Chapter 1: the incident

As soon as I walked into the nightclub bar, around 10.30 in the evening on a quiet Thursday night, I noticed the girl standing at a circular table and singing with unfettered gusto along to one of the popular songs the DJ was playing. She certainly stood out and I assumed that she was making an impression on everyone, male or female, who could see her.

Even I, the ultimate singleton, was impressed by the stunning image she portrayed.

She was stood beside a circular table of several girls sitting down and a slightly larger number of boys, some sitting some standing, all very young, all a lot younger than me.

The outstanding-looking girl was outstanding too in the image she projected. She was gesticulating expressively with her arms while singing loudly along to the tuneless and rhythmic beat-driven dance record that the DJ was playing. I saw her from the side as I first approached the bar area but as I drew nearer to my original objective my angle of view to this compulsive distraction opened up and I could better see the lovely young girl’s face in three-quarter view.

Now I could clearly see that the girl had both eyes closed and her mouth was opened wide as she sung the words to the song as loudly, passionately and expressively as she could; she had a strong, clear singing voice and appeared to be totally losing herself into the primitive, pulsating rhythm of the music. As the lyrics on the recording ended and the strident drum beat of the dance tune faded out to nothing, she flung her arms out wide and opened her eyes, her beautiful countenance brimming full of unparalleled joy.

This vision of such female beauty stopped me in my tracks thinking that she may be drunk or on some substance or other but, with her blonde hair framing her angelic face, her elevated arms emphasising her enticing upper female shape, she looked absolutely stunning to anyone who still had a pulse.

It was such a pity, I immediately thought to myself with a wry smile, that, although I could emotionally appreciate great beauty before me in whatever form such beauty took, I was sure that I was fundamentally a gay man by sexual orientation and long-established habit and, although I had for a short period experimented with bi-sexual relationships during my formative early adult years and, in fact, even lost my virginity to a still-very-dear female friend of mine, my best female friend, today at the ripe old age of 36, I had been exclusively gay for over a decade and therefore was utterly shocked how this beautiful female effected me so fundamentally to my core that for just a moment I lost the ability to breathe.

Shaking my head to restore some level of equilibrium to my centre, I managed to tear my eyes away from her all-consuming image and propel myself forward in the direction I had been aiming for. I reached the bar counter and nodded to Danny the barman, who was already trying to catch my eye for what refreshments I might want from him tonight.

“Usual, Boss?” he asked without any unnecessary preamble or greeting.

“No thank you, Danny, sparkling water only tonight, please, not the usual stuff you serve but one of my Harrogate bottles if you please?” I replied, receiving a cheerful double thumbs up in reply.

To be honest, I had felt rough for a few weeks now, often with an unexplainably delicate tummy and had been drinking still water at home and while out and about rather than my usual twelve-year-old malt with a splash.

I turned, leaning with my back resting on the bar and glanced around the outstanding girl’s table, while avoiding looking at her directly. I now had more time to see that there were actually four smartly dressed girls sitting in chairs pulled up tight to the circular table, one of the chairs unoccupied (the girl’s?), surrounded by an outer circle of guys, seven or eight in number. Most of the guys had either moved their chairs as close as they could get to the table or were standing behind the occupied chairs and leaning forwards in a semi-circle around the girls; some were sitting and some standing rather untidily, like acolytes around a sacred object, or more reminiscent of opportunist carnivores around a herd of potential prey at a watering role.

Looking up at the standing outstanding girl again, I could see that she was now looking directly back at me, her mouth no longer singing but smiling a brilliant, wide and a delightfully even toothy smile in my direction. We exchanged glances, her eyebrows lifted momentarily, I may have nodded to her in a brief acknowledgment of some tenuous connection but if I did it make any indication of contact it was unconscious and unregistered by my unusually numbed senses. However, she must have interpreted some signal from me as she immediately started to walk towards me, though I did think that she seemed a little unsteady in her progress on her as yet obscured pins.

As she approached me, my attention was somehow drawn towards one of the youths standing behind the table, the only one other than the girl who made any kind of movement to distract my attention. I clearly saw him lean forward as everyone else at the table appeared to be equally occupied with their eyes on the back of the girl now walking towards me.

