‘No, mate. Nothing like that.’
‘What, then?’
‘Opioids,’ Bowman said. ‘I’m dependent on opioids.’
Loader jerked his head back in surprise. ‘What, like smack?’
‘I’ve never touched heroin. And I don’t inject. It’s just pills.’
‘Like painkillers, you mean? Them ones you get on prescription?’
‘Sometimes. Mostly it’s synthetic tablets. From China. They make them in illegal factories over there. Red Lights, Jumping Jacks, Cookies, Space Dust. That’s what they’re called on the street, anyway, I don’t know their real names. I get a regular supply through a trusted contact. A friend of mine from back home. He’s my connect.’
It was out there at last. His secret. Bowman felt something heavy lift from his chest. Loader looked at him in stunned silence. ‘How long has this been going on for?’
‘Ten years.’
‘You’ve been an addict for a fucking decade?’
‘Not all the time. There are periods when I’ve been clean. Sometimes I’ve been able to get by with the odd pill or two. Other times, it’s worse than that. It gets out of hand. Then the drugs start controlling your life.’
‘Like now.’
‘I guess so.’
‘That’s why you left the family up there? To pop some pills?’
Bowman nodded, burning with shame. He hated himself in that moment. Despised what he had become. ‘Yes.’
Loader stared at him in shock and disbelief. ‘Why’d you do it, mate? Why get hooked on that shit in the first place?’
Bowman exhaled deeply. ‘You know about my family. What happened to them, back when I was in the Met.’ Loader nodded. ‘It was my fault,’ Bowman said. ‘They died because of me, mate.’
Loader’s eyebrows pinched together. ‘I thought they were murdered by the Albanian mob?’
‘Those bastards did the killing. But I was the one who put their lives in danger.’
He looked away, lips trembling, fists shaking with impotent rage. Loader waited for him to go on.
‘I was working undercover at the time, see. A long-term job. We were trying to penetrate a gang of ex-cons based in Essex. But the real target was the Albanian mobsters they were doing business with. The Hoxha clan. The older brother, Agon, was the boss of the outfit. They were involved in a lot of the big cocaine shipments coming in from Europe.
‘I spent months trying to earn their trust. It was hard work, hanging out with a bunch of sick gangsters all day long, sticking to my cover story, making sure I didn’t slip up. But it was worth it. All the int I gleaned I passed back to my handler at the Met. She was the only one who knew my true identity. That was the arrangement. No one else was supposed to know anything about me.
‘Eventually, Agon Hoxha invited me to a high-level meeting with the clan. A major arms-trafficking deal they wanted to discuss. I thought that was the big breakthrough. I’d go to the meeting and get enough intelligence to put the Albanians and their Essex business partners away for life. That was the plan, at least.’
‘What happened?’
‘Someone had tipped off the Albanians about me.’
‘Who?’
‘A bent copper. Agon Hoxha had him on the payroll. He’d managed to uncover my identity, piecing together scraps of information from the file. The Albanians found out and planned to lure me into a trap. Put one in the back of my head and dump my body in the Thames.’
‘How did you get away?’
‘I was on my way to the meeting when I got a message from my handler, telling me to get away immediately. I managed to escape,’ he added, his voice strained with grief. ‘But when the Hoxha clan couldn’t get to me, they took revenge on my family instead.’
Tears welled in Bowman’s eyes at the memory. He struggled to go on.
‘I found them at home. I’ll never forget that scene. There’s not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. They took my wife, tied her up and carved a clown’s smile on her face from ear to ear. Then they slit my daughter’s throat and let her bleed out on the kitchen floor. Made my wife watch the life drain out of our beautiful little girl. Then they blew Amy’s brains out. Left them there for me to find, like some sick present.’
‘Christ, mate. I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault.’
‘I know. But still.’ Loader hesitated. ‘Didn’t they arrest the bastards who did it?’
‘There was a big investigation. We all knew who was responsible. Everyone wanted to nail them. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. But the Crown Prosecution Service felt the case was too weak. Too many flaws, not a reasonable likelihood of a conviction.’
‘Jesus. I didn’t know that part of it.’
Bowman sighed and said, ‘What happened, it messed with my head. Nothing could shut out the pain. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think. Then someone offered me a pill. Said it would make it all go away. That’s how it started. I used the pills for a few months, cleaned up my act and joined the army. Did my time in SFSG, passed Selection. Everything was rosy. I managed to stay off the pills. For a while.’
‘Why’d you get back on it?’
‘Iraq. All that high-intensity warfare. You remember what it was like out there, mate.’
Loader nodded with feeling. ‘Yeah, I do.’
‘I was stressed, exhausted. Burning the candle at both ends. Some of the guys we were working with in Delta Force were using a cocktail of drugs just to get from one day to the next. So I got back on the stuff again. Since then, it’s been on and off. Sometimes I’m clean. Sometimes not.’
‘Iraq was a long time ago,’ Loader countered. ‘You can’t blame it on the war. We were all there. Not all of us turned into fucking junkies.’
‘You don’t understand, Tiny. No one plans on becoming an addict. But once you get hooked, it turns into an obsession. Getting pills, making sure you’ve got enough to last the day, it’s all you care about.’
‘That’s what has been on your mind since we left London?’ The anger in Loader’s voice was
