I check my Jersey Evening Post app religiously every day; Nicos and the Bolt-Hole really do seem now totally to have fallen off their radar.

  I guess that’s pretty much it for the good news. The bad is that Dr Ramsden is not happy with the progress he has been making with Bruno. Actually, that’s an understatement.

  On the positive side, the psychologist does feel he can make progress with him. On the negative, he’s taking a two-year view. Two years of therapy, three times a week. From now, on top of the almost £8,000 I’ve already handed over – thank you, Nicos – Dr Ramsden thinks Bruno will need two more years, at least. Which works out at a tidy £35,000 or so.

  Which I do not have.

  So far, while I’ve been as frugal as possible, our classy hotel lodgings and our living expenses over the past five months have still burned through nearly £10K. Which means, according to my calculations, that I’ve burned through a total of almost £18,000.

  I have around £12K left.

  And at the moment, although I am doing some paid work, it’s not earning me much and I can only do this thanks to Maria – AKA Bettie Page – who has turned out to be a bigger angel than I could ever have imagined. She adores Bruno – they seem to be, in their eccentricity, kindred spirits. While I’m volunteering at the drug consumption room, ten doors along the road Bruno helps Maria on reception.

  Bless her, she has convinced Bruno that she couldn’t do her job without him, and he is being polite to people and they seem to like him. OK, so they are the hotel’s weird ragbag of guests that he sees, but at least it’s a start of his developing some normal social skills.

  And they are a weird lot in the Gasthaus & Hotel Seehaus.

  There’s Erika, who’s older than God, an Auschwitz survivor, who has lived in room 103 for, she told me proudly, forty-one years. She showed me her arm where she had the faded tattoo with her number from Auschwitz, telling me, ‘I was the lucky one, I lost all my family.’ She wears dark glasses and walks with a stick, but is still fiercely independent. And, most importantly to me, she spends time with Bruno and he seems to react to her in a good way.

  He said, poignantly, one night, ‘Mama, Erika says the Nazis stole all her family’s money. Can’t we go and find it and get it back for her?’

  Another morning, Bruno met a Moroccan chef, from room 206, who worked in a restaurant somewhere nearby, and showed him a bunch of knives he carried in a belt around his waist. And another afternoon, he met Stefan Pfeiffer, a dopehead who came down unsteadily from his room – never rising before midday – and offered him a toke on his spliff.

  Dr Ramsden didn’t feel Bruno was ready enough yet, with his lack of association skills, to be enrolled in a normal kindergarten – or even a special-needs one. But I had the feeling that hanging out with Maria was giving him enough of an education. Approaching his fourth birthday, he was truly a willing – if unwitting – undergraduate in the University of Life.

  Dr Ramsden’s office was a forty-minute walk each way from the hotel, and to save money, and because it was good exercise – and helped make the day pass – I walked Bruno there and back three times a week, except when the weather was truly vile. And it had been horrible, cold and wet for the past month. Frankfurt had hot summers, but its winters were bitterly cold – at least judging by the one we had just emerged from.

  It was late February, and there was a hint of spring in the air. I had been to see Dr Ramsden alone for a review session about Bruno – who I’d left in the care of Maria back at the hotel. As before, the psychologist felt he was definitely making progress, but not as fast as he would have liked.

  Crucially, Bruno had bonded with Dr Ramsden. And I could see small but significant changes in him, week on week. I had to keep the therapy going, but there was no way I could afford it. I was faced with a stark choice. Blow the rest of my funds – and then what? Or pull him out of his treatment and take my chances with him?

  And then – maybe it was the months of working free at the drug consumption room or perhaps because I had a karmic credit carried over from some former life – the gamechanger occurred.

  Totally out of the blue.

  83

  March 2012

  I don’t take taxis that often, but I can guarantee I’ll get a what’s-your-game look from the driver whenever I give my address. Elbestrasse. So what. Hey, one of the perks of living in my dodgy ‘hood’ is that the bars are cheap.

