A heroin overdose never leaves just one casualty – I should know

I thought my friend was sleeping. He wasn’t. The nightmares, guilt and ‘what-ifs’ that rippled out from his death are being repeated across a country in the grip of a heroin epidemicEverything was so still that morning. I rose from the sad little mattress I’d been sleeping on in a back room that still smelled slightly of dog piss and went into the adjoining bathroom. Someone had been in and out of there all night, throwing up, irritating me. I looked out through the door to the tiny livi