The officer did as he was told but couldn't resist getting a sly dig in whilst I was being released.
'If your fingerprints are found on any of the stolen things then you'll be straight back here before your feet can touch the ground,' he sneered.
This was a pretty stupid thing to say because I had been wearing rubber gloves, which meant the cards would still be print-free if I had taken them. Nevertheless the fact that he was so convinced I was guilty really got to me. Had I sunk to the level where people thought that I would steal from dear old biddies? I hung my head in shame as I left the station. The police had succeeded in making me feel as if I was the lowest of the low.
I was taken back to work by another equally jumped-up copper, who tried to slyly pick my brains during the journey.
'Who do you know in Aylesbury then?' he asked. But what he really meant was, 'Who do you know in Aylesbury who's a criminal?'
'I don't hang around with crooks if that's what you want to know,' I said. 'I'm in enough trouble as it is in Spain without involving myself in anything like that over here.'
The officer carried on trying to subtly trip me up but it was all to no avail. The minute we pulled up at the cleaning office, I thanked him for the lift and hopped out of the car. I was glad to finally be free of interrogation. It had been a very long and tiring day.
I was half-expecting my boss to fire me but he knew I wasn't the type of person who would steal from the home. He was just pissed off because he wasn't going to be paid for the work that I had done. I was relieved to have been given the benefit of the doubt but annoyed that we had both lost out on wages.
Rather than heading home straightaway, I called in at my mum's house first because I was still in a state of shock and needed a shoulder to cry on. Mum was more upset than me. She was unable to get her head around the fact that I had been accused of depriving old dears of their pension money. One of the reasons I was so worked up was that I couldn't believe that anybody could steal from vulnerable, elderly people. It was something I would never even contemplate.
Two days later, a woman was arrested for trying to use the credit cards at a garage in High Wycombe. Did I get an apology from the police for being hauled into the station and treated like the scum of the earth? Well, I think you can guess the answer to that one. I hoped they felt ashamed but knew deep down that people who are that pigheaded never admit to being in the wrong. Nevertheless justice had been served and the filth that stitched me up was now heading to jail.
The capture of the thief should have provided me with a sense of closure but I still didn't know exactly what had happened. I only had the name of the culprit to go on, which left me wondering whether she was a worker at the home or just a passing opportunist looking to make a buck. It angered me to think that some of the employees might have tried to pin the blame on me deliberately. They probably thought, 'Oh, this girl's never been here before. We'll get her into trouble and make some money whilst we're at it.' The thought of the staff at the home conspiring against me made me even more depressed. They say God only throws at you what you can handle but I was sure that one more unpleasant episode would finish me off for good. I contemplated moving back in with my mum because I didn't fancy spending another night on the couch where I had been sleeping every night since the raid, in case the police burst into my room again. The problem was that I would have had to cut down on the drugs. I couldn't have Mum finding out that I was shovelling amphetamine down my throat like it was going out of style. No, I would just have to soldier on and stick it out at my house. It wasn't as if I was spending all my time at home; I was out most nights at the parties anyway.
Even though the base now sent me paranoid, the raves were still the only thing I had to look forward to. They were full of people who were just as off their heads as me, which provided me with a false sense of assurance that I had everything under control. Some of other ravers were actually more off their heads. One lad in particular fell firmly into this category. His name was Bruce and he liked smoking crack. Unfortunately this was something that I remained blissfully unaware of until it was too late.
I was always wary of crack users. The problem was that it was impossible to tell who was on it and who was high on other things. Ravers tend to be quite skinny because they usually take a lot of Ecstasy. Any one of them could pass for a crackhead. For all intents and purposes, Bruce was just your average, run-of-the-mill partygoer. I had no idea that he was a slave to one of the most addictive substances on earth; it never even entered my mind.
I nearly missed out on the party where our paths first crossed. I was part way through the journey there when I got word that the coppers had turned up to try and shut down the rave.
'Stop the car,' I told my friend, the fear of ending up in another police cell almost paralysing me.
We pulled up at the edge of Royston, the small town in rural Hertfordshire where the party was being held. There was no way I was going to move until the cops had buggered off. As I waited for somebody to phone and let me know the coast was clear, a wave of fear and anxiety surged throughout my body. The panic grew progressively worse until my brain was unable to cope. The branches of a nearby tree began to morph themselves into the shape of sinister-looking fairies and cackling witches' faces. I was cracking up big time.
By this stage I was used to being pushed over the edge by paranoia and didn't see random hallucinations as anything particularly shocking. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a very pleasant experience but I knew that I just had to ride it out. My friend didn't seem to mind sitting in the car with me. She took a lot of drugs herself so I think that she was probably in a similar state. If the men in white coats had knocked on my car door that night, they would have definitely taken us away. We remained rooted to the spot for the next nine hours, afraid to move an inch in case we somehow caught the attention of the Old Bill. I think if either of us had actually seen a copper during this period, we would probably both have had heart attacks.