  But today it’s my birthday, it’s Saturday night and we’re not doing cheap, we’re celebrating! It is girls’ night out on me, and we are doing posh! I’m in a taxi heading towards the Frankfurter Hof, and the city’s hotels don’t come posher than this venerable grande dame, with its top-hatted doorman outside.

  I know I should be conserving every penny, but what the hell, I’ll blow a few quid – or rather euros – tonight and that will just bring the time I run out of cash a few weeks nearer. Unless, with my improving grasp of German, I can get a decent paying job. But I’m not worrying about that now. Tonight I’m going to have fun!

  Ingrid and Cordelia are already at a table in a dark corner of the smart and very lively bar, both pretty much near the end of their first Cosmopolitans – it looks like – and they jump up to greet me with squeals of excitement. They are both nurses at the consumption room and we’ve become friends over the past few months. Like me, Ingrid is a single mum, with a nine-year-old son, and Cordelia’s tales of her online dating disasters have had us in fits.

  I order a bottle of wine for us to share and get to hear about her latest hook-up – if a man in a beanie, showing her pictures of his dick on his phone within five minutes of their drinks arriving, can properly be called a hook-up. It’s not because of her stories that I haven’t tried online dating myself, it’s that since Nicos I haven’t the energy or inclination to meet anyone. I don’t want another relationship. Not another new relationship. I’m feeling more and more that I want what I had and threw away.

  Roy.

  Ulrike, a social worker at the consumption room, has texted to say she is five minutes away. She seems far too pretty to be working in such a grim environment, but she genuinely loves it, like we all do, it’s a great team. When she first told me she was gay and single, almost a little suggestively, those desires I’d had for women pre-Roy flashed before me and I felt a momentary wave of arousal. But right now I’m not getting tangled into any kind of a relationship. I’ve got myself straightened out from my addiction – well, within reason – and my focus and priority, one hundred per cent, is getting Bruno sorted. I owe him that.

  And in truth, I’m feeling a lot of guilt about being such a rubbish mother to him for the first three – almost four – years of his life. Pretty much a drugged-up zombie who found it easier to stick a games console in his hands, rather than actually do any activities with him. But that’s different now, we do everything together and he’s honestly my best friend.

  No surprise Dr Ramsden talks to me about Bruno’s lack of socializing skills with that upbringing.

  But now I’m two glasses of wine down, with another bottle on its way. The bar is alive with chatter and laughter and feel-good music, and we four girls are totally lit up. Cordelia is telling us about yet another hilarious online dating disaster with a mistimed kiss, when suddenly, I hear Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ playing, and amid the haze of fun and oblivion, I have a fleeting reality check. Someone walking over your grave, my mother used to say.

  Roy loves Billy Joel as much as I do, and this was one of the songs on our wedding playlist.

  Sing us a song, you’re the piano man . . .

  And you’ve got us feelin’ alright.

  ‘Feeling all right?’ Ulrike asks me and gives me a flirty smile. A come-on smile?

  I ball my hands and dance my fists in the air. ‘Never better!’

  We all clink glasses so hard that Ingrid’s breaks, spilling her drink down onto the table and the nuts and olives. A fresh one appears. And then at some point, we all stagger through into the dining room, to our table, where we don’t care that our raucous giggles and loud laughter are totally out of place in this grand, elegant and discreetly calm room, and I don’t give a toss about the frowns from several elderly diners near us.

  THIS IS MY BIRTHDAY! I feel so elated – thanks to the booze – better than I’ve felt in – oh God – so long.

  I try to focus on the wine list, which is the size of a telephone directory, and turn to the sparkling ones. I nearly select a Prosecco, which is a fairly eye-watering price, then think what the hell and plump for a Champagne at a price that, luckily, I can barely read. Well, how many times in your life do you have a birthday?

  And later, after blowing out the candle on the tiny cake and blowing another bottle of champers, the waiter brings the bill. When I sign my credit card slip, my eyes even more blurry, I grandly add an extravagant fifteen per cent tip without even looking at the total.

