Crystal Jake: The Complete EDEN Series Box Set

Something flicked very quickly across his eyes. ‘Nice one. Off you go, then.’

Sorely disappointed, I stood up, thanked him and walked out of his office. I closed the door and another tough-looking guy walked in through the stable door.

‘I’m gasping for some tea and toast,’ he said, looking me right in the eye.

That morning I made twenty rounds of tea between bouts of ‘administrative’ work while they sat around regaling each other with tales of their bravery and the times when they had narrowly and heroically escaped death through relying purely on their wits. It became quickly obvious to me that the fastest way to gain their respect was to administer some sort of violence.

And the next day the routine was the same: round upon round of tea and toast and having to listen to their misogynistic and snide comments. But my grandmother had taught me, when you live in a lake you don’t antagonize the crocodiles.

I was determined to stick it out and live in that infested lake. They were not going to break me. I was there for a reason and all those thinly veiled attempts to provoke me were not going to get a rise out of me. Although the atmosphere was macho, intimidating, and openly contemptuous of the rest of the police force, these men thought of themselves as the elite: I had not been brought there to make endless cups of tea. I knew I had something important they wanted. I was the mouse they needed to catch a lion. Let them have their fun until then.

On day five, Robin, one of the marginally nicer guys, stopped by my table where I was knee-deep in their antiquated filing system that still used paper receipts.

‘Want to go out with us tomorrow?’ he asked.

Going out with inarguably the most ignorant bunch of men I had ever had the misfortune to meet was not the most appealing offer I could think of, and there was also the distinct possibility that this was a means to humiliate me in public, but… ‘Sure,’ I said softly. ‘Where are you guys going?’

‘To a crack house.’

I smiled for the first time since I had come to SO10. ‘Yeah, I do. I definitely do.’

‘Great. Briefing is at eleven. You’ll be going as a crack whore. So don’t wash your hair and bring slutty clothes and skanky shoes with you.’

I nodded happily.

Finally!

FOUR

‘Just relax. If it all goes pear-shaped a vanload of big guys in riot gear will rush in,’ Robin said, while Federica, another undercover agent, expertly applied stage paint to make me look like a junkie.

I nodded, unable to stop staring at him. A very experienced ex TPO, he had incredibly transformed himself into a convincingly sad addict with a pasty face, bags under his eyes, greasy ropes for hair, fake ear and nose piercings, grimy nails, and stained clothes and shoes.

In a little handheld mirror I watched Federica blacken my front teeth and paint a disgusting sore on one side of my mouth. When she was finished I stood still in a faux leather miniskirt, a purple Lycra tube top and cheap stilettos with heels that I had deliberately scuffed, while Jason fitted my ‘technical’ (body-worn recording equipment): an Apple iPod that had been equipped with a tiny camera and monitoring device that would allow the monitoring team to see and hear what was being said.

‘Here,’ Robin said, and gave me a battered packet of cigarettes. I unzipped my bag and put the packet into it.

‘Rinse your mouth out with this,’ Federica said holding out a bottle of red wine. I took it and swallowed a mouthful. Pure vinegar. Robin took it off me and glugged it down as if it was water.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Ready,’ I said, shrugging into a filthy, fur-trimmed hooded parka. We got into a battered brown Renault and Jason drove us to the crack house. I sat in the back seat and mentally prepared myself for the unknown. I was going behind the locked doors of a real crack den to see the lost souls inside it.

It was two in the afternoon and the street was dead quiet. It was quite a nice area, actually. I wondered what the neighbors must think of having a crack den right in their midst.

Robin swiveled his head to look at me. ‘Remember, the back door is welded shut, so don’t ever make for it in an emergency.’

‘I’ll remember,’ I said nervously.

He thumped a few times on the door and a black, well-built, twenty-something man with suspicious, darting eyes opened it. In his hand was a large hammer. This was not Robin’s first time and the man—his name was Samson—touched fists with him and opened the door wider. I flashed Samson a quick smile, which was not returned, and totally ill at ease followed Robin and Federica into a darkened hallway.

‘When is he coming, bruv?’ Robin asked.