I particularly focused on the skinny blond youth and could clearly see him lean over and drop a pill of some kind from his outstretched hand into one of the Paris wine goblet drinks on the table, a drink among a nest of similar such drinks set upon the table.

I heard Danny place my glass of rattling ice cubes and glass bottle of water onto the bar behind me and, not taking my eyes off the youth at the table, I quietly said out of the corner of my mouth, “Danny, as calmly and quietly as you can, could you get Security to apprehend the blond-haired youth standing behind the girls’ table immediately where I’m looking and get some other staff to carefully scoop up all the drinks on the table as evidence of possible spiking, then call the police regarding such suspected offence, then thirdly, download a recording of Camera 4A and possibly 4B too of the last twenty minutes for me, please?”

“Straight away, Boss!” Danny replied just as quietly, without question, and turned away to speak discretely into his tiny mike that all the staff in the club wear while on duty.

Meanwhile, the stunning girl continued to make her way towards me, her eyes appearing to lock directly onto mine.

I turned my full attention to her, once I’d passed Danny his instructions. The girl was smiling beautifully and appeared to be singularly focused on me. However, as she neared the ceramic tiled bar area her left foot was stubbed on the nearest table leg to me and she stumbled towards me, putting her hands out automatically to save herself.

I moved forward quickly and caught her in my arms and she ended up with her slim arms around my torso and her chin nestling on my chest, while looking up adoringly at me. I’m 6ft 3 and I guessed that the top of her forehead was about six inches below me. Trying to remember if she was wearing heels or not, I played back in my mind her stubbing her toe and estimated she had possibly a 2-inch, 3-inch or so heel, making her about 5ft 6 or possibly 5ft 7 in height.

“You’re beautiful!” she said to me candidly, boldly, quite casually, and almost immediately her face coloured red with embarrassment as if she had unintentionally voiced something that she had intended to be a private unvoiced thought.

“And I was thinking the self same thing, sweetheart,” I replied with what I hoped was a friendly smile, “maybe we’re both beautiful, or ... more likely ... we’re both drunk.”

“I’m only drinking water,” she owned up to me, with only a very slight hint of what I detected was indignation.

“So am I,” I said, more matter of factly, even though I hadn’t even looked at my drink yet, waiting still untouched on the bar counter behind me. I hadn’t touched alcohol for weeks, which was unusual or me, being a regular but never excessive drinker.

“Oh, yes. Maybe ... is it possible that we must both be beautiful, then?” she asked, rather dreamily.

“Maybe,” I laughed lightly, “or maybe you’re on something.”

“No, not me, I never touch anything like that, I’m a health professional so ... but, anyway, yes, I do feel a bit weird, I’m normally quite a shy person, especially around handsome men ... Oh God, did I just say that out loud? Shit! I did. Oh damn ... I guess I’m ... well, yeah, I’m usually surrounded by sick people who are not necessarily looking at their best, nothing at all like you.” Her beautiful smooth young forehead furrowed into a frown, making her look even more beautiful if that was at all possible, “I would normally be too embarrassed to reveal my thoughts so frankly to someone, to anyone, let alone a complete stranger. But having admitted to all that, I guess I’m confessing that I’m somewhat intrigued and really bloody interested in you. Are you ... at all ... interested or intrigued about me, perhaps, maybe?”

“Well, you are certainly intriguing, clearly the most forward of the girls who have approached me in recent years and you are undoubtedly the most beautiful girl I’ve ever had the pleasure to hold In my arms, but there are a couple of things that might affect a possibly developing relationship between us, for one there’s a huge age gap —.”

“I’m 24 almost 25,” she interjected.

“And I’m 34,” I lied, as I am actually 36 almost 37, “now, a decade or so between us, that’s a huge gap.”

“My parents have a ten-year age gap,” she stated in a positive tone, “and they’ve been perfectly happy for years.”

“And so do mine, as it happens,” I laughed, “I cannot say I am not strangely attracted to you but I’m afraid that I’m a serious gay man and ... and untrustworthy one, I lied about my age ... I’m actually 36 not 34.”

