On a Saturday morning in late August, Scott is awoken by loud and insistent knocking on his door. Opening his eyes wide, he sees the enormous figure of big, blonde Sheila. She's now bending right over him. A sense of sudden fear. Sheila is shouting loudly. A panic-stricken look engraved on her face. Hardly time for Scott to sit up straight. Sheila’s large, wrestlers' arms are now forcibly dragging a weary Scott clear of his futon bed ... As he tries to pull a tee-shirt over his sleepy head, sitting on the floor, all he can get out of Sheila is,
“Patricia! ... Patricia!” ... Sheila is intent on getting Scott moving. She yanks up the zip on his brown jeans and his cock gets caught, throwing both into seperate panic attacks ...

Calming down, walking slowly behind her up the rickety stairs. Seven Milner Square isn't on fire. Can’t smell smoke. Gangsters aren't at the front door blazing away with machine guns. No sign of a police raid or sniffer dogs. Sheila's rear is actually scary, muses Scott, climbing up behind her. That is for sure. Sheila stops short. Hesitates. Doesn't want to go into Patricia’s flat. Turns and looks desperately at Scott. Eyes pleading for some kind of help. Scott not waiting for any explanations as Sheila is beyond communication. Pushing through the door. The curtains are still drawn, though the sun is peeping through. Scott’s clock downstairs was reading seven forty-five.

The large bed in the middle of the room. The scene of so much action in recent times. Patricia is on her back with her head propped up against a purple pillow at the headboard. Her head is at a strange angle, giving Scott the peculiar thought of a retail store mannikin. Her bare legs are stretched out in front of her. She’s stark naked. Nothing unusual in that. By the side of her bed is a black varnished table and on it Scott can spy the tell-tale accoutrements of an evening of debauchery: a pipe, brown-stained silver paper wrapper, two disposable lighters, neither of which work when Scott tries them. Everything has its own smell. Even tasteless vodka has a certain odour to it. Scott can sense and smell heroin. The most dangerous of all drugs because it is so attractive, compelling, and so totally addictive … Patricia’s half-open lips seem to have a trace of dark brown film on them … Scott knows instinctively that Patricia is dead, but he grasps her plump, right wrist and searches for a pulse all the same. Hard to tell, but nothing. No sign of life. Scott closes her eyes as a mark of respect. Big, blonde Sheila is hopping in and out of the doorway in anguished fashion. She's obviously never seen a dead body before. It can be an awful shock the first time, as Scott once found out to his cost as a fourteen-year-old boy … All the boy scout badges in the world don’t fully prepare you for something like that ...

It seems quite clear that Patricia is dead from a heroin overdose. Pure 'horse' can kill anybody. She's twenty-eight. Too young to die. Hard to start talking about someone in the past tense when you are still looking at their naked dead body …
“Check her heart, Scott! Check her heartbeat!” screams an increasingly hysterical Big Sheila.
“She’s only in a deep sleep from that smoke, that’s all. Go on, do it!”

Scott taking the plunge and laying his head on Patricia’s dead chest. Putting his left ear to where her heart should be beneath the spreading folds of fat. Nothing. Dead as a dodo.
“I’m sorry, Sheila, but Patricia is dead. There's no other way to put it.” Sheila plunges into tears. Retreating out onto the squat stairs as if the sight of the naked dead body might contaminate her ...Guilt explodes in a babble of uncontrollable words.
“I stayed out. I slept with Helen the barmaid from the Island Queen pub. I knew Patricia would be angry. She could be a jealous bitch. Her house. If only I’d given her a kiss before dying. It's all my fault! If I’d been here I could have saved her. I’m to blame!” … She’s crying hard at her own perceived guilt.
“It’s not your fault. Don’t crucify yourself over it.” ... Big, blonde Sheila is not an easy person to console. Like trying to offer sympathy to a big, blonde giant Valkyrie, or giantess.
“Tomorrow is promised to no one, remember.” Scott cursing himself for the glib cliche as the words escape his lips …