‘Soon, man,’ Samson said with a Jamaican accent. ‘Soon.’

Behind me I heard three heavy bolts slide shut.

For better or worse we were locked in with a man called Samson who was armed with a large hammer. Samson told Robin that the dealer had not arrived and that everybody was still waiting for him. He led the way to the living room, an awful room. There was neither furniture nor curtains. The windows were shrouded with moth-eaten blankets.

Crammed into that dim, smoky space were dozens of junkies leaning against the walls and sitting close together talking quietly. But from the flare when someone lit a cigarette or a crack pipe I saw the vacant desperation on all their faces. Humans of every race and age had been reduced to creatures that were beyond pitiful.

Their degradation and devastation was unbelievable. They were living corpses. Their stench couldn’t be described. You had to experience it to believe the rotten reek of the accumulated weeping of the human body; blood, sweat, oil, urine; and dirt, layers upon layers of fetid filth.

It was intolerable.

There was also a great restlessness about them that made them appear to be a heaving mass united by a single all-consuming purpose. To score. They were all here for smack or crack.

Suddenly, fear gripped me that just as I could smell them, they could smell me. I felt wild-eyed with paranoia. Federica fitted her hand over mine and squeezed. I knew what it meant. Calm down.

I pressed her hand. I hear you.

Federica led me to a corner and we sat on the bare, dirty floor. I was glad to do so—my knees were shaking. I could not comprehend the utter wreck of the humanity around me. For a second I thought of Luke, the spoon on his coffee table, the rubber rope fallen on the floor, and the old tree of my sorrow shed a few leaves, but I pushed the thoughts away.

Not now, Lily Strom. Not now.

After a few minutes I came to realize that there was no talk of family or hobbies or work. Nothing. Just drugs. The only topic of conversation was about gear—they spoke about it endlessly. It was the only thing they lived for. And everybody’s main preoccupation was to know when the dealer would be arriving. Every once in a while someone would ask, ‘When’s he coming?’ and the answer was always, ‘Soon, man, soon.’ I felt incredibly sorry for them, for their wasted lives. I thought of their parents and their sisters and maybe even their children.

Every few minutes more junkies knocked on the door. The place became more and more packed.

A gaunt man and his friend turned to me.

‘Where you from, girl?’ he asked.

It was only junkie small talk. Who were we? How did we hear about the house? The kind of thing that Robin had already briefed me I might be asked, but I was terrified I would slip up, or my accent would sound too forced and fake. So I started to pretend to be suffering from withdrawal systems, tw

itching, jerking, pulling faces and looking generally unwell, or I bit my nails furiously.

Federica fielded their questions expertly.

‘Soon’ turned out to be hours. I was exhausted from pretending to be in withdrawal. The longer I remained in that room the more anxious and worried I became. Finally, Samson announced that the dealer was five minutes away. The room became charged with an electric excitement; the mass began to prepare for its feast of delight.

Then a whisper spread like wildfire. ‘He’s here. He’s here.’ And everybody scrambled up from their sitting positions. Ready.

We heard the three bolts slide back, and the door opened.

The dealer, a strutting East Ender, in a Nike tracksuit, came with two minions. They immediately started dishing out the drugs to the addicts who had the presence of mind to line up as if they were in a supermarket queue. But some of them were so desperate by then that they lit up or stood against the walls shooting the drug into their veins instantly. Standing in the queue I gazed at one boy, high as a kite, bent from the waist swaying like a plant in the wind. Robin, Federica and I produced our crumpled tenners and got our little rocks of crack.

When it was my turn the minion looked directly into my eyes and my throat constricted. An Eastern European boy. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen. I held out my two tenners.

‘One of each, please.’

I noticed the notes were trembling, but he snatched them from me, and gave me a tiny white rock (crack) wrapped in white plastic and a small brown rock (heroin) in blue plastic. I closed my fingers around them and… Suddenly all hell broke loose.

The riot boys were coming in. The door imploded with an enormous crash at the same time as the windows were being smashed to smithereens. To the sound of splintering glass they were pouring in screaming, ‘Police, police,’ ordering everyone to, ‘Show your hand.’