasons why.

The job was deniable. The Malaysian government had no idea what was happening – not because they couldn’t be trusted: Malaysia had a strong, stable government and a good record against terrorism. It was just that the fewer people who knew what we were here for, the better our chances of success.

It was a joint US/UK operation, a first for me. There weren’t many Americans on vacation in Malaysia, especially with the current situation, but a Brit couple was quite a normal sight. Being sent back to the UK had been a bit like going back in time because it was the Yes Man who had given us our final brief, the very person I’d gone to the US to escape. I couldn’t say I enjoyed it much, but it was great knowing that I was only his property for a short while before I returned to the US and became George’s again.

The other first was that I’d never worked with another K. In fact, it was the first time I’d ever knowingly been within a hundred metres of one. It probably never occurred to Suzy that I was anything but a Brit operator like her – my cover documents certainly wouldn’t have told her. I was called Nick Snell again, the same cover as when I’d been a K.

On the final day of our preparation he’d sat on the settee in the safe flat in Pimlico, as wired as an army officer about to give a pep talk to his troops before they go to war.

The Yes Man always liked to talk about things he’d read in reports, forgetting that people like me and Suzy had got hold of the stuff in the first place. ‘Don’t you two believe the hype,’ he’d said. ‘That’s for those out there.’ He pointed at the window. ‘They need to think we are fighting the ignorant, destitute and disenfranchised – but we’re not. Nor are the enemy crazed, cowardly, apathetic or anti-social. If any of these terror groups relied on such maladjusted low life, they simply wouldn’t be able to produce effective and reliable killers who are prepared to sacrifice themselves in the process.’

‘No, sir.’

Suzy always called him ‘sir’.

I avoided calling him anything – just in case the words ‘arsehole’ or ‘bastard’ slipped from my lips by mistake.

All around us mobile phones started tuning up: it was like the digital version of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. Their owners just stood up and walked away, not even looking to see who was calling. They knew it was God.

Suzy knew too. ‘Not long to go now.’

Malaysian mobiles could ring you five times a day for prayer, and also had a Kiblat finder to point the faithful in the direction of Mecca if they were stuck in the shopping mall and couldn’t make it to a mosque.

Suzy went back to mugging up on arse tubes, and smoked and drank without lifting her eyes from the page while I watched a couple stop and look at the menu board outside the Palace, then listened to the excited waiter rush out and try to lure them under the corrugated sheeting. He had to shout to make himself heard above the organist, who was now going on about a girl from Ipanema.

No need to hustle for business over at the mosque. Scooters and cars kept arriving, and plenty more came on foot. I let my gaze wander to the left, to a shack with a blue plastic tarpaulin over a scaffolding frame as an awning, surrounded by scooters and motorbikes in various stages of cannibalization or repair.

It was the entrance to the left of the workshop that I was most interested in. A neon sign with Chinese lettering was set into the road close by. I didn’t have a clue what it was advertising, but it lit up the doorway beautifully.

Five minutes went by before the target appeared. He was wearing a clean white shirt over grey tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops. He turned to his left, and walked along the cracked, greasy pavement past the workshop. I leant closer to Suzy and tapped the table lightly. ‘There’s our boy.’

Smiling at me, she closed the guidebook and put it into her bag. The Indian girl must have taken this as a sign we were leaving, and immediately came over and asked if we wanted more drinks. Suzy nodded. ‘Two more, the same.’

The target was in his late forties, Indian, Pakistani, maybe even Bangladeshi. He climbed gingerly over the metre-high spiky fence that divided the motorbike graveyard from the mosque. His short black gleaming hair was neatly combed back and kept in place by gel or tonic. We both watched as he removed his shoes, headed for the taps, then disappeared inside with the rest.

The drinks arrived and Suzy paid the girl, letting her keep the pound’s worth of change. Her face said we’d just made her day, but Suzy wasn’t being generous. We didn’t want her having to come back to us when we needed to leave in a hurry.

A couple of backpackers, gap-year age, came and sat down at a nearby table and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu as they checked out their red, peeling skin. Their conversation was drowned as the call to prayer wailed out from the loudspeakers in the tower, even bringing the organist to a standstill.