“Oh, damn, you’re gay? Shit! That’s a waste ... and you’re untrustworthy ... lying about your age, although you have admitted that almost immediately. That’s pretty honest,” she said, “and I’m actually 22 so let’s discount the little white lies, all new couples lie a little at the start of the game, don’t they? It’s not good putting all the cards on the table, where’s the mystery in that? Anyway, handsome, I could be your wingman, winggirl, we could still be friends, great friends, beautiful friends...”

‘We could, of course be friends,” I chuckled, “in fact, I’d really like that. Good friends are hard to find, great ones are worth holding onto.”

“An’ were already holding, aren’t we? I think you’re holding me up aren’t you?”

“I won’t let you fall, honey.”

“Thanks, friend.”

By then there was a commotion that was getting louder at the girls’ table and both of us, the girl turning just her head and I, already facing that direction, looked on the scene unfolding at the girls’ table.

One of the skinny youths at the table, the blond one, was struggling but being resolutely held by a security man while another member of the security staff was calming the rest down, telling them to sit back down and directing two of the club’s waitresses to put all the drinks onto trays and take them to the offices.

“What’s going on?” the girl in my arms said, having now turned her body towards the incident but still leaning her back onto me and both her hands holding onto one of my arms that was still enveloping her.

“I think,” I said in reply, “that the lanky youth being restrained by the nightclub’s Security even though he is fruitlessly trying his hardest to get away, dropped something small like a pill into one of the drinks while everyone was distracted looking at you walking this way towards me; now, was your drink, a bottle or was it in a glass?” I ask.

“Bottle, that one there,” she pointed, although rather unnecessarily as the bottled water of the cheap stuff the club usually sells was the only glass bottle on the table. As one of the waitresses lifted the bottle by two fingers and a thumb the top (they were trained in circumstances like that to minimise contact to keep fingerprint evidence as intact as possible), I could see that about a quarter of the bottle had been consumed, perhaps 100 to 120 millilitres.

“He may have already spiked yours,” I added quietly in the girl’s ear, “because I just saw him put some kind of pill into the wine glass that looks like a mixer darkened with coke.”

“That’ll be Jane’s white rum’n’coke,” the girl said, then after a short pause, looked up at me and continued, “So, you really think that the only way that I or someone like me would be interested enough in you to walk over to see you would be if I was under some sort of influence?”

“Yeah, I think so, particularly tonight,” I replied with a hint of a chuckle. “I’ve felt like crap all week and I know I must look a bit of a wreck.”

“Well, I thought you looked particularly nice when you walked past looking at me, but maybe it was the beer goggles that I didn’t think I had. I’m gonna ask that fucking kid what the hell he put in my water!”

“Leave it for a moment,” I said, soothingly, still holding her, “the security will take him away presently and hopefully the police will be here in a few minutes to question him; it’s a quiet Thursday night and the local police do regard us as a special priority, especially as the Met Police chief constable is a member of the club.”

“Oh, is this your club?” she asked.

“No, I’m a just a regular customer, in fact I’m not even an official card-carrying member. The club is run by a couple of old friends of mine and I do live in a flat above this basement venue, so you could say that this bar is my nearest local and I’m so frequently here that no-one has ever asked me to present a membership card and the club is so well run that staff turnover here is virtually zero.”

“But you said ‘the police regard us as a priority’, implying that this business was yours,” she pointed out, her furrowed brow returning, just as cutely I thought.

“Okay, it was a slip of the tongue. I’m also a very minor business partner of the club, that’s all,” I admitted, “and I do take a even greater interest than I really should on what happens in the club, because it is right on my doorstep and not just keeping tabs on my small investment.”

I turn to Danny, who I sense is still standing behind me, as the whole club has frozen everything they were doing, the music had stopped and the drama at the girls’ table had become the main focus of everyone in the room, “Do we still have medical staff on call, Danny?”

“We sure do, Boss,” Danny replied with a wide smile on his black face, “Doc Menzies is already on his way with a nurse, his ETA is about seven minutes, he said.” He blew on the fingernails of his right hand and polished them on his shirt.

