When Sam had moved in, the walls were peeling, mould and damp pushing the outdated paper from the wall, and the electrics were out. As fastidious as the armed forces had demanded, Sam had stripped them all and then applied an anti-damp treatment to the required areas. He had ripped the carpets from their rusted grip strips, exposing the perished underlay and a few sunken floor boards. Several trips to the local rubbish tip soon cleared them away and Sam found himself replacing some of the boards.
While he was at it, he had left two boards loose, allowing easy access to the small compartment that he stored his sports bag in. It contained over twenty grand in cash, and was more than enough to see him through the next few years.
The kitchen, now painted a neutral white, was small and compact, but it had a working fridge and a cupboard to store his dry food. It was stocked with packets of porridge and army issue meal packs, all in non-distinct wrappers, all of them tasting more or less the same.
It didn’t matter.
It was enough to sustain him, to keep him focused on the mission ahead.
Marching back across the kitchen and living room, he passed his dusty two-seater sofa and his one luxury: the bookcase. As he took a moment to look at the surprising collection he had amassed, he felt a twinge of guilt for his reason for reading.
A hobby he had taken up as a promise to his late son.
His Jamie.
Sam closed his eyes and drew in a breath, all his senses rushing from his body as they shot back through time to that warm night in North London. As he stumbled home drunk from the pub to celebrate another successful day of training at the Met’s training facility in Hendon, he soon collided with his worst nightmare. In a drunken haze, he and his friend Theo had failed to stop a drunk man from driving home.
The smell of the night flooded back to him, the heat resting in the air, alleviated by the gentle breeze.
He could hear the panic of the passers-by. His ex-wife, Lucy howling with heartbreak.
The drunken man was being helped from the wreckage, blood covering his face and vomit down the front of his shirt.
Sam remembered it all. Every sound. Every smell.
His body shook as he recalled losing all power in his muscles as his eyes rested upon his son’s body, broken and motionless under the front of the car.
His cold, lifeless eyes staring into oblivion.
Sam startled, returning to his flat and finding a tear forming in the corner of his eye. It had been nearly four years since he had lost his son. Just under three since Lucy had left him. Every day, he awoke in a single bed, dreaming of the times when he had both of them beside him.
That life had long since left.
Sam had begun to make peace with it, accepting his son’s death and using it as the catalyst to drive him to seek justice. The man who had killed his son got off on a reduced sentence, serving just under a year for erasing his son from the earth. Sam stopped himself from remembering the night he paid him a visit.
The horror of discovering what he was truly capable of.
His son had been a keen reader and Sam, who had spent his life in the army, was never an academic, but promised to show an interest. As their son excelled, Lucy encouraged him to get involved and Sam had taken to reading.
He promised his son two things.
One; he would read more.
Two; he would never kill again.
Now, as he stared at his burgeoning book collection, he knew he had to make good on that promise.
Especially as he had broken the second one.
Six months earlier, the capital was shaking from a terrorist attack. The London Marathon, a British tradition and one of the most eagerly anticipated days of the years, was ripped apart by a detonated bomb. A few people were killed, including a young police officer.
Officer Jake Howell.
The nephew of the revered, Inspector Howell.
Sam had mourned the young man, having seen a number of people die in the line of duty during his tours. When a few things didn’t add up, Sam eventually unveiled an inside job, commissioned by Howell himself. They had been on The Gent’s payroll, and Howell had signed off on the murder of his nephew.
All for greed.
Having only broken his promise not to kill out of self-defence, Sam decided to take the High Rise by force, executing over ten of The Gent’s soldiers, before unloading an entire round into the criminal’s chest.
He left Howell for the police, who duly sent him to prison, where after two months of assaults, he was found hung in his cell.
It was suspected suicide.
Sam didn’t care.
As far as he was concerned, it was another criminal eradicated from the world and he marched on. He scolded himself for his broken promise but had balanced it by investing more time into his books. As he stepped from the living room into the dim bedroom, he spied his latest read on his bedside table. War and Peace loomed large and Sam was struggling to make any head way into it.
Still, he would persevere.
For his Jamie.
Sam walked past his single, battered mattress that rested on top of rickety camp bed and opened his wardrobe.
An array of weapons greeted him.
After Theo had been killed and his house destroyed by a grenade, Sam had recovered his ‘rainy day fund’. A stash of weapons he had hidden, a paranoia that his past discretions while part of Project Hailstorm would reappear somewhere down the line.
The things they’d done