All we had to do now was wait for the target to reappear. We didn’t know his name. All we knew was that he was a member of the militant Jemaah Islamiyar [JI] group, and active in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand – all countries in the region that weren’t seeking to establish a Muslim fundamentalist state.

Jemaah Islamiyar means ‘Islamic group’ in Indonesian. Over many years they had attacked US and western targets all over South East Asia. George and the Yes Man weren’t the only ones who suspected that JI was a wholly owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda. Others argued that they weren’t too closely linked, and that JI’s original goals didn’t fully dovetail with the global aspirations of Osama’s boys. Whatever, it was only after the Bali nightclub bombing in October 2002 that the US finally designated them a foreign terrorist organization – something Malaysia had been wanting for years.

Indonesia had been the principal obstacle: the overwhelming majority of its 231 million population were Muslim – the largest Muslim population on the planet – and it hadn’t been willing to alienate its own people until JI had been caught planning simultaneous truck-bomb attacks against US embassies in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, even Cambodia.

My eyes were still on the mosque, but my ears were with the tableful of Brits knocking back the Tiger beer. They’d just been watching a government commercial during half-time, warning that if you were caught using a pirate satellite card you were liable to a fine of up to the equivalent of five thousand pounds, ten years’ imprisonment, and a whipping. ‘Shit,’ Suzy muttered, ‘you don’t want to mess with Murdoch, do you? It’s almost safer being a drug-dealer.’

The call to prayer stopped and the electric organ sparked up again, this time announcing the appearance of the Phantom of the Opera.

‘Taxi’s here.’ Suzy gave a slight nod in the direction of the workshop area, as a knackered red-and-yellow-topped Proton saloon pulled up. The cracked plastic Teksi sign on its roof disappeared from view now and again as a bus or truck rumbled past. The last four numbers on the plate were 1032, and that was the VDM [visual distinguishing mark] we’d been given. The driver was definitely our man.

I caught a glimpse of him waving no at a group of tourists in brand-new counterfeit Nike T-shirts. They drive on the left in Malaysia, and the vehicle was parked with the driver at the kerbside, so I couldn’t see his face clearly. In the glow from the neon sign he seemed to be lighter-skinned than the target, but not as light as the locals. Maybe he was Indonesian. He stayed in the cab, reading a newspaper with his arm out of the window, a cigarette in his mouth. He was the source, the one responsible for informing on the target. Perhaps he even knew what the target was up to. Whatever, he was the one who was going to help us.

We didn’t know the source’s identity, and I didn’t want to. He probably felt the same about us. All he would have been told was that people were going to be waiting out there for him to finish his part of the job so that they could do theirs. Once he was finished, that was it, he was out of the equation.

Now all three of us were waiting for the target to show his face, while everyone around us was either swigging beer, watching TV or comparing sunburnt shoulders. Suzy got out her guidebook again. It would have looked unnatural for both of us to be looking over there and not saying anything.



11



Bromley, UK

Thursday 8 May, 09:10 hrs



Kelly’s grandparents stood outside their 1980s bungalow, beneath a small wooden sign saying ‘The Sycamores’. Carmen was still fussing. ‘Have you got your key? We’re going to Safeway’s later.’

I dangled it at her as Kelly put on her seat-belt, the expression on her face as dull as the day outside. I started the engine and they waved us off as if we were leaving for ever, not just for the day. Carmen always got anxious when it came to departures. Apparently she hadn’t been the same since her sister, her only other flesh and blood, went on holiday to Australia soon after Carmen’s wedding and ending up marrying a guy in Sydney who had the money to buy his own house. Something like that, anyway – I’d glaze over when she got to the bit about Jimmy never really earning enough to buy a whole house in Bromley.

Carmen and Jimmy hadn’t changed at all since I’d last seen them quite a few years ago, and neither had anything in their lives. But I guess they must have been like that pretty much since they first got married and Jimmy started to work his bollocks off to keep Carmen up with the Australian Joneses. He still had the same nearly spotless fifteen-year-old Rover, and Carmen still kept the place as immaculate as a show-house. She still blamed me for her son’s murder, even though I hadn’t been there. We’d both been in the same line of work, and that was good enough for her. They were both still pissed off that Kev and Marsha had made Josh and me joint guardians of their kids in their will.