“Your barman seems to think you’re the man in charge, Mister Boss,” the girl said, looking up at me with those accusing blue eyes again.

I realised that I still held her in my arms, so I immediately dropped my arms from around her shoulders.

“Oh no, Mister Boss,” she insisted, pulling my arms back around her, “I’m a paying guest of the club, a vulnerable young woman almost certainly in shock over the events unfolding before my tender young eyes. I’ve probably been date-drugged in your own estimation and am inside a property in which you have some rather vague level of responsibility, and I know and have already admitted to you that I’m definitely not acting as normal as I should! Therefore I really need the comforting reassurance of you holding me up — even if you are a complete stranger — or else I shall surely swoon away and therefore very likely hurt myself on this hard tiled floor or the nearest piece of furniture in what appears to be your premises owned by a company where you hold some sort of invested interest and therefore implied liability. And you wouldn’t want an unnecessary accident that you, personally, could have avoided, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I chuckled as I happily enveloped her in my arms while she enveloped me in her gorgeous scent again, “If we are not to remain complete and total strangers, then I better introduce myself. I am Drew Singleton, a minor investor in this respectable establishment and, as both of the owners, who are old and very dear friends of mine, gradually repay the original loan, so that my minimal financial interest in the business literally diminishes by the month. Danny the barman here has been employed by the club since we, and I mean ‘we’ by familiarity rather than any possessive sense, opened the place for business and, as I literally live above the shop so to speak, I briefly pop down here for refreshing drinks, the warmth of companionship and maybe even the excitement of dancing a number or three several times a week, and so I am probably on the premises more often even than the owners are.”

“So ... Drew...” she smiled back at me, appearing to relax even more in my arms. “By way of introduction, I’m Kay-Lynn, that’s Kay-hyphen-Lynn Cooper. Lynn with a ‘y’ and two ‘ens’. It is a pleasure for me to meet you and I now consider my frail and vulnerable self, who is possibly under the influence of unknown substances, under your protection and in your care until some time in the future when I regain my full control over my physical, mental and emotional well-being. Now, Drew, please answer me this if you will, do you feel a compulsion to do any of those things that you say you do in this establishment, you know, drink, dance, seeking companionship, etcetera, on a daily or is it nightly basis?”

“Not especially those things in particular, Ms Kay-Lynn Cooper,” I replied, “I probably most often use the gym and the pool on a daily basis rather than the bar and dance-floor.”

“What? There’s a pool and a gym here, in this night-club?”

“Yes, well, the night-club is only one aspect of the club as a whole, it is almost a country club that has been set in a multi-floored basement in the midst of London. The pool, an Olympic size pool no less, is two floors down below this level, the gym and sauna are on the floor immediately below us, alongside tennis and squash courts as the two lowest basement levels extend beyond the foundations of the building and under the extensive gardens behind; but those parts of the club are for members of the club only and I guess you are night-club guests only tonight?”

“Yes, my flatmates and I work at St Thomas’ and we heard that the night club is free entry on Thursday nights, so we thought we’d check it out for the first time.”

“So, not strictly ‘paying guests, then?” I laughed.

“Okay, not exactly,” she pouted as she twisted around to face me, “but having been given entry our safety is still the responsibility of the club and its owners and investors.”

“True, I’m not trying to wriggle out of anything,” I replied, “I’m happy to keep you from harm holding you like this, but for my sake, if anyone should desist from wriggling, maybe it should be you.”

“Oh, am I having some sort of effect on you, Drew, honey?” She cooed, “How gay are you exactly?”

“Maybe I wasn’t always gay,” I replied honestly, “all I can say at this point is that you are a fascinating person that I feel that I would like to get to know better, with no promises or commitments.”

“And do you have any other relationship commitments, Drew?”

“No, none,” I answered, “And you?”

“My first and last boyfriend relationship ended about eighteen months ago,” she said, looking into my eyes, “And, as I have admitted before, I am usually shy by nature and even when I am asked to dance and I haven’t been asked yet tonight, I haven’t felt attracted to anyone since, until now.”

“Mmm, that is interesting, so why are you here on a quiet Thursday night, are you all out on the pull?” I asked.

