Sam handed the empty clip to Aaron, who stared at it, then back at Sam in disbelief.
‘What?’
‘I figured you wouldn’t be able to tell by the weight of it.’
Aaron chuckled, embarrassed.
‘Then why the hell did you do all that when you knew I had no bullets?’
‘Because you needed to see that this isn’t your life. You were right. You’re not like me. You can’t kill people and that’s a good thing. But I don’t kill for the sake of it. I do my best not to. I promised my son a long time ago and despite the fact I’ve broken that promise a few times, I’m working hard to get it back. But trust me, Aaron, you’re not the first Dad to feel completely helpless and then get desperate.’
‘Yeah, but at least you got the guy who took your son from you.’
Sam turned away, his own pain drilling through his chest like a Black & Decker. Memories began to race forward, dominating his mind until he realised he needed to confront them.
Before he arrived back at that fateful night all those years ago, he responded.
‘Not exactly.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
The cool evening breeze danced around Sam seductively, doing its best to lead him away from the decision he had made. Edgware High Street was deathly quiet. The only sound was the intermittent noise of a train approaching Edgware Station, the final stop on the Northern Line. Sam strode up the street, zeroed in on the battered white door he had watched Miles Hillock enter.
As he approached, two youths stepped out from the chicken shop, a box of questionable meat in their hands. They made a point of stepping around Sam, one of them throwing an insult at him which failed to register. He wasn’t surprised – his lack of hygiene and care for his appearance since losing his son was apparent even to him. His scratchy beard hung from his chin in fluffy patches, his dank, unwashed hair flopped over his ears.
Sam looked homeless, and the two youths made sure he knew it.
As they laughed at him, he hunched over, his hand tucked into the inside of his jacket. His fingers tightened around the serrated blade and he did his best to keep it covered. He approached the white door and took a deep breath.
He raised a fist up and hammered against the door.
Three hard, firm knocks.
Sam moved to the side of the door, stepping back slightly into the neighbouring doorway of the estate agents. He waited patiently for a few moments, watching as two cars shot down the road, not giving him a second look.
The sound of footsteps echoed from the wall behind him and Sam felt his entire body tense.
This was it.
Months of waiting and now the time had arrived.
Sam pulled the knife from his jacket and held it tightly, his knuckles whitening and his breath quickening.
The door opened.
Sam spun around the divider between the two doors and came face to face with Miles Hillock. The drunken murderer tried to focus on the homeless man who had just jumped out on him and he startled slightly. Sam glared at him, a rage coursing through his body like someone had opened the gates of hell. Hillock took a few moments until the colour drained in his face.
He recognised Sam.
Then he noticed the blade.
Hillock instantly reached for the door, pushing his weight behind it but Sam was too quick, slamming his shoulder into the door and letting the edge of it crack Hillock in the face, slashing open a gash above his eye and knocking him back into the dimly lit stairwell. Hillock fell against the stairs, his hands grabbing out at the tatty carpet to try to pull himself up.
Sam slammed the door shut behind him.
‘Please. I’m sorry,’ Hillock pleaded, but Sam swung a hard right hook straight into the man’s kidneys. Hillock rolled over on the stairs, howling in pain and Sam reached out and yanked a handful of the man’s greasy hair. He pulled Hillock’s head back and then slammed it viciously against the edge of the stair, breaking the man’s nose and watching with glee as blood gushed down his murderous face. Sam yanked the hair back again and then held the jagged blade to the man’s throat.
‘Slowly,’ he whispered, his words striking fear in Hillock who wept feebly. Obligingly, Hillock rose to his feet and Sam forced him up the stairs, keeping the blade pressed against the man’s unshaven neck. They stepped onto the landing, a cramped space with three doors leading off into separate parts of the rundown apartment. To the right, a mould covered bathroom shrouded in darkness. To the left, a sparse bedroom with cold, wooden floor boards and a crumpled mattress. Ahead, a cramped, grease stained kitchen with a broken, plastic table and an accompanying chair.
The place was littered with beer cans and fast food packaging. The smell was unbearable, a combination of sweat, bad drainage, and flat alcohol.
A depressing home for a pathetic existence.
Sam felt no sympathy, just a seething rage and he removed the blade from Hillock’s neck before shoving him into the kitchen. Hillock stumbled into the room, sprawling across the rickety table. Panicked, he frantically reached for anything to use as a weapon, gripping the handle of a rusty pan smeared in week-old sauce.
He turned and swung.
Sam dodged, weaving underneath the blow before striking Hillock with an uppercut under the ribs, driving the air from his lungs. The pan clattered to the floor and as Hillock took a sharp intake of breath, Sam burst forward, hauling Hillock off the floor and driving him through the plastic table. It collapsed beneath their combined weight, Sam driving Hillock into the wreckage. Hillock yelped in pain, flailing his arms and trying to break free.
Sam rolled on top of him, straddling across Hillock’s chest and pinning him under his weight.
‘Please,’ Hillock begged before his words were cut off by Sam’s fingers reaching around his throat. Sam squeezed, staring