Kelly just sat there, not saying a word, staring out of the window at the busy streets. Josh was right about the mood-swings; right now she was so down I wasn’t sure she’d ever swing back, but then I remembered how far she’d come since I first found her. I wondered if it was something I’d said, or something she’d heard me saying to her grandparents. I’d always tried hard not to let her know what I really thought about them. This morning it was especially tough, because I’d overheard Jimmy agreeing with Carmen that Kelly’s problem was entirely my fault. Nothing to do with that nice man Josh: he’d taken her on out of the kindness of his heart, introduced her personally to God and given her lots of love and care. No, mark her words, none of this would have happened if I hadn’t insisted on looking after her myself in the beginning, and left her with that good Christian family instead. Well, tough shit. It had happened and, fuck it, they’d be dead soon, so they’d better get all their complaining in while they could. I caught a glimpse of myself grinning like an idiot in the rear-view mirror. Somehow Carmen and Jimmy really brought out the best in me.

We were just south of the Thames and passing a big McDonald’s. I felt a need to fill the silence. All I’d been getting for the last ten minutes was ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘whatever’. I pointed at the McDonald’s window posters, doing my best to keep the grin in place. ‘Hey, look, the McRib’s back. Shall we get some afterwards?’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

I stole a glance at her. What the fuck was going on inside that young head of hers? Probably much the same as went on in mine. I’d just learnt to hide it better.

The Moorings was a large townhouse in a leafy square overlooking central gardens that were fenced and gated so that only the residents could enjoy the trimly cut grass. Everything about the area and the building said that this was an institution that specialized in the disorders of the rich, which was unfortunate because I wasn’t.

I found a parking space for the cheapo-hire-deal Corsa, turned off the engine and looked at Kelly as I undid my seat-belt. ‘Looks as lovely as ever, doesn’t it?’

No response.

‘I always wonder why they call it the Moorings. I mean, we’re half a mile from the Thames – where are the boats?’

Still silent, Kelly unbuckled her belt as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. I got out and fed a few pound coins into the meter, and we walked together up the three stone steps, between the nicely painted wrought-iron railings and through the glass doors. The reception area was as plush as the head office of a private bank, had Victorian oil paintings on the walls and smelt of furniture polish. An immaculately dressed woman came out from behind the desk and ushered us towards the waiting room with an offer of drinks. Kelly was still in ‘whatever’ mode so I asked for a Coke, and white, no-sugar coffee. We knew the way, and settled down side by side on a big red leather chesterfield. A spread of property magazines for the South of France and the Caribbean lay on the low glass table in front of us. Nice work if you can get it, this therapy business.

Kelly rested her hands on her jeaned thighs, but the rest of her seemed to crumple. Her index finger was still red and the skin was flaking under the plaster. I nodded down at it. ‘Does that thing hurt? I thought it would have cleared up by now.’

‘It’s just gone a bit weird. It’s fine, OK?’

The receptionist came in with the drinks and Kelly seemed to brighten. Then Dr Hughes walked into the room, with a big, warm smile. ‘Hello, Kelly, it’s been quite a while since we last met.’ She ignored me, which was reasonable: she wasn’t here for me. ‘What a wonderful-looking young lady you’re turning out to be.’

Kelly’s cheeks turned pink as we both stood up, but at least there was a hint of a smile at the sight of Dr Hughes, and that made me feel a whole lot better.

Hughes looked as striking as ever behind her half-moon glasses. She must have been about sixty now, and still had a big grey hairdo that made her look more like an American news-reader than a psychiatrist. She was dressed in the kind of black trouser suit that you can only buy on a platinum Amex card. Chatting away with Kelly she got a few little nods in return, but then there was a huge grin, and suddenly whatever I was paying was worth it.

‘Shall we go upstairs for a while, Kelly?’ She opened the door and ushered her through.

Kelly turned to me. ‘You’re waiting here, right?’

‘I’ll be here.’

I sat down again as the fire door closed with a whisper.