Well, Patricia is dead and there are no two ways about it ...Sheila’s sat on the floor straddling the doorway, completely crestfallen. No point in asking Sheila to call the police. Scott decides to go out to the nearest red telephone box in Upper Street and dial nine-nine-nine and report Patricia’s death. Rush back and pack a bag of his own belongings and put them in the boot of the Cortina. Important to take the writings of The Children of the Empire with him, and Albert Camus’ The Plague. Make sure his room is clean and drug free just in case. The police can always turn nasty with a snap of the fingers. Debating whether to get rid of the signs of Patricia smoking heroin. The pipe, the silver foil. Hell, knowing her, she's probably got drugs stashed all over the flat. Best leave it as it is ... Looking in on American Al on the way out to the telephone box. His room is totally empty. Everything removed. He’s checked out. Francois on the ground floor moved out just this Monday. Doubtless to celebrate his newfound wealth from his recent position as manager at the antique emporium in Knightsbridge, working for the rich Indian moguls. He’s taken a small flat in Camden Town.
“Nothing too expensive, Old Chap.” He gave Scott his new address. It's on Pratt Street, right by that impressive-looking, All Saint’s Greek Orthodox church.

Better to be well out of the way when the Filth arrives. Saves answering questions. Simply go to work early and tell big, blonde Sheila to do likewise. Scott can always go to the local Islington police station and make a statement later. That’s it. Just go to work right now … Dropping in on Elgin Avenue after filling up the Cortina with petrol and having a quick swim at Ironmonger Row baths. Wanting to get the touch and feel of Patricia’s dead body off the skin. But even after a swim and a shower it still remains. The lingering thought of death that hangs on ... Having to wake Ricky up and collecting a spaced-out young Angie ... They sit in wicker basket chairs and drink black coffee with Earth Mother Martha. She just happened to come wandering in with some strawberry flan left over from yesterday at the Soul Kitchen.

Scott doesn’t say why he's earlier than usual. It pays sometimes to keep your cards close to your chest. Avoid the temptation of blurting out bad news, which a lot of human beings are prone to do. He just simply says that he has to leave Seven Milner Square straight away. No sooner are the words out of his mouth than both Ricky and frizzy-haired Martha say there is a room for him at Elgin Avenue. In the house where Vanessa and young Tuesday are squatting. In fact, right next to them. They’ve both been asking after Scott. Would seem a perfect fit according to Ricky who’s got strawberry flan all around his mouth ...

Scott's already decided, over his black coffee and Ricky’s joint doing the rounds, to go back to Milner Square tonight. Collect all of his necessary possessions, load them into the Cortina, clear out altogether. Head over to Elgin Avenue and move into the spare room next to Vanessa and Tuesday. Nothing for it. Just have to get used to waking up and washing down in cold water every morning. Like the days at Summer Scout Camp when ‘Boss’ tried to toughen them all up. Feeling a bit guilty about leaving Sheila. But heh, she was Patricia’s lover. She was living there. She spent last night with that barmaid, Helen, from the Island Queen, so she has a perfect alibi if the police start nosing around and getting suspicious, the way that they often do. Hippies squatting, drugs, lesbians, drifters, undesirables everywhere you look. They could have a field day if they were interested. Scott's right to get out. And what had happened to American Al? ... Christ! Must stop thinking about it. Hand a spliff to young Angie and see if you can somehow get her fully awake. The few clothes she is wearing are barely doing the job and she has a glazed look in her eyes all the time. Not getting enough sleep. Too many drugs and too much fucking. Still, when she's fully awake and active she looks fantastic on it.