  Then we stagger back to the bar. Ingrid and Ulrike go outside for a smoke, and Cordelia heads off to the loo. When I reach the crowded bar, a hand grips my arm and a vaguely familiar face is grinning up at me from a stool.

  My addled brain takes a moment to process who it is.

  ‘They let me out of my coffin, for one night,’ he says with a big grin.

  I don’t believe it!

  It’s the guy I met briefly all those months ago at the schloss. Shambolic Hair. Stoker. AKA Bram.

  ‘I kind of figured we’d meet again,’ he says with another grin. ‘Get you a drink?’

  And suddenly, at this moment, I wished all the three other girls I was with would disappear.

  84

  March 2012

  Well, the three girls did disappear, but only after a showy magnum of Champagne bought by Stoker. Ingrid had to get back to relieve her babysitter. Cordelia, unbelievably, had swiped an app on her phone and was off to meet someone in a bar. Ulrike was the last to go, giving me a look that said: Let me drag you away from this disaster-in-waiting.

  I had no idea what time it was, and I didn’t care.

  ‘You like gambling?’ Shambolic Hair – Stoker – Bram asked. His voice was American with a German accent. Or was it German with an American accent?

  I gave him a slightly unfocused look and raised my glass to take a sip, only to discover it was empty. ‘Gambling?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Then I sort of remembered, he’d told us – all four of us – he was from California but, in his words, had kind of gone to Europe to kind of find himself and had kind of fetched up in the Schloss Leichtigkeit because some dude he’d met told him he would find enlightenment there.

  But they’d kicked him out for doing drugs.

  ‘Gambling?’

  ‘Wanna come to a casino?’

  I looked at him, at his impish grin and his mesmerizing eyes. And I realized, although I barely knew him, just how glad I was to see him again. The sense of a kindred spirit. Naughtiness. I sort of fancied him, and liked him too.

  ‘To gamble?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘That’s kind of what you do in a casino.’

  ‘I haven’t – sort of – gambled – in a while – like I don’t sort of really do it. Not any more.’

  ‘It’s your birthday.’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘Birthday luck?’

  ‘I can’t really afford it.’

  I might be drunk, but I wasn’t so drunk that I was about to fritter away all I had left in the world – already significantly reduced after having paid the bill.

  ‘We’ll just go play for pennies. Bit of fun, right? I’ll give you some and you can watch me. Yeah? I want you to enjoy yourself with no pressure. I will bankroll you for one thousand euros. If you lose it, c’est la vie; if you win, keep the winnings and let me have my thousand euros back. Do we have a deal?’

  ‘You’re joking, really?’

  ‘The truth, let’s go have some fun.’

  I shot a glance at my watch. It was 12.15 a.m. I felt a flash of panic about Bruno. But then I remembered, lovely Maria had said she would put him to bed and stay in my room until I came back – and she had said not to worry. She would stay there all night if I needed. And she’d given me a broad wink.

  No way was I going to need her to stay all night. But the mention of a casino fired something inside me I’d not felt since my fateful days at the Casino d’Azur. This could be a way of testing my resilience. I knew I could go to the casino now and not be sucked in. In and out, just playing around for fun. Then walk away. No problem. No loss. And if I won, well, that was a bonus.

  Birthday luck?

  ‘Do they really have casinos in Frankfurt?’ I asked.

  ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’ he replied.

  85

  March 2012

  The silver Mercedes glided to a halt the instant we stepped through the hotel’s revolving doors, and a courteous, suited chauffeur jumped out to greet Herr Stoker by name, and then opened the rear door for me. It was then that I realized that the magnum of Champagne might not have just been an act of bravado to impress me. Stoker might actually be a man of substance.

  As we crossed Frankfurt, cossetted in soft leather, to the quiet sound of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro through the speakers, he produced an immaculately rolled cigarette from a silver case inside his leather jacket, lit it with a fancy lighter, then passed it to me.

  I shook my head. No way, José. I might be drunk but wasn’t drunk enough to smoke. My resolve lasted all of two seconds then I had a tentative inhale.