12



Exactly fifty-five minutes later the door opened again and Hughes appeared. She looked back down the corridor and said, ‘Yes, he’s here.’

Kelly came into the room, her face looking much the same as it was on the way here. That was fine: I trusted Hughes. This wasn’t about getting an instant fix. She still gave her full attention to Kelly. ‘So, same time on Saturday?’

Kelly nodded as her coat went over her shoulders and we walked back out to the car. I knew from last time round that it wasn’t the thing to ask how it went. Hughes had said that if she wanted me to know, she’d tell me of her own accord. She’d also told me she wouldn’t discuss anything Kelly had said to her, unless it was putting the kid in danger. I just had to shut up and wait.

The sidelights flashed as I hit the key fob and we climbed in. ‘The old girl hasn’t changed much, has she?’

She fastened her seat-belt. ‘No.’

There was no more conversation as we crawled back towards south London. I checked Baby-G. It was ten past six. There was no way we’d be in Bromley by seven. I got out my tri-band cell phone and she looked at me suspiciously. ‘I’m going to give them a call. We’re not going to make it.’

No surprise who picked up the phone at the other end: Jimmy wasn’t allowed anywhere near it. ‘Carmen, it’s Nick. The traffic is a nightmare and I don’t think we’re going to be back by seven.’

Kelly pointed at the mobile, shaking her head.

‘Oh dear, what a pity. We went to Safeway’s specially. I’ve spent ages preparing it. Jimmy won’t be able to wait. We always have dinner at seven.’

‘I’m really sorry. We’ll get something on the way.’ I managed to stop myself saying I’d be looking for an extra-large slice of humble pie.

‘Are you going to be late every time?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Depends on the traffic. Listen, we should be back by nine at the latest.’

‘Can I speak to her? How is she? How was it?’

‘She’s fine. She’s asleep in the back. I’ll tell you later. I’ll get her something to eat, don’t worry. We’re just going into a tunnel. I’d better go. ’Bye.’

I hit the red button and grinned at Kelly. ‘That’s going to cost you big-time.’ At last I saw the faintest flicker of a smile in the light from the oncoming cars.

‘Sorry I didn’t want to talk to her,’ she said. ‘But she’d just be telling me to keep my coat on and make sure you feed me properly.’

‘I think you’re being a bit unfair. She might have wanted to discuss something like the humanitarian crisis in Iraq.’

Kelly’s smile broadened and I felt my own spirits lift. ‘Talking of food, how about that McRib?’

It wasn’t long before we were in line at the crowded McDonald’s on the Wandsworth roundabout. It was full of people like us who’d just thrown in their hands at the end of the day instead of going home and cooking. After taking for ever to get to the counter, we couldn’t be arsed waiting even longer for a new batch of McRibs so both opted for the quarter-pounder meal and large fries. Kelly also wanted a milkshake. She went off to grab a table where she’d spotted some people just leaving, and I followed with the tray.

We shovelled fries into our mouths as hyperactive kids piled past us into the play area. Kelly had always been a streak of piss, and had got even skinnier the last few times I’d seen her. I didn’t know where she put it all.

She dipped her burger in extra ketchup and it was soon heading for her mouth, but she suddenly stopped, staring at the bun. ‘Dr Hughes says being honest with yourself is the key to recovery.’

‘Does she? I guess that’s right. It’s probably the key to everything.’

Eyes still downcast, she shifted slightly on the plastic bench. ‘Nick, you want to know some stuff I told her today?’

I nodded, but braced myself. Even if it was part of her therapy, I didn’t want to hear her saying she hated me.

‘Did you ever mess with drugs when you were young?’

I shook my head. ‘Only alcohol. I never fancied the other stuff. Why? You been hitting the wacky-baccy?’

She gave me one of her really exasperated smiles. ‘Pot? Get out of here!’ Her face clouded again. ‘No. Something else. You heard of Vicodin?’

‘Painkiller? Matthew Perry?’

‘I’m impressed. OK, look. No judgements, OK? No sermons?’

I shook my head, if only to release the steam building up in it.

‘And not a word to Granny and Grandpa. Josh, well, I’ll tell him myself, if the time seems right.’

‘Whatever you want.’

