London's Calling.

I was the sanguine age of 23 when I moved the twenty three or so miles eastwards into Central London. The main reason for this was that I was working for a company at Mile End in East London which meant that every single working day I’d drive down the motorway and into London through the rush-hour traffic to get to my office for 8.30am, a journey of twenty five miles or so which took around 90 mins. Returning westwards at five 'o' clock each evening back to the far outer reaches of suburbia just beyond the M25 perimeter took 2 hours. So every weekday for the privilege of working in the big city I was spending roughly 3.5 hours in the car doing a fifty mile round trip.

At first the excitement of working in London offset the drag of the daily commute, after all I had a company jeep, company paid petrol, a great (self installed custom) car stereo and I enjoyed driving. However, pretty soon the novelty wore off and I found that those journeys began to become a great physical drain. Still living with my parents and enjoying the sizeable disposable income that the peppercorn rent I paid for my bed and board allowed me, I was loathe to make any dramatic changes, but fate and fortune were about to play their inevitable hand.

At the time my weekends consisted of drinking locally, until the pubs shut and then taking a car full of inebriated friends back into London where we’d dance all night at clubs such as the WAG club (Wardour Street, W1), which played mainly cool Soul and R&B or the Limelight (Located in an old Welsh Presbyterian Church on Shaftesbury Avenue just off Cambridge Circus) pumping out more contemporary 80’s dance and pop tunes. At around 4am we’d go for breakfast at the 24 hour Beigel Bake shop in Brick Lane or to one of the all-night cafés in and around Soho, Harry’s (19 Kingly St. W1) was a favourite, as was Rocky’s* (3 New Burlington St.) before I would drive everyone back home completely shattered and slip gratefully into a welcoming bed...quite often my own.

I had come to accept that both my working and social life seemed to revolve around Central London, so moving into the smoke finally became a priority. I calculated that what I lost in disposable income would be compensated for by the fact that my journey to the office would be much more pleasant and socially I'd be able to drink more from no longer having to drive everywhere. Helen, a friend with whom I would regularly find myself out clubbing, had already made the move up to town and she had a friend Gaynor who was also looking for permanent city central based accommodation. A colleague of Helen's knew of a place that had recently become available in Camden. Pretty soon the arrangements were made and I found myself moving in together with Gaynor to a two-bed council flat just off of the Euston Road in a quite lovely but unprepossessing little area called Somers Town.

Our tenure of this property was, however, not entirely above board; it was actually a council sub-let and the legitimate tenant from what we understood was serving some considerable time at her majesty’s pleasure. Now, not being ones to look a gift horse in the mouth and hugely impressed by the extremely cheap rent we decided that these trivial details would not deter us from enjoying our tenancy. Indeed neither would the generally run-down state of the property which would take more than just a lick of paint to put right nor the fact that the number on the door was ‘unlucky’ thirteen.

Over several weeks we started to settle in to our new abode and I found that Gaynor, a very pretty petite doe-eyed brunette around my age and from my home town, was a pleasure to live with. We started doing a few bits and pieces to make the place a little more comfortable and generally everything was going rather well. Until…one night at 3am I was awoken by someone pounding rather heavily on the door and shouting the name of the previous occupant through the letterbox. He was becoming more and more insistent despite my attempts to ignore him by putting a pillow over my head and trying to block out the sounds. Eventually, worried about him awakening the neighbours and Gaynor whose bedroom was on the other side of the living room, I dragged myself out of bed and toward the front door.

"Hello" I whispered through the front door glass "He doesn’t live here any more. Go away! Don’t you know what time it is?".

"Sorry" came the reply through the letterbox "I didn’t know that. Listen man I’m desperate! Can YOU hook me up maybe?".

"Hook you up?" I answered quizzically "With what?".

"You know... some 'aitch' " came the equally perplexing response.

"'H' what?" I said still half asleep.

“Some smack, skag, horse... 'H' ".

Suddenly my brain kicked into gear "Heroin" I said.

"Yeah dude of course. I’m hanging out here. I really need it, now! I’ll take whatever you’ve got, I’ve got the cash".

It all started to make sense; the guy that used to live at this flat was a heroin dealer. That’s why he was in prison…and that’s why we got the place so cheap.

