José is dressed in thick jeans, a brown leather jacket decorated with holes and stains, and a fisherman's hat from under which tumbles out his silvery grey hair. He has two yellow bottom front teeth that jab harmlessly into his gum when he talks; his bushy beard and eyebrows almost hide his strikingly blue eyes. We walk up towards the church in the plaza, and sit on the concrete stumps that guard it outside. José, a 56-year-old man from Asturias in northern Spain, starts to talk as a fly buzzes in and out of his nose. He has used heroin and cocaine for the last 20 years, having come to Madrid after being made redundant in the manufacturing industry and in the wake of the collapse of his marriage. Unable to get work, he became homeless and started using drugs. He reflects on life in Valdemingómez as “brutal”, suggesting that a major mistake was to close the former drug-dealing area called Las Barranquillas, where there was 24-hour support for drug addicts: “here, the harm reduction bus goes at 6pm, and people can't wash so they get more infections – the people here live in worse conditions,” he mumbles (see Chapter 7). He adds that the new law designed to clamp down on cundas and cunderos has meant that many of those people have drifted into “robbing or now live here in the Valdemingómez, they take more drugs now” (see Chapter 5). In Valdemingómez, he says that the drugs are “between 5–10% pure at best”. He pauses and then looks down at the floor as he tells us his girlfriend died of an overdose five years ago, before recounting how he has seen the gitanos beat someone to death,“the police came at 4am, then the ambulance was delayed and didn't come, and when it did, he was dead.”

As we conclude the interview, we can't help but ask him about a small blue toy he has dangling from his belt. He holds it gently in his dirty, swollen hands and says it's his “lucky charm” called “ruiditos” (“little noises”). It doesn't make noises now as it's broken; the bottom plastic bit has fallen out, so when it is squeezed, “ruiditos” is silent.