It’s a rare day that Scott blanks, but this Saturday seems a time of change and unmitigated disaster for him. Just can’t shift the sight of Patricia’s plump, dead body out of his head. Just in her birthday suit with her head propped up at that strange angle. And big, blonde Sheila who has always seemed so powerful and quite daunting, falling apart like that. Just goes to show, you never can tell. The cliches are abounding today. Death can have that effect upon you. Like Scott, you think you are handling it well, but you never fully see yourself ... Only Bill Hannah with that easy, boyish manner of his, below all that wild hair, manages to produce anything for the day. He sells The Audience and Mask of Apollo as a pair. His three and a half points are all the crew have to show for a Saturday afternoon's work at the tail end of August.

Getting back to Milner Square just after nine o’clock. Having had to do the pay-in at The Souk in Kensington Place, close by the Kensington Garden Hotel on Kensington High Street. After eighteen glorious weeks in succession, Scott’s crew figure has dipped this week to just sixty points. Suddenly Ali isn’t that friendly, Christophe seems even more distant and menacing than usual if that’s possible. Even Dom takes the money for Bill Hannah’s three and a half points and moves Scott on quickly. Nicky is there, sat right next to Ali. He just smiles, the Prince in Waiting. Funny, all that good work over a long period of time and Scott has one slightly substandard performance and the people he’s working for show their true colours and what they really think of him, by treating him almost like dirt. He wasn't offered a cup of coffee, a glass of wine or anything to eat. Just moved on pronto without any encouraging words and out of the restaurant door …

A dishevelled Sheila is waiting for Scott at Seven Milner Square, she's visibly mortified ... Sitting her down on the futon, making her a soothing cup of tea, rolling a strong spliff for her - trying to ease her pain. The police eventually arrived with the emergency services. They didn't seem overly concerned. Simply treating Patricia’s death as an open and shut case of a drug overdose. They were very sniffy, Sheila says, about squatters and drug taking. One of the young constables launched into an invective about Elgin Avenue. How it shouldn’t be allowed. Political activists undermining the likes of the city’s youth. Elgin Avenue is fast becoming notorious. A byword for evil and corruption. All tarred with the same 'undesirables' brush. Hippies and freaks getting their just desserts. And Scott's moving in there!

The police showed little interest according to Sheila. They don’t want to even interview Scott. Sheila’s statement was apparently enough. She lied to the police and told them she spent the night at her mother's, in Bermondsey, who has been ill of late. Protecting barmaid Helen from any repercussions ... how she'd arrived back at Seven Milner Square early on Saturday morning to find Patricia dead. Sheila having to explain to the unsympathetic officers that Patricia and she were in a relationship. Sheila just blurted it out through mounting tears.
“We were lovers, Constable.” That was enough to send them on their way. The police left stomping down the rickety stairs at Milner Square. Sheila could hear their unrestrained voices quite clearly. They were grumbling about illegal squatters, all these druggies and now bloody lesbians everywhere What next? Black Panther terrorists setting up shop in Upper Street, Islington?

Funny how you can know someone casually for a while and have a kind of impression of them. But then discover that you really don’t know them at all. Take Sheila for example. She’s a big, blonde girl with the build of an all-in wrestler. She is quite clearly beloved by other women. You could say ‘A woman’s kind of woman’ in a certain sense. She’s been working of late in a sandwich bar on Upper Street. Scott formed the opinion that Sheila seemed like a candidate for a man hater and none too bright with it. Yet here she is under this recent shadow of Patricia’s death, opening up to Scott. Revealing her inner emotions. Her hopes and fears. She’s telling Scott the whole story of how she first met Patricia. She was picked up by her in a gay club that opened last year in Belsize Park, ‘The Witches’ Rendezvous’. No getting away from the agenda of that name ...