"Sorry" I said "I haven’t got any 'H', that’s not what I do".

Eventually after some considerable effort I managed to persuade the junkie on the other side of the door that there really was no heroin inside the flat; that the previous occupant wouldn’t be back for a good length of time and that he should go elsewhere for his fix. I slunk back into bed and told Gaynor about it the next day. She’d fortunately slept through the whole episode.

I didn’t really think anymore about it until a couple of weeks later when it happened again, this time at a more reasonable hour. Having heard a knock I opened the door to what could only be described as a prostitute with pock marked ashen skin caked with make-up and a blackened tooth, in a very short skirt and halter top showing just a little too much cleavage. We went through exactly the same scenario as with the guy a couple of weeks before. She was disbelieving at first and even offered me sex if I could help her out. I of course declined her offer and had to be quite insistent before she also left the doorstep and went elsewhere.

The third time it happened it was in the early hours again and I’m not sure if it was the same guy as before or a different one because I didn’t answer the door. Again I covered my head with the pillow, trying to ignore his insistent pounding and waited until he’d gone. This was starting to become a nuisance…

A while later and Gaynor and I decided to have a ‘flat warming’ party the following weekend. We both invited several guests and were looking forward to entertaining for the first time in our new cool London pad. Around 2pm on Saturday, the day of the party, I went out to fetch some booze from the local supermarket leaving Gaynor to finish preparing party snacks and generally just getting the place ready for a party.

I got into my jeep and headed for the exit archway in the courtyard (which served as a car park for the block of flats). The courtyard was bounded by two archways either side of the square shaped block. These arches incorporated into the block were like medieval castle gatehouses, without the portcullises, through which one had to drive or walk to gain access to the street beyond. As I approached I was confronted by a man hopping up and down smack bang in the middle of the archway and clutching at his ankle as if he’d just injured it. This meant that I had to stop the jeep and wait for him to get out of my way. I duly stopped at the narrow exit and waited. At that precise moment the driver’s side door to my jeep was abrupty opened and an arm came in and removed the keys from the ignition before I even knew what was happening. The guy who, moments before, was hopping in agony and clutching his ankle had made a miraculous recovery and was also coming around towards the drivers door walking at a fair pace now. My adrenalin started pumping as the 'fight or flight' instincts took over and my initial impression was that I was being mugged for the jeep. The guy who’d faked an ankle injury was now standing at the open driver’s door with the guy who had my keys and he shoved an official looking badge, encased in embossed leather, into my face.

"Metropolitan Police Drugs Squad. Get out of the car, NOW!" he shouted.

I glanced at the badge which was no more than a millimeter from my nose. It looked authentic, but how would I know, I’d never seen one before. In the passenger door mirror, I now noticed another two guys approaching the jeep from behind. They looked like they meant business too. Well if they were mugging me then they’d certainly come mob handed! I stepped down out of the jeep and was immediately pushed against the side of the archway my hands forced aloft and my legs kicked apart, so that they could frisk me. "Ah hah" I thought "Muggers don’t frisk people".

I was told that they suspected me of being a dealer of ‘Class A’ drugs and that they had a warrant to search my premises, which they then showed me. It was in triplicate, a pink topsheet with green and blue carbon copies. They ripped off the blue copy and gave it to me to read. I was completely gob-smacked! I naturally protested my innocence and they looked at me with the skeptical eyes of men that had heard it all a million times before.

One of the ‘nice policemen’ got into the jeep, reversed it back to my parking space and started searching the interior. Meanwhile I was led back towards the flat on foot by the others. As we passed an unobtrusive dirty white transit van with mirrored back windows several more ‘nice policemen’ jumped out of the back and joined us. I now realized that the transit van had been parked there for several days and as the back windows faced our flat they must have had us under surveillance.

