Altered States Read Free

be seen buying drugs, legal or otherwise, in the same way that some people are not so keen to be spotted visiting a sex shop. As such, there is a small niche market of street-trading legal highs.
    Plus, rumour had it that Crystal Seth pepped up his wares a little. Conner wasn’t sure exactly what Crystal Seth did to his products but the effect was real enough, and he knew it could only be slightly illegal. Certainly nothing compared to selling fake Levis on the street. Conner had been governed by the force for so long that he failed to see the irony in this sentiment.
    What Conner also failed to see was that the gear he bought from Crystal Seth was identical to what he could have bought from a store around the corner at a far more reasonable price. The extra kick was purely placebo; a false high created by the thrill of obtaining drugs from a dodgy guy in a back alley; rendered even more potent by the fact that Conner was a cop.
    After a muggy walk home Conner stepped into his apartment and checked the fridge. There was nothing in it that constituted food but there was three-quarters of a pint of milk, two days out-of-date. He unscrewed the lid and sniffed at the neck. Concluding that it wouldn’t kill him, he poured it into a glass and added the three grams of recently purchased powder and two spoons of honey, before whisking it briskly with a fork.
    In the lounge he placed the glass on the coffee table and moved over to the mantelpiece, boasting two photographs in matching aluminium frames. It wouldn’t take a detective to determine that this was the mark of a woman’s touch. But the layer of dust upon them revealed that the touch had not alighted here for quite some time. Fittingly, therefore, one of the pictures was of his wife and their son. It was taken when his son was about four, when he still had fair hair. That was about a year before they – well she – walked out on him. Conner gets to see his son every other week now, for the weekend. He gets to see his wife every other week too, for the passing of their timeshare progeny across the threshold and back.
    The other picture on the mantelpiece was of his parents. He didn’t see them as much as he should either. He always felt a pang of guilt when he thought about his parents, though he wasn’t sure why exactly. It was as if he hadn’t yet made enough of his life to justify the sacrifices they made to have him. Or something like that.
    What he did know was that all of the people staring at him should be a larger part of his life than they were, and that one day he might get around to doing something about that.
    He ran a finger down the face of his wife and smiled at her. Then he turned both pictures face down; turned away four pairs of disapproving eyes so they could no longer scrutinise him.
    Slumped in the sofa he held the glass of milky-cocktail for a moment. Milk seemed such an innocent drink to be taking drugs with, albeit legal ones. It felt oxymoronic, but he didn’t let it trouble him for too long. He necked the drink, laid back and let euphoria wash away another day.

Three
     
    Bailing Out
     
     
     
    I had come to New Meadows to meet an alleged murderer. There are a lot of people in New Meadows who might make you contemplate murder – if only in an idle musing fashion. Though it is not the kind of place I would wish to vacation in for the sake of idle musing. In fact, not even if my life, wealth or sexual health depended upon it. The beautiful rolling fields promised by such a pretty place-name are realised only by the endless green baize of gaming tables that stretch as far as the eye can see. Smoking is still legal here so as-far-as-the-eye-can-see is about fourteen feet, because as smoking enclaves around the globe get fewer and smaller, so the smoke gets denser and denser.
    New Meadows is a border town that started life as a filling station in 1924. Now it’s a gambling haven. It’s fair to say that for all the things New Meadows is,