The vague, inchoate menace that has been terrorising the city now has a name and a face and a physical body on whom punishment and retribution can be heaped. Meanwhile, Hugo Nelson seems to have emerged with a burnished halo.
Even though it’s not too late for the trains, I treat myself to a taxi home. Exhaustion and alcohol knock me out during the journey. The taxi driver has to wake me up outside my flat.
But I don’t go to bed. Foggy-headed and nauseous, I head for my laptop.
A new idea is dimly tingling at the back of my skull. It doesn’t have a shape yet, but it’s something to do with Professor Pyle – it’s the puzzle of his sleek, glossy institute and his sleek, glossy secretary. The place has a style that doesn’t fit with either academia or government. It was built with real money. But whose?
There is, of course, a sleek and glossy website – page after page of text revelling in the manifold achievements of the institute, artfully interspersed with photographs of central-casting scientist types contemplating arrays of research hardware, all against a hygienic white background – but nowhere any mention of who is funding the place.
Pyle’s name is all over the web. Even filtering results to articles written by him produces an unwieldy mass of material. I plod through, looking for clues as to who is paying for the Pyle Mercedes, but there’s nothing.
It’s two in the morning, and I’m on the brink of giving up, when I part with my credit card details for a pay-walled academic paper search engine and library. His most cited article comes up first. It’s a piece of research connecting ADHD medication to lowered rates of criminality, whose title I’ve seen sprinkled across the web. It is on this work that his reputation appears to be built, and from this reputation that his government appointment was won.
A small footnote at the end states that the research was funded by GlobExxoPharm. A few clicks later, I’ve confirmed that GlobExxoPharm are the makers of Concentr8. I’m suddenly wide awake.
I have another story. The biggest one yet. If Pyle was successfully recommending to government the widespread prescription of Concentr8, while also being on the payroll of the company that makes the drug, that makes for a gold-plated, copper-bottomed scandal.
The unjustified drugging of large numbers of children struck me as a pretty good scandal a few days ago, but even now that is fading away in the public consciousness, replaced by the gaudier thrills of the hostage crisis and the mayor’s pseudo-heroics. The world at large does not, it appears, care all that much about which drugs are administered to disaffected children. But this is a scandal about money. And you don’t need a journalism degree to know that if you want to get people’s attention, there’s no better subject.
My fingers are trembling with excitement as I go over the facts once more, checking I haven’t made a mistake.
It’s watertight. Hugo Nelson had better enjoy his glory while he can, because as soon as this is out, he’s finished.
As Grassley’s investigation unfolded, he exposed more and more psychiatrists for similar infringements. Some of the more prominent culprits included Joseph Biederman of Massachusetts General Hospital (colloquially known as the ‘King of Ritalin’), who was reported to have earned $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug companies between 2000 and 2007, most of which was not disclosed to Harvard University officials. There was also Dr Frederick Goodwin, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, no less. He was reported to have earned at least $1.3 million between 2000 and 2007 for marketing lectures to physicians on behalf of drug companies. He did not disclose this to relevant parties such as national media outlets, where he’d been invited to speak publicly about drugs.
James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry Is Doing More Harm Than Good
TROY
Ain’t never quiet here. Middle of the night now and there’s banging and shouting from the other cells on and on. Don’t make no difference anyway – cause even if there was a luxy bed and soft sheets and total silence I’d still be awake.
They sold him down the river. All of them.
Snakes. I knew Karen was – that weren’t no surprise. She knew I knew and Blaze knew I knew and I reckon Blaze knew it himself even when they was all loved up. She got cold blood in them veins and that was the first thing came out of her mouth straight away – it weren’t me it was all him I ain’t done nothing – even though she was the one from the start pushing him on – wanting more – wanting blood – shouting get him cause she wanted the guy stabbed. I heard it and I ain’t forgot – but she just blubs to the feds straight off – just total lies unbelievable. And that’s her man she’s chatting about so imagine what she says about me.
So the mayor lied to Blaze – what d’you expect? All them people’s liars there’s no point wanting anything different. But when you got a crew and they’re your people you got to stand together – cause if you’re not for each other who else is? Nobody else never stood up for us – not parents not teachers not social workers not nobody – so all we got is each other and if that don’t count for nothing then we’re just alone and we’re fucked.
This is how it always ends for people like us anyway. They get us eventually – it’s just a question of how and when. Pointless trying to make things end different cause they won’t. If you got your eyes open you see what’s around you – you know where you’re headed so why fight it? From day one the people that run shit just want you to disappear – and they got a place to make you disappear into as well. So when they get you you got to stand together.
