judge us. The press were not going to let go of this fucking bone. But once again they would be wrong. Because I know exactly why it happened.
It happened because of me.
I pulled into our driveway. The front bumper of my Prius gently kissed the back bumper of Stephanie’s Golf. The red and white Christmas lights draped across the houses either side of our bare home reflected and blinked lazily on the windscreen.
I didn’t move for a moment, or a while. The soft, synthetic leather of my seat cradled me gently as the wind whipped and whistled around me and the rain beat down on my windscreen, making shapes in the darkness that resembled the holes in my heart. I could see her. In the driver’s seat of her car, her blonde hair falling across her face, as she leaned across to pick up her work files before emerging out of the car, clumsily balancing the files and kicking the car door shut with the heel of her sneaker. She turned to me and smiled, transforming the storm into sunshine.
The wiper swooped over the windscreen and she disappeared.
I stepped out into the rain and rounded the car. I opened the passenger side door and picked up the Glock. I slipped it into the back of my trousers, letting the tail of my suit jacket conceal it. I slipped the plastic food bags and elastic bands into my inside pocket, along with the suppressor. As I walked past Stephanie’s Golf I allowed my fingers to slide gently across the slick windows, leaving my mark.
I unlocked the front door and pushed it open with the palm of my hand. A dark empty hallway greeted me. Behind the darkness I knew the coat stand was filled with jackets and hats and scarves and them. I knew Jack’s handiwork was sprawled across the wall in red crayon as high as he could reach. I knew Stephanie’s hairbrush sat on the shelf underneath a single Post-it note stuck to the hallway mirror serving as a school run reminder.
Book bag. Bottle of water. Lunch box.
It gripped me instantly. Paralysed me. My legs felt like the heaviest of weights and I was unable to cross the threshold. The wind howled in my ears, the voices and the laughter and the fucking hope that we once shared rushed at me like a physical force and dropped me where I stood onto my haunches. I reached out for support and my hand found the doorframe, my nails clawed into wood. I could feel a breath caught somewhere inside me, desperately trying to escape. I wrenched my tie away from my neck and ripped away the collar, the cold rain snaking its way down my back. I squeezed my eyes closed and pressed my teeth together. My jaw pulsed and my head pounded as their faces filled it. I screamed through gritted teeth, a guttural sound from deep within, willing me not to fall now, not to fail now.
In one quick motion I forced myself up to my feet and stepped inside the hallway and punched the lights on, slamming the door behind me into silence. Their faces disappeared and finally I released a breath.
I stood perfectly still in the hallway, the house now as still as me.
I had too much to do. Afterwards, the ghosts can take me.
For now, I had to focus. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and positioned it on the shelf. It would remain there and place me at home. I picked up my baseball cap and scarf from the coat stand, adjusting the cap low, finishing just below my eyebrows, and the scarf high, covering my mouth. With the cover of the darkness and storm, I didn’t think that I could conclusively be picked up on CCTV.
I stared in the hallway mirror at what I had become, what I always was, and what I had tried so desperately to get away from. The black suit that I wore to bury Stephanie and Jack and Khala was drenched and clung to me. I wouldn’t change. It felt fitting, somehow, for what lay ahead.
Idris went to his hotel room and I went to mine. Thankfully he was seven floors below me. At that moment I needed that space between us. My room had been cleaned. Six pillows lined neatly against the head board, when all I needed was one. I threw the other five off the bed with unnecessary aggression, losing the complimentary chocolate in the process, and snatched the room service menu off the side table. I browsed through it intently, trying to prioritise my stomach over my heart and mind, which were ready to lead me astray.
Idris. Fucking Idris. I know in his own way he was looking out for me but all he was achieving was to bury me deeper into a hole that I was desperate to climb out of. The detective in him knew I was involved in something, and I could feel his concern, his disappointment that I couldn’t share it with him. I wished I could. I wished I could share all of it with my best friend, but how could I put my shit on him? Instead my silence continued to drive a hole through our friendship.
Idris wasn’t aware that I once had ties with MI5, but he was aware that I once had ties with a group of Muslims that had planned and failed to carry out a gun attack in the heart of London. Some of them were based in Hounslow. Fuck, man, one of them lived across the road from me, and I had considered him a friend. He died as result of his actions. If he hadn’t, others would have. That should have been it, alarm bells should have been ringing, but no, instead, earlier this year, I grew close to a kid – much against Imy’s advice – a kid who was touched by tragedy and decided to even it out by carrying out a fucking acid bomb attack against a right wing group. So, yeah, I get it! Idris was probably shattered from carrying the weight of I told you sos.
Given my track record it was only fair that Idris wanted to know whether or not I knew anything about the bombing, as if any shit that goes down in Hounslow has my name attached to it. If Idris had asked me, if he had brought those words and that question to his lips, I would have answered Fuck no. When the truth was entirely different.
Eight months ago, Imy walked into my home and pointed a gun between my eyes. I knew he was doing so against his will, and he knew that if he didn’t pull the trigger then there would be consequences in the shape of his family.
And it came. The consequence, it fucking came.
This bomber, this child, exacted his plan to perfection, on what should have been the happiest day of Imy’s life. Helpless, he watched his loved ones perish.
The one thing worse than death is watching the ones closest to you die.
The black and white of it. If Imy had killed me, his family would still be alive. But he just didn’t have it in him to take a life.
I bet burying his wife and son changed that.
I had to get to him.
I made four phone calls. To reception, telling them that I would be checking out tomorrow. To Idris, telling him that I would be flying out tomorrow, and then cutting him off without explaining. Then a longer call to Mum with a bullshit excuse, telling her that I had to return home. And finally a call to room service, ordering myself a chicken burger, onion rings and a chocolate gateau.
I placed the receiver back in its cradle and eyed the minibar.
It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d reached for a bottle to dim the madness.
My Prius stayed at home. I couldn’t risk the number plate being picked up by one of the many ANPR cameras. I needed