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“I was…it’s hard to explain. Can I come up?” I waited for a second and the door clicked. I pushed it open and headed straight for the lift. A woman walked into the lobby behind me, took one look at me in the lift and took a step back. I gave her a weak smile as the doors closed between us.

The lift dinged as it got to Owen’s floor. I realised my shoes were making muddy prints on the carpet just a little bit too late, and knocked on his door. When he opened it, his eyes widened.. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said as he closed the door behind me. “I think…” I hesitated for a second before continuing. “I think I got spiked. They’ve taken my wallet, house keys, phone. I don’t have any way to get home.”

“You shouldn’t want to go home,” he said. “If they have your wallet, they have your address. They have your keys to get in, they can just…” he tailed off as he saw the look of dawning horror on my face.

Crap . I genuinely hadn’t thought of that, thought much of anything.

“Can I at least use your shower?” I asked.

“Nope. C’mon.” Owen was already getting his coat on, grabbed his own keys and wallet from the side. “We’re going out.”

“I can’t go back out looking like this!” I said. Owen just ignored me. He opened the door and gestured with his head for me to follow, so I did.

“We’re taking you to A&E, and I’m calling the police on the way. You need to get checked over, and you need to give a statement.”

My mind froze up a bit then - what had started as a night out to get over the stress of Saturday working had turned into an absolute nightmare.

I was aware, but didn’t say or do anything as Owen took my arm and led me to the lift.

Out into the street. Into a crowded Tube train, where people kept as much distance as they could from me.

Off the train, and towards City of London Accident and Emergency .

I let him guide me up the steps and into a busy waiting room, and watched as he argued with the receptionist. He needn’t have bothered — the second I walked up to see if I could do anything to help, she took one look at me and called one of the nurses.

I was led to a quiet space, away from everyone else and a curtain drawn around the hospital bed.

“James.” I looked up at Owen as he said my name, but it didn’t quite register. “James, you in there?” I nodded. “James, seriously. This is Detective Inspector Butt.”

I giggled slightly at the name, and that snapped me from my stupor. “Sorry,” I said. “Hello.”

Detective Butt was a stern looking man, probably in his early forties at the latest. He looked down at me with some pity and took out a pen and pad.

“Your friend tells me you think you were spiked and robbed. Could you please tell me the whole story?”

I relayed it as best I could. Owen took a seat next to me on the bed and rubbed little circles on my back whenever I felt like I was getting overwhelmed. I finally finished the story by talking about how I’d woken up in the alleyway when PC Butt frowned.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t want to panic you, but this isn’t the first story we’ve heard like this.

We were warned by other police forces that something like this might happen.

There have been a series of spiking and mugging incidents from Swansea all the way up to Northumbria, and a couple of them have had attackers that match the description you gave. ”

“Shit.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Quite. Now, I’m going to ask a few things of you. We’ll need a sample of your urine to test for drugs - if you’ve got anything else in your system, now is the time to say. You won’t be in any trouble, it just helps us to rule out any other kind of drug causing this.”

I nodded.

“And I’m also going to ask that we take your clothes so that we can test them for DNA or blood matches. I’ll take a couple of pictures of your injuries too.”

“Injuries?” I asked. PC Butt shared a significant look with Owen, who put one arm around me.

“Let’s get you to a shower room, shall we?” Owen said. “You can pee in a cup there and get your clothes off, then if it’s OK with PC Butt we’ll get you properly cleaned up.”

I nodded, and allowed Owen and a nurse to guide me down the hallway to the nearest shower room.

It was old fashioned, with faded blue tiles and an old cream sink and porcelain shower tray.

The nurse put a small plastic jar into Owen’s hand and left.

Owen turned around to give me some privacy as I peed, then he helped me to get my jeans, shirt and jacket off.

He gently folded them on the edge of the sink.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and recoiled.

There was mud caked into my hair and dirt all over my face. I could see that my lip had split, but somehow I hadn’t felt it through the fuzziness. One side of my jaw was swollen and blue. All down my side from my armpit to my boxers there were purplish bruises that mottled my skin.

“Oh my God.” I said quietly. People had done this to me?

“Oh my God,” Owen agreed. I wasn’t sure if he thought I wouldn’t hear him, he muttered it so quietly. “I’m just going to get PC Butt. Are you sure you’re OK with him coming in to take pictures of your injuries?”

I nodded mutely, not taking my eyes off myself in the mirror. I looked horrific, stood there in my boxers. Even through the bruises, I could see how ragged I looked anyway. I heard the door open and Owen let PC Butt into the room. I stood still as he used a phone to take photos of the injuries.

