‘What sort of stuff?’
He shrugged. ‘CDs, computer games, watches.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Maybe.’ Automatic caution.
I stared at Luke. ‘Listen, Luke…’
‘OK,’ he said. I didn’t need to finish my little speech about complete honesty. Luke recognised his mistake.
‘Yeah, he could get most things – dope, E, whizz.’
‘For you?’
‘Sometimes, for parties, not on a regular basis. Well, only dope as a regular thing.’
‘Did you all smoke dope?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And the rest? Whizz, E?’
‘Yeah, the weekend or parties like I said. Everyone does it, it’s not a problem.’
I nodded. ‘OK, so Joey D was there. Who else?’
‘Zeb, Ahktar’s cousin, and Emma.’
‘He’s at school with you?’
He smiled briefly. ‘No, he’s older, he works for his brother Janghir. They all call him Jay. Clothing business. They’ve a place up Cheetham Hill.’
‘And when you got inside, what did you do?’
He thought about it. ‘We went to the big room downstairs. We had a drink. We had a dance. It was livening up. Zeb had brought Ahktar this jacket he’d been after for ages. Canadian import, can’t get them here. Really nice jacket, silk and microfibre, black and yellow. Weighs nothing, really warm. They use them up in the Arctic. Anyway Zeb has one and Ahktar had paid him cash upfront back in the summer. It was getting hot but Ahktar, he won’t take this jacket off.’ He smiled. ‘Everyone-took a tab. Everyone was dancing.’
‘Who did you get it from?’
‘Joey. He’d gone off to sort it soon as we got in there.’
‘Go on.’
‘That’s it. There was lots of stuff going round – pills, some heavy dope. Everyone was trying it all.’
‘Including you?’
He nodded. ‘I can’t remember anything else, not till…after. Someone said they were going to turn the sprinklers on at midnight, cool everyone down for New Year but I think that was just a rumour.’
‘Do you remember leaving the club?’
‘No.’
‘Do you remember anything outside the club?’
‘I’ve tried, there’s nothing.’
‘Do you remember going to the police station?’
He studied his hands. ‘No. The next thing I knew I was waking up, I was cold, I was shaking. There was blood all over my T-shirt and my hands. I thought I’d had a nosebleed.’ He looked at me. ‘It wasn’t my blood, it was Ahktar’s. They asked me all these questions then. I couldn’t tell them anything. They just kept on about Ahktar, what had we argued about? I couldn’t remember anything. In the end, I lost it. I shouted at him: “I can’t fucking remember! Why don’t you ask Ahktar?” One of them stared at me, hard. “We can’t,” he said, “he’s dead.”