By the time we finally managed to pry ourselves out of the car, it was eight o'clock in the morning and the sun was coming up. I was exhausted and had cramp in both my legs but still wanted to go to the rave. It had been a long and terrifying night and I felt as if I had earned the right to have a bit of a dance to end things on a happy note.
The minute I arrived at the rave, I started to feel myself again. Being around other people helped to calm me down and stopped me tripping out. I was soon dancing away without a care in the world. It was as if nothing had ever happened, which shows how scarily commonplace losing my marbles had become. Being paralysed with fear was no longer something that left me thinking, 'What have I done to myself?' It was now just one of those things.
As I gyrated my body to the beat, I noticed one of the other ravers staring across at me from the other side of the room. He was tall, dark-haired and had a cocky look to him, which is something that I like in men. I don't know why, but I have always had a soft spot for blokes who come across as very sure of themselves. I wondered if he was looking at me because he fancied me but didn't get chance to find out because one minute he was there, the next thing he was gone, caught up in the swaying mass of bodies. I carried on dancing the night away without giving a second thought to this mysterious, tall, dark stranger. It was only after he cropped up at the next couple of raves that I decided to say hello.
I have always been a bit of a cheeky character and have no problem talking to people I don't know. I can't remember how I first struck up a conversation with Bruce, but do remember flirting outrageously. He was very confident and I'm not exactly the shy retiring type myself so we had a lot in common personality-wise.
'I'll see you at the party next week,' I told him as we eventually parted company. He drank, he took drugs and he liked dance music so he was definitely my type.
Unfortunately Bruce's mum had other ideas. She thought that he was overdoing it and put pressure on him to give the next event a miss. This was a stroke of luck on his p
art, as it was a particularly awful rave. It was at a warehouse in a rundown, industrial area of London and all of the other ravers looked like football hooligans. The London parties tended to be quite moody. There was a lot of crack at them, which meant you had to be on your guard against people robbing you.
The indoor setting of the party made it even shadier because the ketamine-heads usually only went to outdoor raves. Irritating as they were, they helped to keep the vibe chilled out because it's impossible to cause aggro when you're falling about all over the place. They were also normally harmless, tree-hugging, hippie types, who wouldn't hurt a fly. The crowd at this rave seemed more likely to chop a tree down and club somebody to death with it than hug it. They looked like a cross between a violent mob of Millwall supporters and the cast of Trainspotting. It was one of the worst events I've been to and I was relieved when it was over. At least I had got the chance to get completely off my trolley. I then went to pick up Bruce and finish the night off with someone who didn't measure the quality of a night out by the amount of bruising on his knuckles. I was still buzzing from the base and needed somebody to natter to. He had respected his mum's wishes and sat the party out, so surely she could spare him for a couple of hours to chill out at my house.
Bruce was with a couple of his friends when I met up with him so I told him they could all come back to mine. A few of my raving buddies wanted to prolong the night so I invited them as well.
'I hope there's enough booze to go round,' I joked as I drove back to Haydon Hill.
'Don't worry,' Bruce grinned, pulling out a large bag of cocaine. 'There's always this to keep us entertained.'
I assumed that he was going to snort it. Little did I know that he was planning on cooking it into crack.
When we arrived at the house, Bruce took an empty can of Coca-Cola off the side and punched holes in the bottom. I had seen Antonio do this before. He was making a crack pipe.
'I'll be back in a bit,' he told me, heading off into the kitchen. 'I'm just going to make us all a little treat.'
For whatever reason, I was very blasé about what was happening. I figured being around a crack smoker wasn't all that bad so long as he wasn't an addict. What I failed to realise was that crack cocaine is definitely not a recreational drug. Most people who take it have a habit or are at least in the process of developing one. I should have told him to go and smoke his drugs elsewhere but I was too spaced out to think. Instead I took a seat and awaited his return.
When Bruce came back, he was holding a couple of small, white rocks of crack.
'Let's get this on the burn then,' he said, a look of craving in his eyes, as if he had been waiting for this moment all night.
He sprinkled some cigarette ash on top of the can, then laid the stones on it.
'Time to get stuck in,' he smiled, lighting the pipe and sucking in the thick, white, heavy smoke.
Everybody in the room had a puff on the can. The worrying thing was that they all seemed as if they had smoked crack before – and not just Bruce's friends, my raving buddies gave the same impression. I had known that they took drugs but had no idea they did stuff like this. It should have rung alarm bells but I just thought, 'OK, whatever.' If they wanted to take such a horribly addictive substance then it was up to them. After all, I was as high as a kite on speed so who was I to talk?
Normally people get really agitated and unpredictable after puffing on rocks but homemade crack doesn't tend to be as strong so nobody was that out of it. This made me question whether it was actually as bad as people made it out to be. My friends all looked OK. They were still exactly the same as they had been before smoking the stones. We carried on drinking and socialising until nine in the morning and then finally went to sleep. I remember thinking, 'Nothing bad's gone on. I don't see what the fuss is all about.' I had forgotten that word travels fast in Aylesbury. People cooking rocks up in my house might not have bothered me but my landlord was a little more concerned.