At least that’s what I thought until I’m in the back of the van with Lee and Femi and before we’re even at the station they’re both kicking off same as Karen outside the warehouse – blaming it all on Blaze – acting like they was pushed into it like they was almost hostages too.
I don’t say nothing. I’m sitting there listening to them two chatting their poison and I’m thinking Blaze knew it – he knew we’d all be banged up – he didn’t expect nothing from the mayor but he was talking to us. He was telling us what to say and that’s what Femi and Lee’s doing – just doing what Blaze said – but I ain’t that – I ain’t no snake even if it’s what Blaze wants. So I say nothing I know my rights. I say nothing not in the van not at the station not in the cell not to the batty lawyer they give me not a word not nothing. Cause I ain’t a snake. Once you start talking to people like that they can twist you up make you say anything they want. Only thing is to keep it zipped.
And when the judge sends me down I won’t say nothing neither cause none of this is a surprise – the question weren’t never where I’d end up it was always just when. And better for this than for nicking or some small shit. At least this was something real – at least me and Blaze stood together till the end – at least I made a mark – didn’t just sink away and disappear like I never existed like what was expected of me.
Me and Blaze can be proud cause they didn’t break us. We did our thing and after that we didn’t even bend for them or nothing. And that’s pure man that’s real.
I seen the History Channel there’s always been people like us – people who have to live off whatever scraps is left after everyone else has helped themselves – but I done something about it. I stood up – went against the flow – made my mark. Ain’t a lot of people can say that but Blaze can and I can – so I’m proud of what I done and who I am.
You look around – you sit on the bus and look around at all the people – how many you going to see that can actually say they done something? Something real and loud and true what got noticed.
Everyone watching on telly – seeing me get cuffed and dragged off – they probably think I was shitting myself. Weren’t though. I know what’s next but I always known that. I was born into a life where nothing I did made no difference – this is always where I was going to end up.
When I’m sent down I know the place will be full of psychos what’ll stab you with a sharpened toothbrush if you look at them wrong but I can handle myself.
I handled myself all my life without no help from no one. And if they think it’s a punishment that all the days is the same – Monday Tuesday Wednesday on and on no difference – that don’t sound so bad to me. Breakfast lunch dinner all there for you every time. I ain’t never had that – so how bad can it be? They got gyms in there and everything. I seen it before – people go in skinny come out buff. I can do that.
I ain’t an idiot. I know it’s going to be a hard and a cold place and there’s bad people in there what’ll try to mess me up – but when I think about all them weeks in a row – every one the same – it don’t scare me not even a bit. I never known what’s next – never from the day I was born – always been running hiding scrapping to keep myself safe. So it ain’t no holiday but it’s a pause ain’t it – maybe a reset. I ain’t afraid. And I don’t regret nothing neither.
Zombies man – the world’s full of zombies that take what’s given to them even if it ain’t worth having and never even complain. That ain’t Blaze and it ain’t me. We stood up. Might seem like it didn’t get us nowhere but at least we did it.
I been news. I been famous. Whatever happens to me now – whatever dump they send me to – I always got that. I had my moment.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Iain McClure, for alerting me to the subject of ADHD, guiding my reading on the topic, and giving me unstinting advice throughout the writing process. Any errors are entirely my own.
For allowing me to quote from their books, which were invaluable in researching this novel, I would like to thank Matthew Smith (Hyperactive: The Controversial History of ADHD), Sami Timimi, (Naughty Boys: Anti-Social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture), Steven Rose (The 21st Century Brain: Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind) and Harriet Sergeant (Among the Hoods: My Years with a Teenage Gang ). Reading the Riots: Investigating England’s Summer of Disorder, edited by Dan Roberts, was also an important source.
I would like to thank the former staff of the now defunct Camden Mentoring Plus, and also Darren, who taught me far more than I taught him. Thank you also to First Story, for my placement in a south London school.
I owe particular thanks and gratitude to Rebecca McNally at Bloomsbury, and also to Emma Bradshaw, Laura Brooke and Emily Sweet.
Thanks also to Richard Sved and John and Susan Sutcliffe, and to my god-daughter, Esther McRae, for providing a 24-hour dialogue consultancy by text message service.
Above all, for more than I could ever explain, thank you, Maggie O’Farrell.