She took a slurp of milkshake with her eyes angled up at the TV, as if gathering her thoughts, then she looked back at me with her piercing blue eyes. ‘OK, here’s the thing. At my high school, it’s easier to get Vicodin than children’s Tylenol. Whoever’s got them shares them around.’

‘Where do you get them? Are there dealers at school?’ Adults taking this shit was one thing, dealers getting to kids was another. Those people deserved the heavy end of a sledgehammer. I could feel the skin on my face start to prickle, but I was determined not to let her see it.

‘No, my friend Vronnie, remember? Last fall, her boyfriend had his wisdom teeth out. He was prescribed a lot more Vikes than it turned out he needed, so he gave her the leftovers for her migraines. That’s how it starts.’

She looked around the room. ‘Vicodin numbs you to the pain and soon that numb feeling is something you want again. We all know it’s addictive, because we see it on TV. Melanie Griffith and Matthew Perry had to go into rehab for it. We know Eminem’s got problems. But Vikes do the job, that’s the problem. My friends and I are always stressed about grades and getting into college. We stay up all night doing homework or cramming. Vikes give you a high, release the stress. And before you say anything, Nick, I’m not in with the wrong crowd.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘It’s the medication of choice for kids whose moms take Valium to relax.’

She put on a weird face. ‘This is Vronnie’s mom, OK?“Doctor?”’ Her voice rose an octave and her hand flew up to her forehead. ‘“Doctor, I just have to have something for my nerves. My Amex has gone into hyperspace and my ex-husband doesn’t understand me . . .”’ Her voice went deeper. ‘“Sure, Mrs Housewife, I’ve got just the thing. Here’s a hundred good pills.”’ She gave a sigh. ‘See? It’s that easy. Then Vronnie steals the pills from her mom.’

‘Hang on, Kelly, you’re going to have to rewind a bit. When did you start taking them?’

She shrugged. ‘About six months ago. Vronnie and me were talking about stuff, like her parents are divorced and her dad drinks way too much, and it’s been horrible for her. I told her about Mom and Dad and Aida, and then about you and Josh, and she was like, “Whoa!” At least she still lives in the same house and her dad’s still alive. Just.’

I took a deep breath. ‘What did you say about me?’

Another shrug. ‘You know, looking after me, sending me to Josh because you were busy. Palming me off because of work. That kinda thing.’

‘You know me and Josh thought it was the best thing for you . . .’

She cocked her head. ‘Stability, right? That really worked. Why was it so long before you came and saw me?’

‘We have weekends and stuff. It was just that Josh and I felt you needed to settle down, and me just appearing out of the blue every so often would go and mess that up.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Vronnie’s parents fight all the time, but at least her dad hasn’t totally abandoned her. He turns up every weekend and takes her out. He’s never missed a weekend – and he’s a drunk.’

She concentrated on dipping a fry into the little ketchup pot. I started to speak to the top of her head as the rest of the quarter-pounder was shoved into the front of it. ‘You know my work keeps me away a lot. I was doing the best I could.’

She took her lips away from the burger but didn’t look up. ‘But, hey, that’s history now, isn’t it? I’m here, you’re here, and we’re going to go and get things sorted out, right?’

‘That’s right.’

She looked up and wiped the grease from her mouth with the napkin. ‘So your next question is going to be, why did I try them in the first place?’

I had to agree.

‘OK, well, Vronnie and I were discussing drugs that time, I asked her for the list of what she’d done and she gave me the usual – alcohol, pot, ecstasy, all that stuff. And then she said she took Vicodin to stay chilled. One of her friends told her that she could crush it up and snort it. I asked her what it was like, and she said, “Hey, why don’t we try it? Let’s go to the restroom.”

‘Vronnie had a film-canister thing and a little flip-out mirror, and she started to do two lines. She crushes the pills at home and keeps them in the film canister.’ Kelly flipped the top of her straw. ‘She even had one of these in her bag. Anyway, she took a line and handed the straw to me.’

It was clear from the way Kelly was babbling that she liked talking about this. It worried me, but I still wasn’t going to show it. ‘What did it feel like?’