“Thank you,” said PC Butt after he had finished. “I’m sorry this happened to you, and we’ll do everything we can to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

I nodded. PC Butt grabbed the clothes from the sink and put them into an evidence bag, and exchange numbers with Owen. “I’m just going to get you some clothes. PC Butt says it’s OK to clean yourself up now, and then the doctors want to check you over for any breakages.”

Yet again, I nodded. I wondered of that’s all I was capable of doing at the moment.

Owen left the room and I allowed myself one last long look in the mirror.

I looked a state, but then again, I felt like I hadn’t been looking my best for a long time.

Constant work had taken its toll on me. I honestly couldn’t tell if one of my eyes was bruising or if it was just bags from early morning working and late night partying every single weekend.

I shucked off my boxers and turned on the shower.

It let out a weak trickle of water, which I let warm up as much as it would before stepping underneath and doing my best to get the mud and grime off with cheap hotel shampoo.

There were parts of my body more tender than I had realised and I hissed as I scrubbed gently at my ribs.

The door opened and I instinctively cringed and covered myself.

“Relax, it’s only me and I’ve seen it all before.

” Owen was carrying a bundle of what looked to be light-washed denim which he set on the sink and a towel which he held out to me as I stepped out of the shower.

It was scratchy and thin, so I gave myself a quick once over with it then reached for my boxers and put them back on.

“Double denim? This isn’t the nineties,” I muttered as I took the clothes from the sink.

“There’s the James Evans we all know and love,” said Owen with a smile. “And yes, you’re right. It probably has been there since the nineties. It was in the hospital lost and found.”

I stopped myself from cringing as I put on the jeans and t-shirt, tying the matching denim jacket around my waist. They smelled and looked clean at least.

“You could rock that, you know.” Owen smiled and looked me up and down. I looked in the mirror more doubtfully and shrugged. It was better than a jacket covered in shit from a dirty London alley.

Owen led me from the shower room back to the bed, where PC Butt still stood alongside an elderly and kind looking doctor.

“I hear you’ve had quite the ordeal,” said the doctor. “Let me just look you over to check for concussion or breakages and you’ll be good to go.”

He checked my ribs, poking at them painfully but not unkindly, and shone lights into my eyes. I let him, but could feel myself slipping back into my shell slightly as the day caught up with me.

“I’m going to have to advise you to cancel all your cards and identification,” PC Butt said. “And if you can find somewhere to stay for a couple of days that would be ideal. As of now, your flat is accessible to the people who took your things and there are officers on their way there right now.”

I nodded mutely. What if they had already gotten to my flat? Ransacked the place? What would they have taken?

“You can stay with me for the night,” Owen said. “We’ll find you somewhere to stay in the morning.”

“I’ll be honest,” started PC Butt. “I’d advise you to get out of London altogether.

You don’t know who’s around the corner at the moment, or what they might have discerned about you — your job, where you go to the gym, where you like to go for a good time.

It’s not uncommon in violent theft or fraud cases for the perpetrators to come back for more information. ”

“But-my job,-I-I don’t really have anywhere to go,” I stuttered.

“C’mon, mate,” said Owen. “Let’s get you back to mine. We’ll figure out what to do there.”

◆◆◆

I sat in stunned silence, hoping Owen would crack into a grin after he told me what he had just said. His face stayed neutral, perhaps even pitying.

“Everything?” I asked. “They took everything?”

He nodded. We had each used his phone throughout the day to phone through to the banks, driver’s license, even the gym to cancel cards and identification.

I had found out very quickly that they had emptied my two main bank accounts at ATMs, but thankfully couldn’t get access to the thirty thousand or so that I had in savings.

It had been a big loss, but not as big as what Owen had just revealed.

Sometime before the police had gotten to my flat, the thieves had stolen everything - TV, games consoles, jewellery.

They had even managed to get away with some of the smaller items of clothing.

I had almost nothing to my name and no way to buy anything new for myself.

I had five figures tucked away in savings accounts but with no ID, no bank cards and no way of proving I was who I said I was no bank would give me access.

If only they had been so scrupulous before letting thieves get away with taking so much of my other money…

Owen’s room was messy, filled with so many ideas and posters from his job in marketing. He’d recently been co-ordinating between the tourism boards across the UK.

“I’d go and lie low in the Cayman Islands for a week,” I joked weakly, “If I was a sensible enough financier to have kept all my money locked away there. Not only am I broke, but it proves I’m shit at my job.”

“Hey, don’t say that now,” Owen said. He put one hand on my good shoulder. “I can give you a little bit of money ‘til you have access to your savings accounts. I can’t quite afford to send you to the Cayman Islands…”

“Oh don’t worry about that,” I said quietly. I had looked behind him and realised there was somewhere I could go for very little money if I played my cards right. On the wall, in amongst adverts for holidays to Tuvalu and Egypt, was a big bright poster. Visit Wales.