“No! We all work shifts, different shifts, and usually we are all too busy to have any kind of social life and tonight was the only night in months that all five of us had the time off together, we had planned this night for weeks, and looked up various venues, before deciding. This nightclub advertised that it was Ladies Night and free entry for ladies on the first Thursday of the month. It just fell right and felt right, the pictures of the interior we amazing. We couldn’t afford the membership fee here, or even the normal night club rates, we’re NHS nurses, auxiliary staff or one of us works in the hospital office.”

“St Thomas’, the hospital by Westminster Bridge?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m a student nurse there and my friends and I share a cheap and slightly grotty flat in Bayswater. I’m off today and tomorrow and back on Saturday night shift in the children’s ward.”

Just then, the other girls came up to us, all asking questions about what is going on, that they have been ordered to go somewhere in the premises and that ‘that guy over there’, meaning me, is the only person who seems to know what is going on.

“Ah. This is Drew,” the girl Kay-Lynn, still held in my arms, said to them, quieting them down, “he’s The Boss,” she grinned, cheekily emphasising ‘the boss’, “and he has convinced me that at least two of the dinks on the table have been spiked by one the guys attracted to the table.”

“Hi, Ladies,” I said with a reassuring smile to the group of young ladies. Now looking more closely at the group I thought their age range was early- to mid-20s with one woman older, perhaps in her early 30s, All four were smartly dressed for going out clubbing, all with more flesh showing than Kay-Lynn. The girl I was holding was wearing a tight skirt, admittedly short and showing off her shapely legs but not too short, just above the knee, and worn with a modest white blouse with only the top two buttons undone, any cleavage left only to the imagination, but the contours of the swells in the blouse promised a cleavage likely to be impressive.

“I’m Drew Singleton, I’m not actually ‘The Boss’ or even ‘a boss’ of the club here, but as the owners of the club are not here tonight I guess I should take charge of this situation. I take it that you ladies came to the club together as a group and not accompanied by any partners at the time?”

The women all nodded, “we’re all single and unattached,” one of them said, “and just out to dance and let off steam, not particularly looking for ‘partners’.”

“In that that case, your group and I will all move to the offices at the back of the club if you will follow me,” I said, releasing Kay-Lynn from my arms but as I did so she grabbed and held onto one of my hands. I turned to Danny, whilst still talking to the ladies but continuing, “Danny the barman here will refresh all your drinks on the house in a few minutes, I’m certain he knows exactly what you were drinking,” Danny nodded slightly to me, still maintaining his smile, “but I will ask you to refrain from any further drinking of alcohol until the medical team arrives and have taken any saliva or such samples from you as they feel is necessary. There is plenty of bottled water in the fridge, or we can provide hot water to make drinks in the meantime. Hopefully, we can get all this nasty business sorted out fairly quickly. It’s this way.”

I led the way from the bar area, taking Kay-Lynn in hand and the other girls followed on closely behind, clearly muttering to one another about what was going on. Behind us the DJ had restarted the music and gradually the club was resuming normal business.

I took them through a door at the back of the club marked ‘No Admittance’, down a short corridor past the kitchens and cellar room to a smartly appointed room that looked like a large bar lounge with easy chairs and settees in a semi-circular grouping on one side of the room and a large meeting table with chairs on the other side. All along the far side of the room was a one way mirror showing the inside of the night club, but the room was so well sound proofed that not a single sound of the disco could be heard in here. I pressed a button on the wall next to the mirror and the screen suddenly clouded over so you could no longer see through.

“Please find a comfortable seat in the lounge area on this side of the room,” I said to the girls, “There are bottles of water in the glass-fronted fridge next to the little bar there, please help yourselves to water. The reason why we are gathered here, awaiting the club’s medical standby staff, is that while Kay-Lynn was walking towards the bar earlier, I noticed the actions of one of the youths standing at the back of the circle of boys who were sitting or standing at your table. I saw him reach across and drop some sort of pill in one of the drinks, probably in Jane’s white-rum-and-coke drink, I understand.”

There was a gasp from one of the older women in the group, the one I thought was in her 30s. I assumed from her reaction that she was Jane.