We reached the door to the flat, which I duly opened once my keys were returned to me. I was surrounded by eight or nine ‘nice policemen’ at this point whom I realised would be helping with the search. As we entered I was frog marched through to the lounge. Gaynor stuck her head out from the kitchen and started to greet the ‘nice policemen’ with a cheery "Hello, I’m Gaynor, how nice to meet you all!". She obviously thought that these were my party guests who had arrived early. One of the ‘nice policemen’ joined her in the kitchen and must have explained what was going on, because she emerged white faced and looking very concerned. She was ushered into her bedroom where they started to question her. All around us ‘nice policemen’ were starting to search the flat; opening cupboards and looking up the chimney all with the professional efficiency and resigned air of people who do this sort of thing every day. The ‘nice policeman’ that had stuck his badge in my face earlier took me into my bedroom to start interrogating me; it was becoming plain that he was the boss of this operation.

The first thing he asked me was if I had anything in the flat that I shouldn’t have. I replied that I did and that I would fetch it for him. I went into the lounge and reached into the basket sitting on the shelves, full of ‘extra long’ cigarette papers and an interesting little wooden container with a nice imprint of a familiar five leafed plant on it. I returned to my bedroom and opened the container in front of the ‘nice policeman’. My hands were shaking slightly, after all what I was about to hand over was still an illegal substance. I stuck my fingers into the small wooden container and pulled out a plastic bank bag of the type used for sorting coins. Inside the bag was a tiny piece of hashish the size of a pea. I handed this over to the ‘nice boss policeman’.

"I’m sorry I haven’t got more otherwise I’d skin one up!" I announced cheekily.

Inwardly I thanked my lucky stars that I didn’t have a more significant amount of marijuana in the flat at that moment because I'd actually arranged for one of my party guests to bring a quantity from my hometown to the party later. Surreptitiously I breathed a huge sigh of relief at the fortuitousness of the timing.

The ‘nice boss policeman’ was not amused. It was becoming very obvious that there were no ‘Class A’ drugs in the flat and that whatever intelligence or observation they were working on was flawed. I remained overwhelmingly polite and good tempered explaining how I came to live there; who Gaynor was and answering all the other questions I was asked honestly and openly. Gaynor’s story obviously matched mine too, as I discovered when ‘nice boss policeman’ stepped out to confer with his colleague who had been interviewing her. It was becoming increasingly certain that this young pair of middle-class ‘kids’ were not and never had been part of a major hard drugs network. The other ‘nice policemen’ started joking around and visibly relaxed as the idea that I was not the suspect they were looking for became apparent. I asked them please not to make too much of a mess because I was having a big party later. One of the ‘nice policemen’ suggested maybe he and a couple of colleagues should pop back later that night. I really hoped they were joking, knowing that within a few hours the place would be heavy with the smell of marijuana and a few of my guests might be on somewhat stronger stimulants; plus the fact that my own ‘gear’ would be delivered later too.

It felt weird to have people going through all my personal stuff with a fine-toothed comb. Personal letters were read; the stash of porn at the bottom my underwear drawer eagerly perused and even the cornflakes in the kitchen emptied into a separate bowl, sifted through, and then replaced in the packet. I felt slightly violated. It must have felt much worse for poor Gaynor.

After little more than an hour the ordeal was over. The ‘nice boss policeman’ apologised for any inconvenience caused and the rest of the ‘nice policemen’ left cheerfully still making jokes about how I might just see them later. I wasn’t going to be charged for the pathetically small amount of dope in my possession and nearly everything in the flat was back in its normal place with no damage done. Gaynor and I were left standing looking at each other in a state of shock and incredulity.

Finally, having had the chance to go and fetch the booze unmolested, the party that evening went amazingly well. Although I felt a little disconcerted that the ‘nice policemen’ might make good on their promise to return later that evening, everything proceeded without a hitch. Gaynor and I neglegted to mention to the partygoers that ‘we’d been busted’ earlier in the day for fear of spreading the unease we already so tangibly felt. There were certainly enough soft drugs on the premises now to make it worth the ‘nice policemen’s’ while returning but we were thankful that the ‘half hinted at’ raid failed to materialise.

The next day once the party was over, whilst we were cleaning up the mess and through the haze of a hangover, I had my first chance to reflect on the significant events of the previous 24 hours.

"You know what really disappoints me the most" I said to Gaynor as we filled a couple of black bin liners with empty beer cans and the contents of several ashtrays.

"No" she said "What?".

I raised an ironic eyebrow.

"They forgot to give me my 'I’ve been busted' button badge!".

* sadly no longer open