Bang, bang, bang!
Who was this disturbing my lie in? I got little enough sleep as it was.
Bang, bang, bang!
I dragged myself downstairs and flung open the door. It was Dora, the landlord's wife, and she didn't look best pleased.
'I've been told that you've been taking crack in my husband's property,' she confronted me.
'I most certainly have not,' I said.
By this stage I was sick to the back teeth of being accused of things I hadn't done. Looking back it probably didn't matter to her whether it was me or my friends who smoked the crack, but I was incensed that she was laying the blame on me.
'Well that's not what I've heard,' she told me.
'I couldn't care less what you've heard,' I shouted. 'I have never touched the stuff.'
I was on a comedown as per usual and didn't have the patience for her. I wanted to be left to nurse my fragile brain in peace.
A slanging match ensued and Dora slapped me hard across the face. I was shocked because she wasn't usually a violent person. With the gift of hindsight, I can see why she was so annoyed. It's illegal to let a tenant smoke drugs on your property so she was probably concerned about her husband's livelihood and angry that I was so dismissive about her accusations.
I shouldn't have been so mouthy to poor old Dora. I was a gobby little madam and probably deserved her hand across my face. We bumped into each other in Aylesbury not so long ago and I apologised for my behaviour. I said, 'I was a different person all those years ago. I don't drink or take drugs any more.' She told me she could see that just from talking to me, which shows you what a nice lady she is despite our falling out.
I was angry that I had been slapped, but fury soon converted into sadness. I knew that I would have to move out of the house and didn't want to go back to living with Mum again. It felt like taking a step backwards and besides, how could I carry on partying with a worried mother looking over my shoulder? I don't like lying to my mum and didn't fancy the idea of doing it over and over again.
The other thing that made me feel depressed was the realisation that I was going to have to quit my job because my landlord, who was also the owner of the cleaning company, thought I was smoking crack and that would make for an impossible working relationship. Cleaning was the only activity that made me feel like a productive member of society though and I was gutted that the one remaining piece of normality in my life was being stripped away.
I left it a couple of days to make the call to Dora's husband because I needed some time to prepare for giving up both my house and my job. He was surprisingly understanding when I finally steeled myself to ring him. I think he realised I was in a state and he didn't want to be too harsh. His niceness made me feel even worse about myself. I couldn't believe that I had driven such a reasonable man to send his wife round to kick off. What type of person had I become? I was destroying everything I held dear and turning everyone against me.
Now I needed to call my mum to tell her I was moving out. I was initially considering getting another place of my own but Mum insisted I come home.
'I'm so worried about you,' she said. 'You need to live with me so I can make sure you're OK.'
It was obvious things weren't going too well. I didn't want to relinquish my freedom but eventually gave in and let her persuade me to move back into my old room.
Mum was relieved to have me where she could look after me. She put my loss of weight and pale, sickly complexion down to stress about the extradition. I should have told her what was going on but knew she would go mad. Besides, she had enough to worry about as it was. No, I would have to be very secretive. She didn't need anything else on her plate.
Hiding my habit from Mum was actually pretty easy. The more drugs you take, the more deceitful you become. It's part and parcel of being an addict. Even people with serious heroin problems manage to conceal their lifestyles from their relatives. It's just a matter of thinking up the right excuses. I would disappear for days on end and tell Mum I was staying wi
th a friend. When I was up all night on whiz, I said I had insomnia. Everything fell neatly into place.
Looking back, I feel terrible for stringing her along like that. Mum would have gone mental if she had known the truth, but would have eventually calmed down and helped me to get clean. I guess I felt that I would soon be out of her hair so there was little point in owning up. Ten years is more than enough time to kick a speed habit so at least if I got sent down, it might help to straighten me out and then I could finally live an honest life without having to lie to the person I loved the most.
The more I thought about my extradition, the more depressed I got. I was jobless, on bail for smuggling a million pounds' worth of cocaine and hooked on super-strength amphetamine; it doesn't get much worse than that. I decided that my level of unhappiness had fallen well below the normal lows that addicts get from speed so it was time to seek professional medical advice before I topped myself. I booked myself an appointment with the doctor and crossed my fingers that he would be able to pick me up out of the dark abyss that I had fallen into.
Dr McCarthy had been my doctor for as long as I could remember. He used to see me as a little girl and seemed the perfect person to pour my heart out to about how bad I felt. I considered telling him about the drugs but worried that he might go to the cops. My friends had always warned me not to let on to my GP that I took whiz in case he reported it. This was ridiculous because doctors aren't allowed to disclose information about their patients, but I was still highly paranoid so I decided to limit our discussion to my depression and anxiety.
Passport To Hell: How I Survived Sadistic Prison Guards and Hardened Criminals in Spain's Toughest Prisons Page 17
