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A publisher who maintains a blog which features work-in-progress was going to post this brief extract from the novel I'm working on. Then she changed her mind, on the grounds that it was "too disturbing for a general blog"?

I'm sure that it's not, but I'll post it here so people can see for themselves. The book's called Glimpses of a Floating World, and tells how the escape of a teenage heroin addict in 1960s London brings about a chain of events that ends in murder and mayhem

"They ran Reggie backwards along the dark corridor, a screw holding each arm, and reversed him into the padded cell. That way he couldn't wedge his feet against the doorjamb, or put up any meaningful resistance.

They made him wear a grey woollen dressing gown, but had taken away the cord, so that he wouldn't be able to hang himself. The gown fell open as they rushed him along, and he looked down at his own emaciated body. Each rib could be seen, as clearly as a chicken's when you ripped the meat off the bone. His long blond hair hung down in rats' tails. His cock and balls looked small, shrunken in the cold. Embarrassed, he wanted to cover himself up, but couldn't, and he realised how defenceless he was. That was the first thing the screws had told him: 'You're in prison now, lad, and we can do anything we like to you!'

Reggie was pinned face down on the padded floor, one screw kneeling on his back. His breath came in ragged gasps as he shouted at them to get off. Then, changing tack, he tried pleading with them.

'I just need my fix! Please!'

This seemed to provoke the man restraining him. The knee pressed harder into his back. He felt the warmth of the man's breath, first on the nape his neck, and then in his ear.

'We'll give you an injection, lad: a ruddy meat injection!'

'Right up your fucking arse,' added the second screw.

A third screw, who wore a white jacket, entered the cell, carrying a syringe in one of those kidney-shaped bowls, the kind made of white enamel, with a blue line painted around the rim.

'400 milligrams of Largactil,' White Jacket announced, 'equals one quiet night, for Yours Truly.' He said it with satisfaction, as though he'd just won an argument.

Reggie fought to throw off his persecutors.

'He's getting his dander up now!' laughed the first screw.

'Oh dearie, dearie me!' said White Jacket. 'Should I be worried?'

Reggie smelt an alcohol swab, and felt a large needle stab into his buttocks, the muscle slowly forced apart by the injection. Above him in the ceiling was a red light, behind a steel mesh. It would stay on night and day, so that he would soon lose all sense of time. It was 4 p.m. on the sixth of June, 1963.

His jailors paused to look at him as they departed, swinging the heavy padded door closed. Reggie heard the jangle of a key turning in the lock. He'd not had a fix for over fourteen hours. His feet felt as if they were immersed in icy water, and the chill was seeping up his legs, poised to invade the core of his body. His strength was ebbing away. Every limb felt flimsy, too weak to support his weight. He forced himself to stand. It was hard to walk on the padded floor; it bounced like a mattress and pitched him sideways, so that he swayed around like a gale-struck sapling, and lurched from one wall to another. "