was no way I could complete the four-hour journey in that state. I had to take a risk before I became a risk to other drivers. I had to get off the motorway before somebody got hurt.
I managed to stay alert for the next five miles, and pulled into the first service station. I kept my cap low and my head down as I walked across the forecourt and followed the inviting light through the automatic doors. Despite it being the early hours of the morning, it was busy with families and groups of friends coming or going. Living a life that I would never have. I headed straight to the bathroom and splashed and scrubbed my face with cold water. I ran a wet hand through my hair, letting the water drip down my back.
Leaning against the sink I stared at myself in the mirror. The black suit I wore to bury my family. The same black suit I wore to kill another. I squeezed my eyes shut and questioned my actions. That of judge, jury and executioner.
I had no regrets.
Without making eye contact I purchased a black coffee, a chicken sandwich, and picked out the coldest bottle of water from the back of the cooler. I took a seat alone at a round table and tried not to focus on the two empty seats across from me. I removed the lid and emptied three sachets of white sugar, then took a sip of hot coffee followed by a bite from the sandwich, and then another before I’d swallowed the first. As I broke it down in my mouth I watched from under the peak of my cap. Two kids – brothers, judging by their features – were messing about at an internet kiosk under their parents’ watchful gaze. Their eyes were darting between their children and me, as though they sensed a threat. As though they could sense that I had a gun tucked into the waist of my trousers.
I placed the cold bottle on the back of my neck and it sent an icy shiver down my spine as I glanced up at the security camera at the entrance. There were two more cameras on each side of the food court, plus the three that I noticed in the car park, that would have picked me up as I drove onto the forecourt. I had no choice. The state I had been in, I couldn’t have stayed on the road.
Regardless of my carelessness, I would’ve been the obvious suspect. It was inevitable that the police would knock at my door. But I wouldn’t be the only suspect. There had been numerous threats made to Saheed Kabir and his family. Vile threats, cowardly threats of death and rape and ruin from behind a keyboard by those looking to place the blame on them. It was a release of aggression, venting, trying to put the world to rights, but ultimately they were empty threats. Nobody was going to touch them. That right belonged to me.
The two brothers left their station at the internet kiosk and I watched them join their parents. They walked out of the food court, the father turning to look at me one last time. I held his gaze until he turned away, a protective arm around his wife.
I picked up my coffee and bottle of water and approached the internet kiosk. I slipped in two pound coins which allowed me thirty minutes of internet time and opened up a search engine. Sweat covered my back as I typed in his name. I hit enter.
The rage that had led me to kill Saheed Kabir and his family in cold blood was a different rage to how I felt about him.
He had social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram but his activity was minimal. The only recent activity was two photos that he’d posted on Facebook. The location was tagged – Qatar.
The first photo was in a restaurant. Him and his mother in conversation, their hands meeting at the middle of the table, unaware at the time that their photo was being taken. She was looking at him like Khala had once looked at me. Like a mother looks at a child.
The second photo, he was in a swimming pool, his elbows resting on the edge next to a colourful drink with a small umbrella. He was smiling broadly behind orange-tint sunglasses. Like a man without a care in the world.
I looked at the date stamp – 3rd December. It was the date that I was married. The date where I’d lost everything.
Sophia Hunt’s alarm buzzed at 4.30 a.m., just as she was in the middle of a Beverly Hills shopping spree, a snobby shop assistant was questioning her means of payment, a-la Pretty Woman. But unlike Julia Roberts, she didn’t have to rely on a smug-faced Richard Gere to come to her rescue. She hated that bit. Always had. It wasn’t the fairy tale that she was looking for. This was different. A man and woman on equal footing, neither reliant on the other. A business deal, if a little crooked, but like her mum always used to say, usually as she slipped a trinket or two into her apron, Robin Hood was a national treasure, if it’s good enough for him… It wasn’t her best advice, but it wasn’t her worst.
Sophia lifted the duvet and her feet left the warmth of her single bed and found the laminate floor, cold enough to send a walking-over-her-grave shiver through her bed socks. She snaked her hand under the duvet and located the fake Gucci cardigan that she had slept beside, so that it stayed warm. She shrugged it on and wrapped it tight around her as she took in the day in front of her.
There’s crime and then there’s crime, from petty to full-on evil, and all the degrees inbetween. A couple of nights ago, Sophia had popped into Londis. She paid for the tiger bread roll, but pocketed the cheese spread. Nobody got hurt. It was a victimless crime. But what she was planning to do, wasn’t. But was it evil? Sophia didn’t think so. If all went to plan – and how could it not? – then nobody would get hurt, and the victim would be compensated through insurance. Everyone’s a winner. Okay, maybe not a winner, but, Sophia shrugged to herself, nobody loses.
Tonight, after her part was complete, she would have to face the police. She accepted that. It why Samuel Carter would be paying her so handsomely. The cops weren’t a problem; her story would be straight. They’d believe her because, even though nobody recognised it, Sophia Hunt was a damn good actress and this would be her breakthrough role, one that changed everything.
Sophia picked up the pay-as-you-go handset from the cabinet and slid it into the side pocket of her cardigan. That was her only concern. That phone, those conversations, the secrets between her and Samuel Carter. It was the link that could see her swap her one-bed flat for a one-bed jail cell. Regardless of Samuel’s somewhat casual attitude about the phone being unregistered, she would dispose of it as safely and securely as she deemed necessary.
Sophia got to her feet. The day had begun, and it was promising to be a long one. To help combat the cold, she pulled a pair of baggy jeans over her thin pyjamas and slipped on her navy blue coat, and matching bobble hat and gloves. At nearly five in the morning, armed with some burnt buttered toast, she walked ten minutes in the quiet and still darkness of the bitterly cold early morning, and made her way through Brentford Docks. Above her the rich slept soundly, the way only the rich can.
She arrived at the edge of the River Thames and leaned against the metal railing, her teeth chattering as the cold seeped from the slick, cold metal railing, through her gloves to her fingers. She faced the dirty grey, unimpressive river and shook her head as she wondered why people would pay hundreds of thousands for this crappy view? If she had that kind of money, would she? Absolutely, she decided.
Using her teeth, she pulled off her gloves and noticed her hands shaking. From the cold or from the nerves, she wasn’t sure, but it reminded her of her dear old Nana’s last years. She blew hot air onto her hands and rubbed them together hard and fast, before flexing her fingers and feeling the blood circulate. She removed the pay-as-you-go handset from her pocket and wedged a fingernail into the clip and released the battery. With a quick look over her shoulders, she lobbed the battery as high and far as she could, and lost sight of it before it had become part of the great river. She peeled out