Sources
Extract on page 238 from James Davies, Cracked: Why Psychiatry Is Doing More Harm Than Good, 2013, reproduced with kind permission of Icon Books Ltd
Extract on page 86 from Disability Living Allowance recipients by main disabling condition, Department for Work and Pensions, May 2010
Extract on page 211 from ‘Side-effects for Ritalin listed as ‘common’ or ‘very common’’, electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC), 2015
Extract on page 177 from Bronwen Hruska interviewed by Jasmine Elist, LA Times, 9/10/2012
Extract on page 79 reprinted from Neuroscience, 3/2, M. Lader, ‘Benzodiazepines—the opium of the masses?’ pages 159–165, copyright 1978, with permission from Elsevier
Extract on page 226 from P. Lichtenstein, L. Halldner, J. Zetterqvist, A. Sjölander, E. Serlachius, S. Fazel, N. Långström, H. Larsson, ‘Medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and criminality’, New England Journal of Medicine, 2012; 367:2006-2014
Extract on page 164 from Rose Steven P R. ‘Neurogenetic determinism and the new euphenics’ BMJ 1998; 317:1707
Extracts on page 3, 35, 52, 57, 65 and 70 from Steven Rose, The 21st Century Brain, 2006, Jonathan Cape of Vintage Books, reproduced with permission of The Random House Group Ltd
Extract on page 99 from Among the Hoods by Harriet Sergeant reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of Harriet Sergeant
Extracts on page 19, 25, 31, 42, 47, 107, 112, 119, 141, 148 and 231 from Matthew Smith, Hyperactive: The Controversial History of ADHD, 2012, Reaktion Books, London
Extract on page 93 from Sami Timimi, Naughty Boys: Anti-Social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture, 2005, quoting Jeanne Lenzer, ‘Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness’ BMJ 2004; 328:1458 reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan
Extracts on page 109, 130 and 137 from Sami Timimi, Naughty Boys: Anti-Social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture, 2005, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permissions granted to reproduce the third party copyright materials contained in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their written permission for the use of copyright material. The author and publisher apologise for any errors or omissions in the copyright acknowledgements contained in this book, and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
A Note on the Author
William Sutcliffe was born in London in 1971. He is the author of six previous novels: the international bestseller Are You Experienced; The Love Hexagon; New Boy; Bad Influence; Whatever Makes You Happy and, most recently, The Wall, his first novel for young adults, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Edinburgh.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
New Boy
Are You Experienced?
The Love Hexagon
Bad Influence
Whatever Makes You Happy
The Wall
FOR CHILDREN
Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom
Circus of Thieves on the Rampage
Praise for THE WALL
‘Subtly but powerfully, The Wall melds the private pain of grief and adolescence with a wider, tragic conflict. A bold and important novel. Whatever your views of Israel and Palestine, reading The Wall – a moving portrait of private pain and tragic conflict – will make you think again’
A.D. Miller (author of Snowdrops)
‘It is a work with a lot of backbone, story-writing skill, verve and integrity. A novel that is about justice and peace, and against colonialism and war . . . a great achievement’
Raja Shehadeh
‘A disturbing and thought-provoking book which simmers with heat, anger and fear’
Independent on Sunday
‘A novel for all ages that is full of heart, hope and humanity. A terrific achievement’
Financial Times
‘Startling and captivating . . . This is not a novel of woolly moral equivalencies or easy solutions, but one that believes in empathy and redemption – and gives them a powerful heart’
Guardian
‘Deeply thought-provoking and a story heart-rendingly told’
We Love This Book
‘Sutcliffe has an acute ear for dialogue, and the family conflicts are convincingly evoked . . . An impressive piece of fiction – for adult or young readers’
Times Literary Supplement
‘The Wall is a powerful work that offers thrills while raising questions that any compassionate reader will find poignant and extremely emotive’
South China Morning Post
‘This is a heartfelt plea for understanding and dialogue’
Literary Review
‘In The Wall, Sutcliffe successfully creates a world which is part parable, part classic children’s tale’
Scotland on Sunday
‘Overwhelming foreboding . . . beautifully crafted . . .A powerful read’
Stylist
‘A fascinating novel’
Teen Titles
‘The Wall succeeds in making the political personal’
Books for Keeps
First published in Great Britain in August 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 B
edford Square, London WC1B 3DP
This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury is a trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © William Sutcliffe 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square
London
WC1B 3DP
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4088 6625 2
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters.
Concentr8 Page 19