  Followed by a longer one.

  Nice!

  It wasn’t like the euphoria from all those heroin hits, this was different, mellow, just – well – just OK. I watched the lights of the city stretch past the window like they were elastic. Elastic lights. I giggled.

  Then saw Stoker looking at me quizzically. ‘Did I miss the joke?’

  I shook my head. ‘I think the Champagne and the cigarette have gone to my head!’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Weird how life works, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I met you in the schloss and now we’re in a limo in another city. Maybe we’re in a parallel universe?’

  He asked me what had brought me to the Schloss Leichtigkeit. I told him, fully and frankly – omitting, of course, the little detail about relieving Nicos of some of his stash of cash and what might have happened to him subsequently.

  When we finally stopped, the security guard outside the casino opened the rear door and greeted Stoker deferentially, by name. I noticed the banknote Stoker pressed into his palm. And the reverence with which my escort was greeted by the two glamorous ladies in the palatial reception inside, who signed us in.

  We walked up a grand curved staircase and entered a vast room that would have taken my breath away, if I wasn’t already puffed out by the climb, and squiffy from the booze. The phrase ‘fin-de-siècle grandeur’ was all I could think of to describe what I was looking at.

  Gaming tables that stretched into the horizon down below, each of them beneath a gilded chandelier. Baccarat, craps, poker, blackjack, roulette, all populated by smartly dressed men and women, quite a few in tuxedos and ballgowns. Glamorous young women in skimpy skirts and black bow ties weaved around, delivering drinks on silver trays. It was, honestly, like something out of a Hollywood movie.

  If I hadn’t been so merry, I’d probably have turned and fled. But as it was, I just stood still, taking it all in. Inhaling the atmosphere. And it was a great atmosphere to inhale – amazingly, people were smoking, cigars and cigarettes! It took me right back to how delicious pubs smelled in those times before the smoking ban. A smell I loved. Even more intense now I was in my current state.

  Stoker led me over to a cashier, put down a credit card and, after a few words in German, received a stack of chips. He handed me some.

  I hesitated for a moment, then drunken bravado took over. I scooped them up and felt a buzz of adrenaline.

  Ten chips.

  Hell, I was feeling reckless. I couldn’t lose.

  ‘What do you want to play?’ Stoker asked.

  Trying to remember what Jay Strong had taught me, all those years ago, I looked around. Three of the four tables were busy, but the fourth, on the far side of the room, looked deserted. It was manned by a female croupier with razored blonde hair. And she was looking very bored.

  Perfect!

  Trailed by Stoker, I strode through the melee towards it. She was, in true casino tradition, spinning the wheel and flicking the ball, despite having no punters. I stopped short and watched the little white ball rattling around, bumping off the frets, before finally settling in black 22. On the outer edge of what they call, in casino parlance, voisins du zéro – zero’s neighbours – or, in other words, the zero zone!

  Beside the table was a column with a digital display, showing the most recent numbers the ball had landed on. Amongst them, zero had come up twice. Interesting. Was Jay right about all bored croupiers? Would she aim again for zero? I often thought that seventeen had been the age of my life where I’d had the best time and that number seemed to follow me like a talisman.

  Good things always seemed to happen to me on the seventeenth of a month. It seemed always to have been my lucky number. Well, until it had become unlucky. But, hey, like the true gambler inside me, I ignored that bit. Black 22 was nine o’clock to zero. Number 17 was just before three o’clock and one number nearer. And suddenly I had a feeling. A really good feeling. She was going to adjust her aim and maybe she would go the other way, in her bored shot at zero.

  Number 17 was the other way.

  Reckless, for sure. But what the hell. I’d blown the best part of a grand already tonight on my bill. Why not enjoy this free gaming now? If I won big, it could change my life and Bruno’s.

  I bet the lot on 17. All ten chips. One thousand euros.

  The ranch.

  As I did so, I felt the presence of a few other people coming over. Like Stoker and I were a magnet? Stoker placed chips on several other combinations.