Sheila on her second cup of tea, Scott has rolled another spliff. Sometimes in moments of emotional stress, people, just need to let it all out. Scott’s interested. Pleased he can be of some help. Anything after that cool reception he received at the Souk Restaurant earlier this evening. Just relieved the police haven't shown any great interest. Probably too busy dealing with the crime wave that’s been sweeping the city this year. Gangs disputing territories. Turf wars. Violence spilling over into the city’s populace. Newspaper reporters and politicians threatened. Protection rackets dominate Soho with a corrupt police force on the take. The competing gangs trying to muscle in on the drugs trade. Dead bodies disappearing in concrete on new motorway constructions. Why worry about one dead, fat girl who’s died of a heroin overdose? She’s a squatter, with no family to speak of. Seems straight-forward. Unfortunate. Move on …

Sheila relating how Patricia must have spoken to Scott about her Greek shipping tycoon. How, on many occasions this year, Patricia would stay late in the office building on Thomas More Street. She’d developed the habit of writing up her shorthand notes in advance of another day’s work. For all of her night-time escapades as a Vampira and sexual predator, during the day she was totally switched-on, conscientious and alert, often staying late in the office well past eight o’clock of an evening. As she was apt to tell Sheila and Scott and most probably American Al too, when she was drunk or smashed - usually both. She would leave her office door slightly ajar. Not enough to be really noticed. She would then listen to many conversations she shouldn't have been a party to. Her other trick was to turn off the main office overhead light and just work off a small lamp, until the long, light evenings started to appear in May.

All that she'd heard during the day, was blabbed out to Sheila. How, for a long time, she had suspected her Greek shipping magnate of political involvement and chicanery with the Americans. How else could you explain all of these contracts, sure, he has a huge shipping fleet, but there are others just as large. Landing some contracts ahead of American companies tendering for the same jobs was the real giveaway. Her boss, the Greek shipping tycoon, just had to be working for the CIA. Using his ships for the transportation of weapons and armaments, secretly supplied by the CIA for the benefit of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, in their battle to overthrow the government in Cambodia. Patricia was really out of it on Charley one night and started going on to Sheila about how she’d overheard a conversation between her Greek shipping tycoon and two Americans who she took to be CIA agents. They were discussing the possible assassination of the Prime Minister of Cambodia. Disguised trading ships making their way up the Mekong River to Phnom Penh. A secret armed force dressed as mercenaries hidden aboard the trading vessels. The strategic value of Cambodia to America, as perceived by the CIA, in the never-ending war in Vietnam. Patricia’s Greek tycoon is organizing the shipments of weapons, bombs and supplies in some of his ships. Flying under different flags of convenience to get through and deliver to the Khmer Rouge army ...

Then, of course, Sheila reminds Scott, there were all the times that Patricia had to travel to the Greek tycoon's shipping offices in Athens and New York. A week spent on his luxury yacht moored off the South of France last summer. All the comings and goings. Strange visitors. The hint of shady dealings behind a rich and glamorous facade. Even a former First Lady could be spied putting in an appearance on the yacht and everthing became deluged by the arrival of the world’s paparazzi ... According to Sheila, what Patricia saw and heard was nobody’s business. But, of course, with a phrase like that it should have been business that was kept secret. Patricia must have become like the young child in a room of grown-ups at night. Something Scott was very good at as a boy. Keeping quiet. Still. Not fidgeting. Not endlessly asking for things, demanding attention or going to the toilet all the time. Suddenly, come eleven o’clock at night, a parent will exclaim,
“You should have been in bed hours ago, my lad!” Everybody had forgotten all about him. Failed to register his presence; and he listened to all the gossip, tittle-tattle, the murky dealings, the dirty stories, the business ventures, the strange happenings, the love affairs, the potted histories and old memories rehashed afresh for an evenings’ consumption ...