“That is why the club’s Security team,” I continued, “grabbed the lanky blond youth under citizen’s arrest for what we consider a violent offence against a person. The police have been called and I assume that they will arrive shortly. We have also called for a medical team, a Doctor Menzies is on his way and probably with a nurse or two. He is a young doctor who is also a member of the club and one of several who is voluntarily on call for such emergencies as this, I understand that he is less than five minutes away. The doctor will examine you for any affects any of you might be suffering and he will attempt to mitigate any affects he can. I assume he will take samples of urine or blood to determine any substances you may have taken. To be honest I only saw the one pill used and I don’t think Jane has had an opportunity to drink from that glass in all the activity since. I think Kay-Lynn may have had something put in her drink earlier as she has told me that some of her actions this evening have been out of character, but in any case, we will investigate and make sure that you are all safe. Any questions?”

Jane put her hand up, I thought that was very sweet. I nodded to her to speak. “Yes, we all wondered why Kay was so animated, it is so unlike her. What happens if it is found that any of us are under any unwanted influence?”

“What will happen next will be up to what Doctor Menzies recommends. I understand that you are all medical professionals and you probably have a better idea than I of what appropriate actions that a doctor might recommend for the benefit of your health in this unfortunate sort of incident. I would expect that the full action of the law will be taken by the club against the perpetrators of any drugging attempts on you and if any compensation can be dragged out of the youths concerned, then that will be completely passed onto you. Rest assured, however that your safety is our first and main priority. If the Doc recommends any concerns about your health you will be admitted to a private hospital if he feels overnight observation is needed or we will make sure you get any treatment needed and then get you home safely.”

“And who are you again, exactly?” Jane asked, “I wasn’t sure I understood earlier why you are in charge.”

“I am Drew Singleton and normally I am an architect. I am not actually part of the club management here at present but I was an original investor when the club was incorporated just over two years ago and, because of my involvement in assistance in getting the business off the ground, I have been granted an honorary membership which gives me access to all parts of the club. I don’t actually hold any official position in the club. However, being part of the foundation of this prestigious organisation is something that I’m quite proud of, I am personally prepared to do everything necessary that I can to preserve the good name of the club and ensure that any guests (whether paying or admitted free) of the club are treated fairly and equitably all the while you are here and ensure as best we can that all of your experiences with us are pleasurable ones.”

Kay-Lynn spoke up in support of my statement. “I believe Drew is on our side here. He was the one who first witnessed what he believes is a drug secretly administered by one of the group of young men who were attracted to our table almost as soon as we arrived. None of us were even aware of an attack on us but as soon as he mentioned to me what he had seen and the actions he immediately took to ensure our safety, made me think that my own actions were so far out of my character that I really do think that something may have been introduced to my own drink. Fortunately,” and here she smiled, “the cost of the drinks here, even for a basic bottle of water, was such that I only had one or two sips because, well, we all wanted our one drink to last as long as we were here, right girls?”

The women all laughed at that, which certainly eased any tension there was when we first came into the room.

Just then, Danny the barman entered the room, followed by two of the waitresses carrying trays ladened with fresh drinks and snacks which they laid on the main boardroom table on one side of the room, to which was added napkins, side plates and forks which the waitresses fetched with practised ease from cupboards and drawers in the room.

“Boss,” Danny said to me, “the doctor has arrived and is already in the medical room getting it set up.” He turned to the room and announced a little louder to the ladies, “A nurse will come in a few minutes and take you one at a time for examination and tests in our medical room along the hall. These tests should only take a few minutes each and when you return to this room, please help yourselves to the drinks and snacks. The police are not here yet but the police control room have been in constant connection since our 999 call and say they will not be much longer; they understand that the potential victims of this attack are all female and there will be female officers as well as a senior female officer in attendance. We have what we call a ‘holding room’ here in the club where the perpetrator that Drew identified is being kept, along with the two youths who we can see from the recorded footage clearly witnessed the placing of the pill and did not appear surprised at what was happening nor took any action other than apparently being complicit in what the youth was doing. We are downloading the recordings from the time you arrived at the club from all the cameras onto a memory sick and this will be supplied to the police team investigating what happened.”