Josh suddenly bowed his head, and his shoulders shook as he started sobbing.
Jack quickly pushed back his chair and moved to Josh’s side. ‘Hey, come on. Maybe it’s time you got some sleep. Jet lag’s messing with your head.’
Embarrassed, Josh covered his face with his hands as he wept, having kept in the horrors for so long. ‘Sorry, man, I’ve just seen so much.’ When he tried to get up from the table, he stumbled as his bad leg went from under him. Jack had to grab him by the shoulders and help him to stand. He guided Josh out of the kitchen, almost buckling under the weight of the big man, then helped him into the dining room and onto the blow-up bed. Josh flopped back, moaning. ‘Sorry for losing it, man, but what this stuff is doing to kids is a nightmare.’
‘Believe me, I understand when it comes to nightmares,’ Jack said, putting the pillows behind his friend’s head.
Josh adjusted his hearing aid. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nightmares. I have them too.’
‘Try living in one, day after day, night after night. To be honest, I’ve been sent on this so-called lecture tour because I was losing it... reality is I can’t take being at the centre of this sickness. In the past, I’ve always been able to handle it but... maybe twenty years is enough for any man. I’ve risked my life Christ knows how many times, even going undercover in Mexico to infiltrate a gang bringing the chemicals in from China to cook up the fentanyl.’
Josh looked over to Jack. He was staring into space, clearly no longer listening. Josh eased himself off the bed, pulling himself to his feet on Jack’s arm.
‘I need the bathroom, not drunk so much in years.’
Jack hurried ahead to hold open the door. ‘Downstairs loo is next to the kitchen. If you want to shower, there’s a family bathroom on the second floor, by the nursery.’
Jack watched as Josh unzipped his holdall and grab his toiletries bag.
‘Downstairs will be fine.’
Josh pressed hard on his leg as he limped from the room. Jack felt bad about zoning out. With all this talk of drugs, maybe Josh was hitting a little too close to home.
From the outside, the abandoned school looked completely derelict. Only the back bumper of a white Ford Transit van suggested any signs of life.
Indoors, the old drill hall was a hive of activity as four heavyset men were taking crates from the back of the room to the main doorway ready for transporting out.
In the dim light, a slender man leaned motionless over a canvas on an easel at the far side of the room. He was wearing a set of surgical binocular magnifying glasses for close examination of the brush strokes and a silk scarf covered his mouth and nose. He lowered the scarf briefly to take a drag on his cigarette. Every now and then, he glanced up to make sure his men were fulfilling his instructions to the letter. One of the men was cutting some bubble wrap from a ten-metre roll.
‘No!’ the slender man screamed. The men froze. ‘Muslin. Only muslin touches the canvas. How many times? Muslin, then straw, then the fucking bubble wrap. Bubble wrap leaves indents in the oils, clear as fucking day!’
The slender man turned from the easel with a sigh, and stood over them, watching their every move as the last paintings were finally packed inside the crates. One of the men opened the main door and they started loading the crates into the Ford Transit.
The slender man began to relax a little as he lowered the silk scarf and lit another cigarette. ‘Fucking imbecilic monkeys,’ he muttered, as the doors closed behind them. He unwound the scarf, tossing it aside before shaking out his thick shoulder-length hair, then removed his magnifying surgical glasses, placing them carefully in a leather box on a trestle table. Finally, Adam Border smiled.
Maggie finished the last breastfeed of the evening, then changed her still nameless baby’s nappy before taking him to his bassinet and tucking the blanket tightly around him. Then she went to collect a formula bottle for his next feed. Maggie paused on the landing; she couldn’t hear voices but heard the downstairs toilet flushing. Looking over the rail, she saw Josh moving slowly and painfully along the hall into the dining room. Next, Jack came out of the kitchen with a bottle of whisky and two glasses.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she said quietly.
Jack looked up at her. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘Will you bring the baby monitor from the kitchen? I’ll probably crash out before you come up.’
‘OK, goodnight.’
Jack went into the dining room with the whiskies, but Josh was already crashed out and snoring, so Jack turned off the lights and went upstairs.
Maggie woke at around 4 a.m., annoyed that Jack had not brought up the baby monitor. She felt like waking him and sending him to go and get it but decided to let him sleep. She crept quietly into the nursery and could tell by the baby’s restless movements that he would soon want his next feed.
Maggie poured hot water from the kettle into a bowl and sub-merged the bottom of the baby’s bottle, waiting for the milk to warm while her thoughts drifted. She physically jumped when Josh walked into the kitchen wearing only his jockey shorts.
‘Oh, sorry, Maggie, I just came in for a glass of water.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ she said, recovering herself. ‘I’m just getting the baby’s bottle. I left Jack fast asleep, which is a blessing. I don’t know if he mentioned anything to you.’
Josh shrugged as he took a glass from a cupboard. ‘I’m afraid I sort of dominated the conversation. I had some personal stuff to get off my chest. Got a little emotional.’
Maggie sighed. ‘I wish Jack would. I was hoping he might talk to you. He has a sleep disorder. It got so bad I made him see a specialist. Such nightmares, Josh. It’s been very frightening. He punches and kicks out in his sleep, screaming and shouting. After a load of tests, they’ve pretty much diagnosed him as having parasomnia.’
‘Which is...?’
‘Oh, it’s basically caused by post-traumatic stress.’
Josh shook his head in disbelief. ‘Jack didn’t mention anything like that.’
‘That’s Jack, he won’t discuss it. I’ve tried to get him to tell me what these nightmares are about, but he says he can’t remember. It all started after he worked on a horrific serial killer case. I was hoping that he might talk to you about that.’
‘I have noticed a change in him, but the reality is we were never that close. And it’s been years since I last saw him’.
Maggie tested the warmed bottle, wrapping a linen cloth around it.
She sighed as she started towards the door, stopping at the table. Josh’s medical box was still open.
‘Naloxone, right? It’s an overdose reversal drug. A while back, we were given some training in how to use it. We’ve had some fentanyl problems at the hospital — we were even warned about discarding used dressings containing residue as it was being syphoned off by addicts. One of the specialists I work with told me about seeing young kids around Victoria station... at first, he thought they were statues, you know, kids trying to make a few quid, but they’re drugged out of their minds.’
Josh nodded. ‘That’s why I’m over here, giving lectures about it.’
Maggie couldn’t help checking out the other drugs in the box. ‘You’ve quite a selection of opiates and tramadol patches.’
‘I have severe sciatica, so they’re prescribed for me. The reason I’m no longer working full-time for the NYPD...’