‘There was, like, this real stinging in my nose and throat and it really hurt, but only for a few seconds. Then it kicked in and my head felt like it was floating. It felt like a balloon, floating right away from all the bad stuff around me. I was happy and it felt amazing, even in my fingers and toes. Then all the colours got brighter and sounds were, like, deeper. And that’s how we went off to class, chilled.’ She giggled. ‘Hillbilly heroin, that’s what they call it. It’s not like I’m addicted or anything, but that’s what Dr Hughes and I were talking about today.’

She stood up, felt around in her coat pocket and headed for the toilets, as if to give me time to consider my answer.

She was away for ten minutes, and by the time she came out I was waiting by the door. We got back into the car and headed for Bromley, with the strong smell of toothpaste and mouthwash in the air.



13



London

Friday 9 May, 08:30 hrs



Kelly was still in bed when I tiptoed in and dumped my sleeping bag next to the rest of my stuff. I was sleeping on the settee but had to be up before eight. Dr Hughes’s receptionist had called last night to arrange for us to talk this morning. She’d promised to give me some sort of indication of where we went from here, and what conclusions she’d come to after their first meeting.

Carmen and Jimmy were munching their muesli and toast in the kitchen, so I excused myself and went and sat outside in the front garden with a brew. My cell rang exactly on time. ‘Good morning, Mr Stone.’ Her tone was very no-nonsense: she obviously had a lot more calls to make after this one. ‘I have two questions for you. The burn on Kelly’s right index finger. Can you tell me how she got that?’

‘She said it happened at school, something in the science class.’

‘Is she eating normally?’

‘Like a horse.’ I hesitated. ‘Listen, she’s told me about the Vicodin.’

‘She has? That’s good. Were you alarmed?’

‘Should I be? I put on my happy face when she was talking about it, but it did worry me. I guess it conjured up images of drug-dealers outside the school gates, but I really don’t know anything about the stuff.’

‘Vicodin is an opiate, with the same active ingredient as heroin and codeine, and can lead to a serious dependency. We can go into it in detail when I see you. In fact, if she’s already talking to you about it, perhaps you could come in together?

‘Mr Stone, I fear she may also be bulimic. The acid burn on her finger could very well be from her own gastric juices. I suspect she pushes it down her throat to make herself vomit, and it’s rubbing against her teeth. It’s a common problem with girls of her age, but not a complication we’d welcome in Kelly’s case.’

I suddenly felt pretty fucking stupid. ‘She’s always brushing her teeth and using mouthwash strips like they were going out of fashion.’

‘I see. Has she started her periods yet?’

‘Last year.’ Josh had found some tampons in her schoolbag and Kelly had felt very grown-up about the whole thing.

‘Do you know if she’s still having them?’

‘No, I’m not very . . .’ I wondered where this was going.

‘Please don’t worry, I may be asking you more of these sorts of questions as we go along. It’s just that when bulimia becomes extreme, women stop menstruating.’

‘You say it’s quite common?’ I was starting to feel like a complete idiot. This girl didn’t need me and the God Squad on her team, she needed her mum.

‘As many as one in five girls of her age. It starts as a way to control weight and then it develops a life of its own. Again, it’s an addiction. Bingeing and purging are the addictive behaviour. Yes, of her own admission she has the drug dependency, but she hasn’t admitted to the bulimia. I just wanted you to know that because we might have a long and rather rocky road ahead.’

As I was listening to this, I got the signal for an incoming call. I ignored it and raised my voice as it kept bleeping. ‘It must be a good thing that she’s opening up to me, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, of course. But we can’t discount the possibility she’s doing it because she’s angry with you. She might want to shock and punish you.’

‘Then why would she hide it? Wouldn’t she go to town and hit me with bulimia as well?’

‘Possibly. I just wanted to warn you, though, that it could be a long time before there is light at the end of this particular tunnel. She’ll need all the support you can possibly give her.’

‘Where do we go from here?’

‘There are a number of concerns. There’s the dependency, and in some ways that’s the most urgent. It’s more immediately life-threatening.’

‘Life-threatening?’ My heart sank. What the fuck was going on here?

‘That’s the worst-case scenario, but it cannot be discounted. Opioid painkillers are dangerous because they are so seductive. They work b