Patricia was such a professional when she worked. Never drank or touched drugs and would only have a crafty cigarette in a toilet, where no-one could see her. Like Scott the boy, the Greek tycoon must have forgotten Patricia was there half the time. She just sat quietly in a corner taking shorthand notes all the while. Patricia told Sheila she kept all of her shorthand notebooks locked in a small safe in her office. The Greek shipping magnate is apparently very fond of having a lot of safes around. Gives an indication of a state of mind ... Patricia’s death has drawn Sheila and Scott close together. The most unlikely of friends. She's overwhelmed by Patricia’s sudden demise and Scott finds that very touching …

There are notebooks containing reams of shorthand full of highly sensitive information. You don’t get to be one of the world’s richest businessmen without being a power broker. A hot player in schemes and machinations. It has crossed Scott’s mind as Sheila talks on, spilling out her lost love that she’s only just realized, Tricky Dicky, the American President, Richard Nixon, has an election coming up in November next year. Shazam! Scott just knows what happened. Tingling from head to toe. Rolling a fresh joint. Fingers trembling. What was it American Al called them? Yes ... Doobies! American Al’s appearance was so convenient. The way he suddenly appeared and ingratiated himself into Seven Milner Square within hours. Never spoke to Francois, just nodded a hello if their paths crossed at the front door. Steered well clear of big, blonde Sheila. Only one time with Scott, when he invited him into his room in the early stages. After that, nothing. Scott hasn't seen him for weeks. He doesn’t think they’ve spoken in the last two months. But Patricia, well, American Al just couldn't leave her alone. What a perfect cover, an American Army deserter from Vietnam. Even grew long hair and a beard. Come to think of it, American Al’s hair wasn't really that long. Certainly not compared to someone like, say, Bill Hannah, and his wild, bushy mop. All that time spent with Patricia. Gradually introducing heroin. It's so easy to do. Patricia gives you money and you go out to score some Charley. Remember, Scott is never around until after twelve o’clock at night. Most Sundays he’s somewhere else. You return with the Charley and oh my God the dealer has given you a paper wrap of heroin by mistake. Disappointment etched all over plump Patricia's face, American Al making the best of it. Setting up a smoke for himself. Patricia watches. Longing for the Charlie that never came. Without much prompting, she tries a smoke of horse and discovers what millions have found out before her. That in the initial stages it is the perfect drug. Heroin is king. Cocaine may smell fantastic and be the champagne of drugs, but heroin takes you places where no other drugs can go. Patricia says she likes it. She's surprised. American Al is only too happy to oblige. Of course, as everyone says at first, she hates needles and would never inject it. In Patricia’s case that may have well held true. But like those millions before her, she would have got there in the end …

Scott is careful not to speak to Sheila about his sudden revelation about the death of Patricia, which he now knows to have been murder. She’s upset enough as it is. To Scott, it’s like Patricia’s shocking death has put Sheila in touch with her emotions for the first time in her life ... Patricia never smoked heroin before. She like cocaine and Scott knows full well she liked to smoke dope. Do a little speed to keep her awake. She, like most people, was really hooked on sex and booze. Her continual lust for endless sex of all kinds drove her to every kind of excess. Until, come the night-time, she just didn’t care what she did. Everything to satisfy her sexual cravings. Who supplied her with the heroin? It had to be American Al. Scott, often slow on the uptake when the obvious is staring him right in the face, has finally worked out that American Al is really a CIA agent working undercover. Incognito bastards ... Who knows just how many people from all over the world this shadowy and politically-manipulated organization have eliminated since their formation in nineteen forty-seven …
“What’s more …” Sheila dropping her voice to a whisper the way that conspiratorial folk do …
‘They'll know that Patricia will have shared a lot of dangerous material with us, Scott. She was never one to keep a secret when she’d had a drink or three, was she!” Sheila laughs with affection tinged with fear. She seems to be heading the same way as Scott with her thoughts ... He lights another spliff …
”Why, I bet she told that American deserter fella, Al, just about everything when she'd had a smoke. She started seeing a lot of him from the end of June. They became as thick as thieves …” Sheila’s voice trails away ...

