It’s all I need. His focus isn’t fully on me. It’s wrapped in future plans and it’s all I need to switch so I’m behind him and stick my fingers in his eyes, yanking his head back.
His knife is sharp, which is lucky for him – a smoother cut hurts less. The blade sinks into the delicate flesh of his neck and splits as I slit it.
The blood loss from his arteries will promote a speedy death. No one will find him, in this underworld behind the busy streets of London; no one will think to check the space between two dumpsters until they’re moved or someone drops something they need.
I hope it’s someone who’s seen this before.
It starts to rain, the London drizzle becoming heavier and colder with each passing second. Dense dark grey clouds fritter past the white moon and I stuff my hands in my jeans, knowing I’ll need to burn them after. The knife is now wrapped in my shirt in my back pack, hidden for the next ten minutes while I make my way from this place’s underbelly to its opulent opposite, a place where the carpets are white and the souls that inhabit it are as tarnished as the crown that almost sits on Blair’s head.
The door is heavy and painted in grey gloss, the number gilt and polished.
I only come here when it’s of benefit to me.
Like now.
When I need to conceal a weapon and here I know the person that will help has more to lose than me.
My father.
It’s his butler who answers the door because of course, William Goldsmith Senior still has a butler. The man regards me with a look reserved for rabid dogs, not that he’d ever try to help one and any boil that my blood has left turns to a simmer.
Someone has just stricken out at me with the aim of murder.
Not for the first time have I become a killer.
My father’s butler isn’t even going to register on my shit list right now.
“Are you expected?”
“I’m his son. He should always be expecting me.” The words are controlled. Arrogant. My hands are no longer shaking. What I feel now is tempered hate.
The butler sighs and I wonder where they teach that noise. I still have it in me to put my fist to his face, like I did with a previousman-servantof my father, but I don’t have the energy.
I need to shower and change and get rid of the evidence I carry. And I know that William Senior will only be too happy to help.
“Isaac.” I hear my name from the darkened hallway. “Come in. It’s okay, Robert. Isaac can visit when he chooses.”
Robert stands to one side and lets me through, bolting the door behind me. To his credit he doesn’t flinch when he sees the state of me.
My father eyes the red that’s streaked across me. Blood gets a little lively when it comes from someone’s neck.
“Do I need to have some cameras put out of service?”
I shake my head. “Avoided them.” It isn’t just in clubs where I can disguise myself. You can be recognised by your gait, the way you hold yourself when you walk, the bow of your head: it all needs to be changed.
My father nods and we walk into his snug, the place where he mainly resides. There’s a drinks trolley with upturned glasses for whisky or absinthe and a tray with a blade for his lines of the white powder he treats himself to occasionally.
“Drink this.”
It’s absinthe he pours me and I immediately remember the last time I drank it, when I was in a ballroom frozen in time with a man who thawed every sinew I had.
“You’re bloody.”
“I killed someone.”
“Don’t get blood on my throw.”
I do it anyway.
