I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself, then clambered to my feet and climbed out of the wheelie bin into far fresher air. The alley was quiet, even the night-time sounds of the city seemed strangely muted. I stretched, and looked at my watch. It had just turned twenty past one – over an hour since it had all happened. An image suddenly came to me of an unconscious Jenny being casually flung into the cleaning trolley, and I felt a renewed burst of anger and guilt. I could have done something to help her. And I hadn't.

Rubbing my eyes, trying hard to focus as I felt the first stirrings of an early hangover coming on, I walked back to Jenny's street and, recalling the route I'd taken earlier, turned left. I stopped in front of her apartment block. Nothing looked any different from when we'd arrived together, which now felt like a lifetime ago. Except that this time the doorman, a middle-aged man in a jacket and tie, was sitting at the front desk, reading a paper and eating a packet of crisps. It looked a perfectly natural scene, and, standing there, I had this bizarre feeling that maybe nothing had actually happened. Perhaps I'd dreamt it all.

But no. It had happened all right. I was sure of that.

I started towards the door, then stopped. There was no point trying to talk to the doorman. I looked and smelled pretty awful, having fallen asleep in a dustbin, and he hadn't even seen me earlier. He'd probably think I was mad. I had to speak to the police. But with no phone, no ATM card and only a handful of loose change in my jeans pocket, that was going to be a lot easier said than done.

I memorized the apartment address and walked out on to the main road, heading in a general southerly direction. There was still traffic around but most of the taxis ignored me, and those few that did stop pulled away again as soon as I told them I needed to get to a police station and almost certainly didn't have enough money for the fare. At last I found a driver charitable enough to give me directions to the nearest one, before advising me to take a bath as soon as possible and disappearing pretty sharpish.

It wasn't far, but I still managed to get lost several times, and it was past two o'clock when I finally walked through the door of Islington police station and straight into a scene of bedlam of the sort I suspected was played out in stations like this most nights and which reminded me graphically why I'd left England in the first place.

An overweight guy in a cut-off T-shirt and shorts that were falling down round his ample behind was being held face down in the middle of the linoleum floor by a total of four uniformed officers while he kicked and struggled and yelled that he wasn't drunk, even though the evidence strongly suggested otherwise. His girlfriend, meanwhile, was being pinned up against the wall with her arm behind her back by two female officers, both of whom were trying to dodge her spiked heels as she kicked out donkey-style and let out long, piercing, horror-film screams in a voice so high I actually had to put my hands over my ears. The place smelled of stale sweat and disinfectant. I felt a sudden, intense desire to be lying next to Yvonne in the still of the Burgundy farmhouse we'd once shared, with only the sound of the owls for company.

I walked round the guy on the floor and stopped at the front desk where a world-weary custody sergeant with a long face and heavy black eye bags gave me a stare so intense in its disinterest that I could only assume he'd spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting it. 'Put him in cell three,' he called out over my shoulder during a temporary pause in the screaming. He sighed, turning his attention back to me. 'Yes, sir?'

'I want to report a kidnapping,' I told him, putting on my most serious and earnest expression.

'Whose?'

'A friend of mine.'

'And when did this happen, sir?'

I looked at my watch. 'A couple of hours ago now.'

'And you've just seen fit to report it.'

'I had to walk here. I've lost all my money and my phone.'

'Have you been drinking, sir?' he asked, his tone annoyingly patronizing.

I knew there was no point in denying it. 'A little, yes. But not like him.' I pointed to the drunk whose shorts had fallen to his ankles now that he'd been lifted to his feet, revealing a sight none of us wanted to see.

'You know the kind of stories I hear from drunk people?' he continued wearily.

The girl screamed again. I waited for her to stop before continuing. 'Listen, officer, I'm being deadly serious. A girl I know was kidnapped tonight by two men and I need to talk to someone in CID urgently. I'm not making this up, I promise you.'

'Put her in cell five,' he called over my shoulder. 'So I don't have to listen to her.'

'Wanker!' she howled before being dragged across the floor behind her boyfriend and through a door to the cells.

'Please.' I looked at him imploringly. 'I'm not drunk, and I'm not mad. I know what I saw.'

He stared at me for a long second, then stood up, clearly deciding it was easier just to pass the buck. 'Take a seat and I'll see who's available.'

I sat down on a hard plastic chair in the corner and waited in the now empty foyer, staring at the posters warning against committing various heinous and not-so-heinous crimes that lined every spare inch of wall. I was absolutely shattered, but it struck me then that it might not even be safe for me to go home. If the kidnappers had searched my jacket, they'd have found my wallet. Then I realized with a sense of relief that there wasn't anything in there with my address on. I never took my driving licence out with me, so it would just be my credit and debit cards, plus my Blockbuster membership. So all they'd have was my name as it appeared on the cards: R. Fallon. Not exactly common, but in a city the size of London there were bound to be a few of us. So I was probably safe. But right then I could have done with something a little more concrete than 'probably'.

'Mr Fallon?'

I looked up and saw an attractive dark-haired woman in her early thirties emerging from the door opposite. She was dressed casually in jeans, a sweatshirt and trainers, but straight away I could tell she was a policewoman. There was a toughness and confidence about her that was immediately reassuring.

'I'm DS Tina Boyd,' she said as we shook hands, 'Islington CID. I understand you want to report a possible kidnapping?'

'Well, it's not a possible kidnapping, it's a real one. A friend of mine's been abducted.'

She nodded understandingly. 'Let's talk inside.'

She led me back through the door, up some stairs and into a small corner room, empty except for a desk with a chair on either side. There was an oldish-looking tape recorder on the desk and she switched it on, motioning for me to take a seat. 'I hope you don't mind. I want to record our interview.' She pulled a notebook out of her back pocket and sat back in the chair, regarding me with eyes that didn't look like they missed a lot. 'So, tell me what happened. From the beginning.'

I told her everything from the moment I'd met Jenny in the bar to when I'd turned up at the police station, keeping the details as brief and concise as possible. She listened patiently and didn't interrupt at any point, except to take descriptions of the two kidnappers. The thing about her was that she had the kind of face you automatically want to trust, and I felt myself warming to my theme as I continued, ignoring the little voice in my head that told me that what I was saying sounded outlandish.

'So she was alive when they took her?'

'I believe so, yes.'

'And did they make any attempt to molest her?'

'Not that I saw. They tied her up and they chucked her in the cleaning trolley.'

'And there's no reason you can think of why they would have taken her? Anything they might have said when you were listening in, for instance?'