It’s getting late, deep into the night. Scott has a busy Sunday ahead of him. Sheila has decided she’s getting out. The property development company will soon hear of Patricia’s death and come round to board up the windows and padlock the doors of Seven Milner Square, before any new squatters take up residence ... A girl at the sandwich bar offered to put Sheila up when she dropped by this Saturday afternoon to explain her absence. Sheila’s leaving in the morning and she tells Scott to do the same if he’s got any sense ... Scott promises to drop into the sandwich bar on Monday morning to keep in touch …

Somebody tells you something pretty far-fetched, way out, yet you just know it to be true. Suddenly the puzzle is no longer a mystery. Jigsaw pieces flying into place. A dead body also has the effect of producing sharp-edged reasoning. How you always look at the dead eyes of a corpse to see if there is a glimmer of light. Human beings have been doing that for a couple of million years or more …

Sunday morning. Martha at the Soul Kitchen has asked the Dude who delivers her supplies, John, if he will drop by at twelve o’clock with this thirty hundredweight Commer van to help Scott move some things out of Milner Square. People can be so friendly and thoughtful sometimes. When Scott gets to his new room he finds long-haired Vanessa in the process of painting the walls green. A sort of welcoming present. She must have looked at Scott’s bottle-green corduroy jacket and reasoned ‘he likes green’. Young Tuesday has some of her crayon drawings of matchstick people and animals, ready to go up on the walls ...

Scott thanks Dude John for his help. It wasn't that much to collect. The futon and the mattress, the old fragile table and chair, the record player, the odd belongings and that was it. No point in taking the cooker. Scott can eat at Martha’s Soul Kitchen if he wants to. Vanessa and Young Tuesday have a gaz cooker. They want Scott to eat with them. So pleasant to be asked and have choices. Makes you feel wanted … Scott is pleased about the futon decision. If he'd left that behind he could never again have looked Francois properly in the face eye ... Time flashing by. Things get lost.

Scott would so like to go to the cinema and see The Go-Between which has just been released. Directed by Joseph Losey with Julie Christie and Alan Bates, taken from a novel by L.P. Hartley. Another one just out is The Devils. Would really love to see that. Directed by enfant terrible Ken Russell, pairing-up Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed, from Aldous Huxley’s famous The Devils of Loudon. There’s an art exhibition at the Marjorie Parr Gallery in the Kings Road. Nineteenth century Chelsea Art. Greaves, Whistler, Roussel. It finishes at the end of August, but the gallery isn't open on Sundays.

Burly Sheila seemed better when Scott dropped by the sandwich bar on Monday morning. She'd just been allowed to use the work telephone and had rung the Greek shipping company office in Thomas More Street to inform them of Patricia’s death. She’s also going to write to the only relative that Patricia seemed to have left. A great-aunt living in Stroud in Gloucestershire. Scott promised to drop by again soon. They are now connected by the sight of Patricia’s dead naked body lying stretched out. Head propped up at a strange angle …

Sheila was full of news when Scott visited again later in the week. Over his cup of coffee, sat at the counter of the sandwich bar, she said that Patricia’s company telephoned her at the sandwich bar yesterday, Wednesday. They’d asked for a contact number. A man introduced himself as Constantine Vandis. A Personal Assistant to the Greek shipping tycoon who shall remain nameless. If he can conspire to have Patricia, his own secretary killed, then his fleshy Greek tentacles can probably reach everywhere. Even the Children of the Empire aren't safe … The news has pleased Sheila, she doesn’t fully comprehend. Constantine Vandis and the company are taking care of everything. They are paying for the funeral. Have been in touch with the hospital and organized the funeral directors. They’re purchasing a plot in Highgate Cemetery. Scott wasn't aware there was any vacant burial ground left in the resting-place of Karl Marx. The company are going to commemorate Patricia’s life with a special headstone. Constantine Vandis will say some words on behalf of the Greek shipping company at the funeral. She was such a well-respected and much-loved member of the company.Unfortunately, the Greek shipping tycoon will not be able to attend. Urgent business in the New York office has necessitated his absence. But he will pay for everything and Patricia will have a tree planted for her at the family home outside Athens.

Sheila is so happy. To Scott, it all convinces further that Patricia was murdered …